ARTHUR O'LEARY IN LONDON
It is to be regretted that the State Paper naming 'O'Leary and Del
Campo' should be couched in words so brief and cautious. Mr. Lecky
offers no explanation of it. Not only are we uninformed as to the
nature of the 'Report;' but we are left to guess who Del Campo was. One
thing is evident: Dublin Castle and the Home Office put their heads
together, shook them mysteriously, and then urged extreme caution in
dealing with knaves. Books of biographic reference make no mention of
Del Campo's name; but it is quite clear from Cumberland's memoirs that
Del Campo was the Spanish minister, next in authority to Florida Blanca.
In the year 1780 [writes Cumberland], and about the time of
Rodney's capture of the Caracca fleet, I had opportunities of
discovering through a secret channel of intelligence many things
passing, and some concerting, between the confidential agents
of France and Spain (particularly the latter) resident in this
country, and in private correspondence with the enemies of it. Of
these communications I made that use which my duty dictated and
to my judgment seemed advisable. By these, in the course of their
progress, a prospect was opened of a secret negotiation with the
Minister Florida Blanca, to which I was personally committed, and
of course could not decline the undertaking it.[548]
While the American War still raged, and hostilities from France and
Spain continued to threaten, Richard Cumberland, son of a bishop and
the secretary of a former viceroy, started on his secret mission to
the courts of Lisbon and Madrid, bearing from England letters of
accreditation, quite a boxful of instructions, and accompanied by his
wife and daughters 'on the pretence of travelling into Italy upon a
passport through the Spanish dominions.' Cumberland's interviews with
Del Campo are described, and for a time all went well; but, owing to
terrible rumours as regards the 'No Popery' riots in London, which
now broke out, led by Lord George Gordon, President of the Protestant
Association, the treaty[549] collapsed; Del Campo refused to appear;
Cumberland was recalled, and the Government who sent him out withheld
the repayment of 5,000_l._, the amount of expenses he had incurred.
It may be said that Orde's want of confidence in O'Leary arose, not
because he had furnished so little secret information, but because of
some whisper that the Spanish Minister had had _pourparlers_ with him.
It would be strange if O'Leary, who in 1779 wrote powerfully against
the hostile designs of Spain, should be suspected, within the next
few years, of abetting them. The rumour, which Mr. Lecky says is not
stated, may have been merely that O'Leary, the only Catholic writer of
intrepidity at that day, had been asked by Del Campo, who soon after
became resident Spanish minister in London, and was himself of English
extraction,[550] to write an exposure of the 'No Popery Riots' and
their leaders--incidents which Spain, now more than ever defiant in its
pose, could not fail to turn to political account.
A postscript to O'Leary's 'Miscellaneous Tracts' mentions that he had
been requested to give a history of the London riots. 'I promised to
undertake the task,' he writes, 'and began to digest my materials;
but afterwards reflecting that the duty of the historian bound me to
arraign at the impartial tribunal of truth both men and actions--unmask
the leading characters,' &c.... he then came to 'consider my own state
exposed in consequence of the Penal Laws to the insult of every
ruffian, and, comparing the defenceless situation of the priest with
the duty of the historian, I dropped the attempt.'
These tumults of 1780 lit a flame which did not die out even with
the expiring century. During their height most of the Roman Catholic
chapels of London, especially those of the foreign embassies, were
gutted and burnt. Papists' houses were attacked, as well as the houses
of all persons known to favour them. For days and nights the mob gained
an almost complete mastery of London, which is described as like a
city taken by storm. The venerable Bishop Challoner was roused from
his sleep and urged to fly; he died soon after of palsy, the effects
of the shock. No man's life was safe who did not mount the badge of
riot, a blue cockade; windows displayed flags of the same colour; while
the watchword 'No Popery' was prudentially inscribed. Broadsides were
circulated under the auspices of Lord George Gordon--the unholy high
priest of the holocaust--in which Englishmen were exhorted to remember
'the bloody tyranny and persecuting plots exercised on Protestants
by Rome'--the Spanish Armada, of course, included. Society seemed
falling to pieces. From Tyburn to Whitechapel the highway presented
a frontage of mourning. Every shop was closed. Mr. Archer, a priest,
deposed in court that he had paid 40_l._ to be allowed to pass through
Fleet Street, and a hackney coachman refused 10_l._ to drive a papist
to Hampstead. The mob, flushed with victory, now sought allies in the
prisons. Newgate, then recently rebuilt at a cost of 150,000_l._,
was attacked with fury; its great gates fell before them like frail
partitions; 500 felons, including those set free from Clerkenwell, were
let loose upon the burning city, leaving behind them in flames, not the
gaol only, but the whole street.[551] It seemed a second 1666, and the
famous fall of the Bastile, nine years later, was but the mere echo.
Storm had not as yet burst over Ireland; but the heavy air was charged
with electricity. The following are the words with which Mr. Froude
awakened widespread interest, and drew forth that missive from the
Antipodes given on a previous page.
If rebellion was meditated [Froude writes], the Government required
fuller knowledge; and 'a new plan of management' had to be adopted
'to obtain exact information of the conduct and motives of the most
suspected persons.' 'Useful and confidential agents,' whose silence
and fidelity could be relied on, 'who would write the daily history
of a man's motions,' without betraying himself, were not to be
found in Dublin.
The Irish Secretary applied to the English Cabinet to furnish him
from their own staff of informers. Two valuable persons answering
to Mr. Orde's description were sent, and the name of one of them
will be an unpleasant surprise to those already interested in the
history of the time.
They were both Irishmen. One was a skilled detective named
Parker,[552] an accomplished orator who could outmouth the noisiest
patriot, and had already some knowledge of the leading agitators.
Orde welcomed this man with a twinge of misgiving. 'I hope he is
discreet,' he wrote, 'for he must to a certain extent be possessed
of the power of hurting us by garrulity or treachery.'[553]
The other was no less a person than the celebrated Father O'Leary,
whose memory is worshipped by Irish Catholic politicians with a
devotion which approaches idolatry. O'Leary, as he was known to the
world, was the most fascinating preacher, the most distinguished
controversialist of his time. A priest who had caught the language
of toleration, who had mastered all the chords of liberal
philosophy, and played on them like a master; whose mission had
been to plead against prejudice, to represent his country as the
bleeding lamb, maligned, traduced, oppressed, but ever praying for
her enemies; as eager only to persuade England to offer its hand to
the Catholic Church, and receive in return the affectionate homage
of undying gratitude. O'Leary had won his way to the heart of Burke
by his plausible eloquence. Pitt seemed to smile on him: it is
easy now to conjecture why. When he appeared in the Convention at
the Rotunda the whole assembly rose to receive him. Had such a man
been sent over on an open errand of conciliation, his antecedents
would have made the choice intelligible. But he was despatched as
a paid and secret instrument of treachery, in reply to a request
for a trained informer.[554] What the Government really thought of
Father O'Leary may be gathered from Orde's language when told to
expect him. 'He could get to the bottom of all secrets in which
the Catholics were concerned,' and Catholics were known to be the
chief promoters of the agitation in Dublin. But he too was to be
dealt with cautiously, for he was a priest. 'They are, all of
them,' Orde said, 'designing knaves;' 'the only good to be derived
from them is, perhaps, to deceive them into an idea that they are
believed.'[555]
Sir Jonah Barrington describes Orde as 'a cold, cautious and
sententious man.'[556] These letters in some respects support that
impression. A few years later he was created Lord Bolton. His letter,
announcing O'Leary's arrival at Dublin on secret service, is dated
September 23, 1784.[557] Let us look back a little and see what the
previous year was doing.
The Dungannon Convention, which won great boons for Ireland, was
followed by provincial assemblies in Leinster, Munster and Connaught.
Resolutions were carried, delegates were appointed, and the nation
anxiously awaited the great Volunteer Convention in Dublin, on which
the fate of Ireland was declared to depend. Meanwhile one hundred
and sixty envoys of the Volunteer army met, electing Lord Charlemont
chairman. Red uniforms fringed the streets, and the delegates, two by
two, marched through the lines, amid the roll of drums and the waving
of national ensigns. The Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry rode to
the Convention with an escort of dragoons.
A distinguished corps of volunteers [writes Mr. Buckley] had
conferred on O'Leary the honorary dignity of chaplain; and we are
assured that many of the measures submitted for consideration at
the great Convention held in Dublin had been previously placed
before him for his opinion as to their prudence and utility. On
that memorable day, when the delegates of a hundred thousand men
met in the Rotunda, with all the pomp and power that an armed
nation could concentrate for a great national purpose, it was
gratifying to the assembled masses of spectators to behold Father
O'Leary, as he entered the building, received at the door by the
entire guard of volunteers with a full salute of rested arms. He
marched up the hall amidst the deafening cheers of the surrounding
delegates, and, in the debate which followed, his name was
frequently mentioned with honour and applause.[558]
'Plowden's remarks, which you enclose, do not meet the specific
statements of Froude, that O'Leary was employed as an informer at the
period of the Volunteer Convention,' writes Mr. Morgan McMahon, my
Australian correspondent.[559] Mr. Froude's words certainly tend to
convey that the Convention took place at the time of Orde's application
for a spy. The date of the Convention was November 1783: Orde's letter
was written in September 1784. Again, it is suggested that O'Leary was
despatched in reply to a request for a _trained_ informer. But it does
not appear that though he may have been useful as a diplomatist he was
already a spy. On the contrary, Sydney writes (Sept. 4): 'O'Leary has
been talked to and he is willing to do what is wished for 100_l._ a
year.' Orde replies (Sept. 8), 'I am very glad that you have settled
matters with O'Leary, who can get to the bottom of all secrets in which
the Catholics are concerned.' O'Leary had already a pension, ostensibly
for his writings; but the pension for espionage must not be confounded
with it.
It is certainly admitted by even O'Leary's panegyrists that at the
period of the Convention of 1783 delicate overtures, which they assume
he rejected, were made to him; but the magnanimous words supposed to
have been used by O'Leary when parleying with his tempter rest on no
authority whatever, and some will be disposed to suspect that a colour
is imparted to the overtures more presentable to general readers than
the naked truth, whatever it was. The pension, I repeat, which O'Leary
already enjoyed, was, I think, merely for his writings; though, prior
to September 1784, he may have accepted douceurs for distinct acts of
diplomacy. At all events it is due to O'Leary to give him the full
benefit of the exculpatory words of his brother priest. Describing the
Volunteer Convention, Father Buckley writes, eighty years later:--
During Father O'Leary's visit to Dublin on this occasion, he was
waited on by a gentleman who was well known to be on very close and
friendly relations with the Government of the day.[560] The visit
appeared, for some time, to be merely one of ceremony, and the
visitor paid many handsome compliments to the Father on the style
of his writings and their good effect on the public mind. Soon,
however, it was easy to see that diplomacy had more to do with the
visit than etiquette, for the gentleman, in courteous language,
intimated that if Father O'Leary would use his pen in extolling
certain measures just then brought forward by the Administration,
his services would be handsomely requited. O'Leary was displeased
and indignant at the proposal to barter his patriotism for a bribe,
and conveyed his feelings in no measured phrase. The request was
therefore softened down into an entreaty that he would at least
abstain from writing on those measures in terms of condemnation.
But the minion of the Government knew not with what manner of man
he had to deal. 'I will never be silent,' warmly exclaimed O'Leary,
'whilst my exertions can be of the least service to my religion or
my country.'[561]
Thus far Buckley, the biographer of 1867. England, O'Leary's
biographer of 1822, finishes the interview in less florid words: 'He
was then told that a pension of 150_l._ per annum was to be offered
for his acceptance, and that no condition repugnant to his feelings
as an Irishman or Catholic was to be annexed to it. A change in the
Administration[562] took place shortly afterwards, and the promise
remained unfulfilled.'[563]
Father England assumes that O'Leary spurned the overtures at the time
of the Convention, though later on his acceptance of a pension is
admitted. While guiltless, no doubt, of direct betrayal, he may have
been led to connive at a trick by which the Irish Government succeeded
in breaking up the Convention.[564]
O'Leary, towards the close of his life, had made copious notes
illustrative of the history of Ireland--notes handed by him to Plowden,
who was glad to interweave them with his own when compiling 'The
Historical Review.' Plowden dismisses with the following note the great
incident of the Convention:--
Whilst the business of equal representation was in agitation at a
meeting of the Convention in Dublin, a pretended letter from Lord
Kenmare was produced, purporting to convey the general sentiments
of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, in which they were made to
express their perfect satisfaction with what had been already done
for them, and that they desired no more than peaceably to enjoy the
privileges they had obtained.
Catholics thus became excluded from the constitutional prerogatives
claimed for Protestants. The proceedings of the Convention were at
last adjourned _sine die_. Sir Boyle Roche invented the fatal letter,
and Mr. Froude conveys that he was instigated to this course by the
Viceroy. Sir Gavan Duffy states--as a common belief in Ireland--that
'had the Convention not been betrayed by its leaders, the Union would
never have taken place.'[565]
O'Leary, though his name, and that of Sir Boyle Roche, are not
mentioned in the printed abstract of the proceedings, was certainly
present when the fictitious letter was read. Dr. England, describing
the demonstration by which O'Leary's arrival was hailed at the Rotunda,
adds that it 'occurred on the same day on which the message said to be
from Lord Kenmare was read at the Convention,'[566] but no fault is
found with O'Leary by England, who is his invariable eulogist.
Lord Kenmare was a fast friend of our friar,[567] and is uniformly
praised by him.[568] It was when on a visit to this peer that O'Leary,
seeing a wounded stag approaching Yelverton, wittily said: 'How
naturally instinct leads him to come to you to deliver him by a _nolle
prosequi_.'[569] Kenmare, this leader of the higher class of Catholics,
was falsely represented as announcing at the Convention that his
co-religionists were satisfied with the concessions they had got. I
find that O'Leary had privately expressed, very much to his honour, but
a short time before, an opinion diametrically opposite; and urging the
Catholics not to cease agitation till every link in their fetters had
been struck off;[570] but he now held his peace, and thus wittingly, or
otherwise, aided the base schemes of the Viceroy. O'Leary himself had
long been recognised as the most prominent exponent and mouthpiece of
the Catholic demand; and, from his intimacy with Lord Kenmare, he could
hardly fail to have known his sentiments on a question in which both
were naturally most interested; the forged letter, however, claiming
authority to speak for the Catholics of Ireland, was allowed to pass
unchallenged, to the ruin of the Convention and the exultant triumph of
a faction.
O'Leary and Sir Boyle Roche are not persons likely to have been
intimate; and yet it can be shown that an intimacy did exist. A letter
from O'Leary, written a year before the Convention, and to be found
later on, avows that he was the friend and political correspondent of
Roche.[571] The forged letter--in which were travestied the opinions
and aspirations of the Catholics of Ireland--was read on November 11,
1783.[572] Not until a fortnight after was the fraud exposed by the
popular Earl-Bishop of Derry, who read a letter from Lord Kenmare,
dated Killarney, Nov. 20, saying, 'I utterly disavow having given the
least authority,'[573] &c., &c. Sir Boyle Roche thereupon addressed
to several leading Catholics a remarkable note dated 'Dublin Castle,
14th February, 1784.' This document was, of course, the act of the
Administration, Roche having been merely wound up and used as an
automaton. His letter, seeking to entrap slavish Catholics and sink
them in the mire of unpopularity, began by saying that it would flatter
him in the highest degree 'if I should find that my conduct was not
disapproved by yourself and friends,' and he holds out the hope that,
being once more in Parliament, he would be not unmindful of Catholic
interests.
I had certain intelligence [he adds] that the Bishop of Derry had
leagued himself with some of the unthinking part of the Catholics,
who were in town for the purpose, and that the admission of that
body to the rights of voting for members of Parliament was to be
the first matter agitated in the Convention. I now thought that
the crisis was arrived in which Lord Kenmare[574] and the heads
of the body should step forth to disavow these wild projects, and
to profess their attachment to the lawful powers.... I therefore
resolved on a bold stroke.[575]
He adds that he was elated to the greatest degree by his success,
having 'entirely disconcerted the measures of the leaders of the
Convention.'
The Earl-Bishop of Derry was a decided revolutionist and very eager for
separation, and is alleged to have said to Lord Charlemont, 'Things
are going well, my lord: we shall have blood.' O'Leary, author of
'Loyalty Asserted,' and notoriously a man of peace, would probably
have felt little scruple in seeking to avert by diplomatic means what
Orde feared might become a bloody chaos. Burke, writing to a brother
priest of O'Leary's, said, 'Do everything in your power to check
the growth of Jacobinism on the one hand, and oppression, which is
its best friend, on the other.' No wonder that the Irish Government
blenched at the outlook. One Dublin paper, called the 'Volunteer
Journal,' urged assassination; and some men had been arrested, in the
previous spring, on a charge of conspiring to murder seven unpopular
members of Parliament. The supineness of magistrates and the absence
of any regular police force opened great facilities for crime. Riots
raged in the streets owing to trade strikes; men were 'tarred and
feathered' and let loose before the infuriated mob; soldiers were
houghed and left bleeding on the pavement. New corps of volunteers
advertised for recruits, and men of the worst repute rushed into their
ranks. Meanwhile the Bishop of Derry was raising a fresh regiment of
volunteers in Ulster. 'The Viceroy, at Fitzgibbon's advice,' writes
Froude, 'sent down officers in disguise to watch him, with a warrant
in their pockets should an arrest be necessary;' and he adds that
'this singular prelate ran a near chance of ending his career on the
gallows.' The withdrawal from public life of so remarkable a figure was
second only in its effect to the collapse of the Convention, of which
he was the animating spirit. When, six years later, Bancroft was sent
by France on a secret mission to Ireland, his report, now preserved
in the Foreign Office at Paris, states, as we learn from Lecky, that
the fall of the Convention had 'thrown a certain ridicule on Irish
democracy, and it may be long before it is repaired.'
The Convention belongs to the year 1783. Not until the autumn of 1784
are any letters found compromising O'Leary--letters not revealing any
distinct acts of espionage, or even penned by himself, but showing him
to have yielded to the voice of the tempter.
In judging a man who is not alive to defend himself, one whose memory
has been for a century revered, I am reluctantly led to encumber this
narrative with various considerations for and against, so that readers
may have the result of a conscientious study of the case, and he able
to form a judicial conclusion.
The promptitude of O'Leary's arrival in Dublin impressed badly all
who read it in Froude; for Orde, according to that historian, asked
the English Secretary of State to send him over two trained men from
their own staff of informers.[576] The letter containing this request,
however, I have not seen in print or manuscript. O'Leary came over
at the same time as a detective named Parker; but the alacrity of
the priest's arrival, though it looks badly, may not be altogether
due to his readiness to play the spy. This man, 'poor in everything
save genius and philosophy,' to quote Grattan's words, was informed,
according to England, one of his biographers, that his presence in
Dublin was necessary in order that some formalities should be gone
through ere his name could be placed on the Irish Civil List.[577]
England says that a pension which, during the previous year, he was
on the point of receiving, fell through because of a change in the
Cabinet; and may not this consideration have been in itself enough to
expedite the journey?
O'Leary had been interviewed in London by Sir Evan Nepean, a practised
diplomatist, and consented, we are told, to come to Dublin to make
certain inquiries. But who can tell what wily words were employed to
induce him to wait on the Irish Secretary, Orde, at Dublin Castle? Orde
posed as a man rather liberal for the time, and was the correspondent
of Grattan and Lord Kenmare. Men of the world know that very different
language is often used when writing _of_ a person, than when addressing
that person direct. On the other hand it should be remembered, assuming
that Sydney conveys a correct impression of what passed, that O'Leary
seemed willing to accept 100_l._ for services dealing, not with the
special exigencies of the hour, but on condition that he continued,
from year to year, and for the same annual fee, to probe to the bottom
certain secrets of his party.
When he arrived in Dublin the country was rent by great and just
discontent. One grievance was that Parliament possessed no adequate
representation of the popular voice. In March 1784, Flood brought in a
Bill for 'Reform,' and twenty-six counties petitioned in its favour.
It had been decided that the Convention[578] of the previous year
should be followed up by a national Congress. This announcement brought
dismay to the Castle. The loss of her American Colonies had just taught
Pitt a lesson. Contemporary pamphleteers, thinking perhaps of the then
fashionable melodrama, 'The Castle Spectre,' saw Dublin Castle scared
by mysterious terrors.
'The letters C.O.N.G.R.E.S.S.,' writes Orellana,[579] 'are magic
letters, of themselves sufficient to rise an apparition before the eyes
of a guilty Minister--an apparition that will seem to draw his curtains
in the dead of night, and rouse him from his pillow!'
The Congress was in fact the ghost of the Betrayed Convention.
There was to be a great meeting at the Tholsel in Dublin, on September
27, 1784, preliminary to the coming Congress. The prompt arrival from
London, on September 24, of O'Leary and Parker, and Orde's confidential
whisper that they were to begin operations at once, lead to the belief
that both attended this meeting. Indeed, from O'Leary's prominent
attitude at the previous Convention, he is almost certain to have taken
part in the deliberations that followed it. No mention, however, is
made of O'Leary or Parker in the Dublin prints of the day.[580] The
Congress and its preliminary meeting are, no doubt, constantly referred
to, but they sat with closed doors, and no reports appear. What took
place must be gleaned from other sources. A letter from Orde, published
in Grattan's 'Life,' and dated September 18, 1784, six days before
O'Leary's arrival from London, mentions that at the coming meeting
opposition would be made to putting a question upon the election of
representatives for a National Congress.[581]
As this was a period full of great issues, and yet but little known,
perhaps I may be allowed to cull from the local journals of the day a
few remarks to show the spirit which animated both sides.
The 'Dublin Evening Post,' the popular organ, 'most earnestly
recommends a numerous and respectable meeting at the Tholse on Monday
next. The occasion,' it adds, 'is great.'[582] But ere long the Castle
journalist gleefully chronicles a collapse.
The weeping and gnashing of teeth among _the city Patriots_ on
account of yesterday's melancholy disappointment at the Tholsel
is not to be described. What a damp must this falling off in the
metropolis give to the yet unassembled bailiwicks. Alas! alas! that
the city which laid the first stone of 'a national Congress' should
now give a shock to the precious building! How are the mighty
aggregate Committee fallen! ah, how are they despised! Resolutions,
address, circular letters--all, all are scattered to the winds;
and commotion, revolution, and scramble, sunk in an abyss of
despair beyond all hopes of resurrection.[583]
If O'Leary attended the meeting at the Tholsel, it is easy to know what
tone he took. Three years later he published a pamphlet in which he
seems very familiar with the incidents of that month.
I recollect the unmerited abuse given for a long time in the
papers to the Catholics, because seventeen housekeepers in
Dublin unguardedly signed a requisition to the high sheriff for
the purpose of convening an aggregate meeting relative to a
parliamentary reform, though I am confident the seventeen knew as
little about the impropriety of their signing that requisition, and
foresaw as little the offence it would give, as the high sheriff
himself. And as to the Catholics, in their disqualified situation,
they could not with either prudence or propriety follow any other
line but that of a strict neutrality in a political question, on
which neither the friends nor opponents of a parliamentary reform
would acknowledge them competent to determine.
This tamed tone will not fail to strike on comparing it with his
intrepid letter[584] written not two years before.
Meanwhile the National Congress was announced to hold its first
meeting. 'Whatever underhand engines may endeavour to effect,' says
the popular organ, 'we hope to see these just and constitutional
deliberations re-establish the purity of representation.'[585]
One prime object of the Castle is detected and denounced by the same
courageous journalist, John Magee. The 'Dublin Evening Post' of
November 5, 1784, records:--
The borough-ridden Government, disappointed in its impotent
attempts to prevent the laudable exertion of the people in
prosecuting a Parliamentary Reform, and finding that even the venal
knaves of the Castle nauseate the fulsome charges so long run on
Binns and Tandy, has directed the venal writers, as the last effort
of an expiring and despairing cause, to endeavour to sow those
seeds of dissension which so long desolated this divided Kingdom,
and set father against son, and brother against brother, that all
might become the easy slaves of foreign tyranny.[586]
These extracts do not criminate O'Leary, but are useful as illustrating
the history of the time, and developing secret policy, while, moreover,
they correct some strange inaccuracies. For instance: the Viceroy,
writing to Sydney, as printed in Mr. Lecky's History, calls Tandy's
colleague 'Binney.' Of course it should be Binns, a name frequently
found in the dark records of '98.
The Castle scribe, in another paragraph, states of Binns and Tandy,
both thoroughly honest men--'Fame is very busy that they have received
the all-subduing touch of "aurum mirabile."' This was probably to
divert suspicion from the really subsidised quarter. It will be
remembered that the date of O'Leary's arrival, and that of Parker,
quite tallies with the meeting on the 27th September; and it may be
asked what else could have brought the popular orators to Dublin at
that juncture? Parker knew Tandy, and, as Orde remarks, might be 'able
to dive to the bottom of his secrets.'
While diplomacy sought to work its ends in one quarter, brute force
laboured in another to disable the arm which had been upraised. The
Sheriff of the County Dublin having convened his bailiwick to meet on
the subject of Reform, Fitzgibbon, then Attorney-General, addressed an
unconstitutional letter to him threatening to proceed by attachment
against those who responded to his call. The sheriff himself was fined
and imprisoned.
The subsidised journalist, Francis Higgins, writes on December 24,
1784:--
The Roman Catholics may evidently see how wickedly intent on their
ruin certain people have been, with a serious idea of extending the
elective franchise, or, indeed, any other privilege to them. They
endeavoured to cajole (the Roman Catholics) into a commotion.[587]
In conclusion, the old charge of venality and perfidy is brought
against the incorruptible Tandy. 'Napper,' we are told, 'betrayed
them.' But Barrington, and all other historians, admit that Tandy was
sound to the core.
Grattan, in the Life of his father, notices as strange that the Bishop
of Derry, who the previous year was so active at the Convention,
absented himself from the Congress. The explanation probably is that
his lordship had heard something of the detectives with a warrant
for his arrest in their pocket. How the Congress crumbled, and the
organisation melted away, a glimpse is obtained from Plowden, who
embodied in his 'Historical Review' a mass of notes made by O'Leary.
'It is well posterity should know,' writes his biographer, 'how much
Plowden was indebted to his co-operation.'[588]
Plowden had never been to Ireland until about the year 1800. The
following words seem those of a man who knew the inner workings of the
governmental policy in 1784.
The link of unanimity having been once severed [we read in
Plowden], the fall of the armed associations into difference
and contention was much more rapid than had been their progress
to union. The divisions of the volunteers were encouraged by
Government; and for that purpose discord and turbulence were rather
countenanced than checked in many counties, particularly upon the
delicate and important expedient of admitting the Catholics to the
elective franchise, a question which it was artfully attempted
to connect with the now declining cause of Parliamentary Reform.
Through a long series of years Government had never wanted force
to quell internal commotions; and it seemed to be now dreaded
lest an union of Irishmen should extinguish the old means of
creating dissension. The desire of disuniting the volunteers begat
inattention to the grievances of the discontented and distressed
peasantry of the South: that wretched and lawless rabble once
more assumed the style of _White Boys_,[589] and for some time
committed their depredations with impunity, particularly against
Kilkenny.[590]
The Volunteer army became gradually disorganised and disbanded; and the
cannon, on which the words 'Free Trade or This' were inscribed, went
back to the foundry.
* * * * *
In 1785 things looked a little dark in Dublin, which must have given
O'Leary something to do to see through. A storm signal was raised
by a few alarmists, and the Attorney-General, Fitzgibbon, though he
sought to make light of the outlook, admitted enough to show that the
country ought to be prepared for foul weather. Mr. Lecky, in rejecting
as without foundation[591] the report confided by Rutland to Sydney
in 1784, that a French agent was then in Dublin, makes no reference
to a man named Perrin, mentioned in a remarkable speech of the
Attorney-General, Fitzgibbon, better known as Lord Clare. On February
14, 1785, he announced in the Irish Parliament that
The great majority of the original Volunteers have hung up their
arms and are retired to cultivate the arts of peace: their place
has been assumed by men who disgrace the name. I have seen
resolutions inviting the French into this country. On the 26th
April, 1784, the Sons of the Shamrock voted Mr. Perrin, a native of
France, honorary member of their corps. I have seen publications
inviting Catholics, contrary to the laws of the land, to arm
themselves to reform the constitution in Church and State. I
have seen encomiums on Louis XVI., the friend of mankind and the
assertor of American liberty.... They may invite the French to
invade our country. I have seen invitations to the dregs of the
people to go to drills and form into corps; we should therefore
distinguish between the gentlemen--the original Volunteers--and
those sons of sedition. I have seen a summons from a Major Canier,
ordering his corps to attend with nine rounds of ball cartridge,
_as there might be occasion for actual service_, and at the same
time intimating a threat to Government; and will any man tell me,
that we should be overawed by such people as these? or that the
Commons of Ireland should be afraid to grant a sum of money to
array a militia until these people should lay down their arms?[592]
M. Perrin, the native of France, whose name Fitzgibbon mentions in
connection with the resolution to invite the French to invade Ireland,
was no doubt the father of the subsequently well-known judge of the
Queen's Bench, Louis Perrin. Under what circumstances M. Perrin first
came to Dublin is not clear. Sometimes he was styled a Professor of
French; usually resided in Dublin; but would sojourn, for months at
a time, in the houses of such Irish gentry as wished to acquire a
knowledge of that tongue. 'Perrin's French Grammar' was at a later date
very familiar in Irish circles.[593]
The tinge of disappointment which peeps forth in the later allusion of
Secretary Orde to O'Leary may have been influenced by a circumstance
casually noticed by his biographer. We have seen from a well-informed
local journal of the day, that venal writers had received instructions
to endeavour to sow the seeds of dissension. It will be shown that
O'Leary was specially intimate with the proprietor of the Castle organ,
and O'Leary would be one of the first writers on whom Orde's thoughts
could not fail to fall. O'Leary's biographers say, but without giving
dates, that he recoiled from the proposal to write in the organ of
the Irish Government. Indeed, in a pamphlet, previously published, he
records his dislike to anonymous compositions.[594] An eloquent divine,
the Rev. Morgan d'Arcy, in preaching the funeral panegyric on Father
O'Leary, travelled slightly out of his path to touch on this point. He
said:--
The well-timed and effectual exertions of this extraordinary
man, could not fail to attract the notice of Government, and,
consequently, were not suffered to remain unrewarded by his
gracious and beneficent sovereign; but, though he received with
all becoming gratitude this unsolicited and well-earned mark
of royal remuneration, yet such was his disinterestedness, and
the noble independence of his spirit, that when, soon after, a
very considerable annuity had been offered him to become the
supporter of a periodical publication,[595] which then was, and
still continues to be, the foul vehicle of misrepresentation,
slander, and calumny on the Irish people; indignant at the
insulting proposal, he rejects it with becoming contempt, though
by his refusal he was sure to incur the displeasure of a certain
description of men, and through their influence might apprehend
a discontinuance of his pension; yet, destitute as he was of all
earthly property beside, sooner than prostitute his heaven-sent
talents, he leaves his native country and repairs to this
metropolis, to enjoy the boasted and enviable blessings of British
protection and British liberty.
The preacher's reference here would be to the year 1789, when O'Leary
removed permanently to London. It was in '89 that the great struggle on
the Regency Question, which will be dealt with later on, raged between
the camps of Whig and Tory in Ireland.
Higgins, the subsidised owner of the Castle organ, was called 'Shamado'
by John Magee, and painted in colours of demoniac hue. According to
Dr. Morgan d'Arcy, O'Leary did not yield to the tempter, but rejected
the proposal with indignation and contempt, and this would naturally
incur displeasure. The statement proves too much, for Higgins, by his
will dated 1791, speaks of O'Leary as his 'long and faithful friend,'
and leaves him a bequest in proof of affection. Further, his journal
devoted part of its very limited space to occasional paragraphs
laudatory of O'Leary, and not ill-calculated to strengthen popular
confidence in his name. Thus, on May 12, 1785--a few months after
Orde says he had consented to work secretly for pay--we read in the
subsidised organ of the Irish Government:--
Nothing can more mark the influence of wisdom and superior genius
than the mention made of Dr. O'Leary in George Anne Bellamy's
'Apology' where she says the philanthropy and interference of that
liberal man put an end to the scandalous conduct of Count Haslang's
(the Bavarian ambassador's) chaplain on the death of that old
representative of the _corps diplomatique_.[596]
The organ of the Irish Government does not praise O'Leary for
political support. To do so would arouse suspicion whether well founded
or not; but Higgins, from friendship or policy, seeks to exalt his
prestige and popularity. In the 'Freeman' of November 20, 1784, we have
a long account of how he put down Dr. Johnson, who had addressed him
with boorishness. 'The literati,' it is added, 'consider themselves as
much obliged by Dr. O'Leary's conduct on the occasion, as it has much
humbled the imperious and surly behaviour of Johnson.'
The statement of Plowden, that O'Leary was pensioned on condition that
he should withhold his pen in support of toleration,[597] will not bear
test.[598] In 1784, O'Leary is conclusively shown to be subsidised.
His dissuasive address to the common people of Ireland denunciatory of
Whiteboyism, a bulky treatise, bears date 1786. It seems more likely
that a subsidy would be given for writing in support of the oppressive
laws of that day. This letter to the peasantry writes up that grinding
impost--Tithes--in reference to which Bishop Doyle afterwards prayed,
'May our hatred of Tithes be as lasting as our love of justice!'
Pray, my brethren, what right have you to curtail, to your own
authority, the income of the Protestant clergy? [O'Leary writes].
If the tithes became the property of the laity, they would raise
their rents in proportion. Or is it because that, from the earliest
ages of the world, those who believed in the true God have
consecrated to Him a part of the fruits of the earth, you will
think it an heavier burthen to pay the same thing because it was
in conformity to the law of God that the laws of Christian states
have appointed it? You know that the rules of justice extend to all
without exception, and that, to use the familiar phrase, everyone
should have his own, whether he be Protestant or Catholic, Turk
or Christian. It is more your interest than you imagine, that the
Protestant clergy of this country should be maintained in their
rights. For many ages you have been defenceless, destitute of any
protection against the power of your landlords, your clergy liable
to transportation or death. The mild and tolerating spirit of the
clergy of the established religion has been the only substitute
for all other resources. They trained up from their early days
the Protestant nobility and gentry in the principles of morality
and virtue. If they preached against Purgatory, they enforced
charity.... If they denied that the Pope is head of the Church,
they taught their congregation that no man is to be injured on
account of his religion, and that Christianity knows no enemy. As
by nature we are prone to vice of every kind, and that the earliest
impressions are the strongest, had it not been for those principles
which they instilled into the minds of their hearers, long before
now your landed men in this country would have treated you as
Turks, who think it no scruple to violate the beds of the Jew, and
warn the husbands that if they come into their houses whilst they
are doing them this injustice they will cut off their heads.
Is it then to gentlemen of this description, the children of the
first families in the kingdom, the instructors of the most powerful
part of the community, the most moral and edifying amongst them,
the most charitable and humane, that a handful of poor men are to
prescribe laws tending to diminish the support of their offspring,
destined to fill one day the most important offices in the State?
What! a Rev. Archdeacon Corker, a Rev. Archdeacon Tisdal, a Rev.
Mr. Chetwood, a Rev. Mr. Weekes, a Rev. Mr. Meade, a Rev. Mr.
Kenny, who spent his time and fortune amongst you, relieving your
wants, and changing part of his house into an apothecary's shop to
supply you with medicines, which yourselves could not purchase,
must from an apprehension of violence quit his house.[599]
In this strain O'Leary argued at much length; but the impartial
historian of this very time describes 'the system of Tithes as the
greatest practical grievance, both of the poorer Catholics and of the
Presbyterians.'[600]
Most people have heard of O'Leary's controversy with the Bishop of
Cloyne, in which, when the prelate disputed Purgatory, O'Leary retorted
that he might 'go farther and fare worse.' The 'Critical Review'
examined the controversy with a shrewdly penetrative eye. Lord Kenmare,
in a letter dated October 2, 1787, writes: 'I read with the greatest
pleasure the 'Critical Review' on the Cloyne controversy. It is the
best performance that has yet appeared on the subject. Grattan is
violent against the Bishop of Cloyne for his publication, and thinks,
with the reviewer, that Government is at the bottom of it.'[601]
O'Leary's reply, which runs to 175 pages, contains many excellent
truths worthy of commendation; but it is a question whether this
elaborate controversy may not have been inspired and encouraged from
Dublin Castle. Law and order are, very properly, inculcated throughout
by O'Leary, and powerful dissuasives addressed to the 'Whiteboys' are
printed at the end.[602] As regards the Bishop of Cloyne, O'Leary
assures him, in words somewhat supererogatory:
'I was not sent here to sow sedition (p. 119). I returned here, not as
a felon from transportation, but as an honourable exile, who returns
to his native land after having preferred a voluntary banishment to
ignorance and the abjuration of the creed of his fathers.' Some years
later, _i.e._ in 1789, he was falsely reported to have taken the latter
step, and, like Drs. Butler and Kirwan, to meditate matrimony. 'Having
from my early days,' he wrote, 'accustomed myself to get the mastery
over ambition and love, the two passions which in every age have
enslaved the greatest heroes, your correspondent may rest assured that
I am not of the trio.'
O'Leary was a Franciscan friar who had made vows of voluntary poverty.
The fact that he had long been accustomed to rest content with a little
may help to explain the modest sum he was satisfied to accept for
services which, if cordially rendered, were worth the amount twenty
times told. And in judging the man for accepting this money it must be
remembered that the bulk of it was spent in alms deeds. Bishop Murphy
told Father England that when a youth he was frequently O'Leary's
almoner, and that a number of reduced persons were weekly relieved in
Cork to the average extent of two or three pounds. 'Charity,' we are
told, 'covers a multitude of sins.'
FOOTNOTES:
[548] Cumberland's _Memoirs_, ii. 2-38. (London, 1807.)
[549] Cumberland several times calls it a 'treaty.'
[550] Vide _Correspondence of Sir John Sinclair_, ii. 385-6. Del
Campo's letters are written in excellent English; it appears that,
though born in Spain, he had come from an English Catholic family named
Field.
[551] Vide _Annals of the English Catholic Hierarchy_, by W. Maziere
Brady, pp. 170-4. (Rome, 1883.) 'Sketch of a Conference with Earl
Shelbourne,' _The Dublin Review_, vols. xx.-xxi. Trials of the rioters,
_The Rockingham Correspondence_, ii. 419. This remarkable incident has
been all but overlooked by historians. Dickens was greatly struck by
its features.
[552] We have no proof that Parker was an Irishman.
[553] Orde to Evan Nepean, September 8, 1784 (see _English in Ireland_,
ii. 413).
[554] In the postscript to O'Leary's letter (see Appendix) we catch
a glimpse of some of the Catholic leaders in Dublin at this time,
into whose secrets Orde assumes he could easily dive. They include
Thomas Braughall, so often mentioned in Wolfe Tone's _Diary_ as a
Catholic organiser and United Irishman; Charles Ryan, a very important
Catholic leader (fully described in Wyse's _History of the Catholic
Association_, i. 138-9); and Mr. Kirwan, noticed at p. 177 of the same
book. Sutton, 'the Brigadier,' also mentioned in O'Leary's letter, was,
with Braughall, one of the thirty-three Catholic delegates who, in
1793, represented the City of Dublin (see _Vindication of the Catholics
of Ireland_, p. 90.) (London: Debrett, 1793.) Edward Lewins, the two
Sweetmans, Thomas Reynolds, and other afterwards very prominent rebels,
figure in the said list of the Dublin delegates.
[555] Mr. Orde to Mr. Evan Nepean, October 17, 1784. See Froude's
_English in Ireland_, iii. 414. But Mr. Froude will excuse me for
adding that the chief passage he quotes is from a letter dated
September 8, 1784.
[556] _Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation_, Paris ed. p. 319.
[557] My Australian correspondent, Mr. Morgan McMahon, was puzzled to
determine how O'Leary, the scene of whose labours was Ireland, could be
summoned from London in 1784, inasmuch as his biographer states that it
was not until 1789 O'Leary took up his residence in that city (Buckley,
p. 304). The accuracy of Mr. Froude's date is, however, confirmed by
a letter in the _Life of George Anne Bellamy_, iii. 120 (Dublin ed.
1785). On August 16, 1784, Mr. W. T. Hervey writes to that celebrated
actress, then living at 10, Charles Street, St. James', and expressing
the 'infinite satisfaction' he felt at meeting O'Leary at dinner.
[558] _Life of Father O'Leary_, by the Rev. M. B. Buckley, p. 203.
[559] See his letter, _ante_, p. 212.
[560] England, from whom Buckley recast and embellished this account,
calls him 'a gentleman in the confidence of the Ministry' (p. 118). Was
it Sir Boyle Roche--of whom presently?
[561] See England's account of the overtures made to O'Leary in London,
_ante_, p. 220. England puts 'country' before 'religion.'
[562] In April 1783 the Coalition came into power. Pitt's
administration dates from December 1783.
[563] England's _Life of O'Leary_, p. 118.
[564] O'Leary was specially weak in yielding acquiescence. Buckley
states (_Life_, p. 355) that O'Leary, having been led to connive at the
legislative union, he expressed remorse.
[565] _Bird's-eye View of Irish History._
[566] England's _Life of O'Leary_, p. 105. (London, 1822.)
[567] See _Life_ by Buckley, pp. 212-213, 237, 277. See also England,
pp. 133, 134, 176, 179.
[568] See _Mr. O'Leary's Defence, in reply to the Lord Bishop of
Cloyne_, pp. 41-42. (Dublin, 1787.)
[569] Thomas Moore's _Diary_, iv. 112.
[570] See letter to Mr. Kirwan in Appendix. After 1783, no such bold
tone is traceable in O'Leary's expressions.
[571] See Appendix. Their intercourse may have been strengthened by
clannish claims. O'Leary was a Cork man, and Roche is described as
'a branch of the ancient baronial family of Roche, Viscount Fermoy.'
See obituary in _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1807, p. 506. His wages
comprised the baronetcy bestowed in 1782; a pension of 300_l._ a year,
with a separate annuity of 200_l._ for his wife; and, later on, the
miserable post of Gentleman Usher, or Master of Ceremonies, at Dublin
Castle. It is remarkable that in all the contemporary reports of the
discreditable transaction, as regards Lord Kenmare, the name of Sir
Boyle Roche is suppressed, and George Ogle, afterwards a P.C., put in
his place. Ogle and O'Leary were both 'Monks of the Screw.'
[572] The Rev. Dr. Wills, when writing his _Lives of Distinguished
Irishmen_ (v. 243), gathered curious facts from survivors of those
times. Of Sir Boyle Roche we learn that 'it was usual for the members
of the Irish Cabinet to write speeches for him, which he committed to
memory, and, while mastering the substance, generally contrived to
travesty into language, and ornament with peculiar graces, of his own.
On many of these occasions he was primed and loaded for action by the
industry of Mr. Edward Cooke, who acted during several administrations
as muster-master to the wisdom of the Castle.' Sir Boyle felt that he
had specially earned the gratitude of the Crown; and I find, by the
Précis book of Lord Fitzwilliam, he had even applied for a peerage. In
the Pelham MSS. he is constantly found worrying for honours and reward.
[573] See England's _Life of O'Leary_, p. 109.
[574] Lord Kenmare died September 9, 1795. For a careful study of
his temporising character see Wyse's _Catholic Association_. He had
enjoyed his title merely by courtesy. In 1798 his son was advanced to a
Viscounty, and the next year to an Earldom.
[575] Mr. Lecky says that 'it is a strange illustration of the standard
of honour prevailing in Ireland, that a man who, by his own confession,
had acted in this manner continued to be connected with the Government
and a popular speaker in the House of Commons' (vi. 368). But, in point
of fact, Dublin Castle could not get on without him.
[576] See Froude, ii. 415.
[577] Vide _ante_, p. 220.
[578] The Convention had greatly alarmed the Government. In 1793,
Lord Clare introduced the Convention Act, making all such assemblages
henceforth illegal; but a popular leader remarked that it was the
wisdom of Xerxes attempting with iron fetters to chain the sea. In
1811, Lord Fingall, Mr. Kirwan, and other Catholic delegates were
arrested under the Act. It never became law in England, and about the
year 1878 Mr. P. J. Smyth, M.P., succeeded in freeing Ireland from its
pressure.
[579] _The Letters of Orellana_, an Irish Helot, to the Seven Northern
Counties not represented in the National Assembly of Delegates held at
Dublin in October 1784, for obtaining a more equal representation of
the people. Halliday Pamphlets, Royal Irish Academy, vol. 482, p. 29.
[580] Besides the journals of the day, I have searched the litter
of pamphlets to which that pregnant year gave birth; but, the names
'O'Leary' and 'Parker' never appear. Their mission, clearly, was a
secret one. Sheahan's _Articles of Irish Manufacture_ (Cork, 1833)
certainly speaks of Mr. Parker, 'who fell in with a Doctor O'Leary'
(p. 112); but, on hunting up the pamphlet from which he quotes, _Plea
for the Poor_ (p. 15), it appears that the date is 1819, and the Dr.
O'Leary was a physician in Kanturk.
[581] Diplomatic letters, but fulsomely servile, are addressed by Orde
to Grattan (vide _Life_, by his Son, iii. 209-11). Orde must have known
that Grattan was jealous--first, of Flood, with whom he constantly
quarrelled, and, secondly, of a new, bold, and thoroughly honest
Protestant leader, who had just made his _début_, and worked hard to
make the Congress a success. This was James Napper Tandy, commander of
the Dublin Volunteer Artillery, and afterwards a general of division in
the service of France.
[582] _Dublin Evening Post_, September 18, 1784.
[583] The _Freeman's Journal_, September 28, 1784. This journal, once
the organ of Grattan, Flood, and Lucas, fell into the hands of an
unprincipled adventurer, named Francis Higgins, who prostituted the
once virtuous print to a venal executive.
[584] See Appendix, p. 374.
[585] _Dublin Evening Post_, October 23, 1784.
[586] The policy of creating a schism has often since been acted upon.
We have already seen Lord Northington's approval of such a scheme.
The Viceroy, Cornwallis, addressing Portland, June 22, 1799, writes
in reference to a public question: 'Dublin is not without material
for a counter party, which I should have sanguine hope of collecting
if my endeavours to produce a schism in the corporation should prove
successful.'--_Cornwallis Correspondence_, i. 339.
[587] _The Freeman's Journal_, December 24, 1784.
[588] _Life of O'Leary_, by Rev. M. B. Buckley, p. 385. See also
England's _O'Leary_, p. 289. (London, 1822.)
[589] The 'White Boys' were perpetually denounced by O'Leary.
[590] _Historical Review of the State of Ireland_, by Francis Plowden,
ii. 104.
[591] Lecky, vi. 369.
[592] _Irish Parliamentary Register_, iv. 227.
[593] 'For King Louis is loved by the Irish Brigade,' we know on the
authority of Irish song, and the judge was baptised 'Louis' apparently
in compliment to the French king, described as 'the assertor of
American liberty.' The bias of the Perrins was always democratic,
and the judge himself had been the attached friend of Robert Emmet,
whom he embraced in the dock. The conduct of 'P. _the Scholar_'
(T.C.D.) at this time is noticed by Archbishop Magee, then a fellow,
in a letter printed in Plunket's _Life_. The judge's brother, Mark
Perrin, rector of Athenry, in a letter to me, states that on the
night Emmet was sentenced to death, Louis Perrin came home to their
house at Chapelizod, bathed in tears. In that picturesque part of the
'Strawberry Beds,' where one can cross the Liffey by a ferry, access is
gained to the old churchyard of Palmerstown, in which, partly smothered
in weeds and fallen leaves, may be traced the epitaph of Judge Perrin's
father. When Brougham declared in 1828 'The Schoolmaster is abroad,
and I trust to him armed with his Primer against the Soldier in full
military array,' he used the idea in a higher sense than could apply to
M. Perrin and his 'Grammar,' who, unobtrusive as he seems to have been,
caused some disquietude to Lord Clare, a man of all others the most
difficult to perturb.
[594] 'I disclaim anonymous productions.'--Postscript to his
_Miscellaneous Tracts_. (Dublin, 1781.)
[595] Buckley says that this proposition was made to O'Leary in Dublin
(_Life_, p. 354).
[596] As service of a political or diplomatic sort might possibly be
inferred from this paragraph, I thought it just to O'Leary to see the
book from which 'Shamado' quotes. The incident is described by Mrs.
Bellamy in the _Apology for her Life_, ii. 246-7 (Dublin ed. 1785). She
complains that the remains of Count Haslang were not treated with due
respect; and that a new chaplain, who had been assigned to the Bavarian
ambassador, behaved towards 'the chaplains and domestics of the late
count with unmanly arrogance ... had it not been for the timely arrival
of that justly respected luminary Father O'Leary.' Her account is not
very clear. In what year Haslang's death occurred is not mentioned;
but the _Gentleman's Magazine_ of the time throws in a few dates and
facts. Count Haslang died at Golden Square, London, on May 29, 1783,
after an embassy of forty-two years (liii. 454). George II. had formed
an attachment for him in Hanover, and brought him to London. Haslang's
son was Prime Minister of Bavaria, while his father, during a crisis in
its history, filled the post of ambassador to England. On June 5, 1783,
a solemn dirge, attended by all the _corps diplomatique_ in London, was
sung in Warwick Street (R.C.) Chapel; but 'owing to a dispute at the
grave [in old St. Pancras] several of the ambassadors returned home
without supporting the pall.' The dispute, which is not explained, at
last obliged the Anglican chaplain to read the burial service over the
deceased envoy of a Catholic power.
O'Leary, in finally adjusting the difficulties, may have discharged a
diplomatic mission inspired from Downing Street. Mrs. Bellamy alludes
to insults offered even to the domestics of Count Haslang. How serious
it was to insult even a servant of the Bavarian ambassador is shown
by the _Gentleman's Magazine_, xxv. 232-3. In 1755, we learn that 'T.
Randall, late an officer to the Sheriff of Middlesex, pursuant to his
sentence for arresting a servant of Count Haslang, was brought from
Newgate before his Excellency's house in Golden Square, having on his
breast a paper proclaiming that he had been adjudged by Lord Chancellor
Hardwicke and the Chief Justices to be _a violator of the laws of
nations, and a disturber of the public repose_, and stands convicted
thereof.' Randall was carried back to Newgate.
Mrs. Bellamy, in vaguely alluding to insults offered even to Count
Haslang's domestics, doubtless includes herself, for Haslang describes
her as his 'housekeeper' (_Life_, ii. 104). This woman, the natural
daughter of Lord Tyrawley, ambassador at Lisbon, was introduced
into society by his sister; became a very influential person, and
shared the confidence of Fox and other Whig lights. O'Leary, she
describes (ii. 8): '... who, with unaffected piety, is blest with
that innocent chearfulness which, joined to his brilliant wit and
sound understanding, makes him the admired darling of all who have the
happiness of knowing him.'
Count Haslang's house in Golden Square has been, since 1789, the
presbytery of Warwick Street R. C. Chapel; and its transfer to
parochial uses dates also from that year.
[597] _Ante_, p. 213.
[598] The _Freeman_, the subsidised organ of the Irish Government,
after extolling O'Leary, added, on May 12, 1785: 'It were sincerely to
be wished that this excellent writer and Christian philosopher would
once more sit down and employ his talents in the service of his country
and literature in general.' In the following year, _i.e._ 1786, he
reviewed a 'forgotten controversy,' including a defence of Pope Clement
XIV. in suppressing the Jesuits.
[599] The Rev. Mr. O'Leary's _Address to the Common People of Ireland_,
pp. 12-14. (Dublin: Cooney, 1786.)
[600] Lecky's _England in the Eighteenth Century_, vi. 540.
[601] Edward Hay, in his _History of the Rebellion_, says that the
Bishop of Cloyne's pamphlet 'was dedicated to the Spirit of Discord.'
Dr. Woodward was hardly the bigot that he pretended to be; his epitaph
in Cloyne Cathedral records that 'he was a warm friend to Catholic
Emancipation.'
[602] A very clever, poetic version of this and other addresses of
O'Leary, entitled _The O'Leariad_, appeared, and seems to have been
written to direct attention to O'Leary's loyal pamphlets, and to
enforce and imprint their arguments on the popular mind. (Printed in
Dublin, and reprinted at Cork by Robert Dobbyn, 1787.) _Vide_ Halliday
Pamphlets, Royal Irish Academy, vol. 514.