CHAPTER XXI

ARMSTRONG AND THE SHEARESES--GENERAL LAWLESS

Armstrong was another man who, unlike Turner and Magan, boldly

betrayed, and by baring his name to popular odium, bared his breast to

its penalties. He lived to old age in a district specially burrowed by

agrarian crime; but, though often taunted with his treachery, never

suffered a pin-scratch at the hands of the people.

Before Armstrong comes on the scene it is well to give some account of

the men he so cruelly betrayed.[692] This becomes the more imperative,

inasmuch as unpublished letters of Sheares, containing important

explanations, were placed in my hands for historic use by the late Mr.

Justice Hayes.

The father of John and Henry Sheares was a banker and member of the

Irish Parliament, remarkable for having introduced a bill, which

became law in 1766, for the regulation of trials in cases of treason,

and under which his sons were afterwards tried. He was a person of

culture, too, author of some touching reflections on 'Man in Society,

and at his Final Separation from it.' Several passages seem to reveal

a presentiment of the great domestic tragedy which he did not live to

see. A practical Christian, he published an essay elaborating the great

fact that unless man forgives, he can never himself be forgiven; and

these inculcations, it is hoped, helped to calm the closing thoughts

of his suffering sons. Mr. Sheares founded a Debtors' Charity in

Cork, and an amateur performance of 'King Henry IV.,' in aid of it,

introduced as its chief histrions the subsequently historic brothers.

Their career was highly dramatic. Henry successfully competed for the

hand of Miss Swete with a young barrister, Mr. John FitzGibbon, who, as

the Lord Clare of after years, is said to have shown that he neither

forgot nor forgave. In 1792 Henry Sheares visited France to see his

children at school. The Revolution was then at its height; he and his

brother John became intimate with Brissot and Rolande, and thenceforth

may be dated the birth of that bias which finally made both easy prey

for Armstrong. In July 1793, Henry Sheares challenged his early rival,

now Lord FitzGibbon, to explain or retract what he called an 'infamous

calumny,' conveyed in a speech wherein the chancellor referred to two

men, agents of the French Jacobin Club, who had employed themselves

in disseminating its principles in Dublin. But even John Sheares was

not the revolutionist which party spirit loved to depict him. A letter

appears in the 'Castlereagh Papers,' in which the writer, Redhead

York, describes John Sheares at Versailles, falling on his knees and

vowing that he would plant a poignard in the heart of any person who

would hurt a hair on the head of the Queen of France. In 1792 Henry,

a barrister of some years' standing, secured the house, 128 Lower

Baggot Street, Dublin, now the Ulster Bank. It was at that time a

corner house; but Sheares, shortly before his death, assigned a plot of

ground adjoining it whereon the two houses between Sheares's residence

and Pembroke Street were built. The large block of buildings between

St. Stephen's Green and Sheares's house did not then exist. Miss

Steele saw, from her father's back windows in the Green, the soldiers

surrounding Sheares's home when, in May 1798, treason was deemed

sufficiently ripe for a _coup_. John Sheares, the junior of Henry by

nine years, lived with him, and the utmost fraternal love subsisted

between both.

Captain John Warneford Armstrong, the descendant of a Scotch settler

in Ireland, was at heart a supporter of oligarchical principles, but

acted so well the part of a flaming patriot, that Byrne, a democratic

bookseller, led Armstrong to his private room and presented him to

Sheares as 'a true brother on whom you may implicitly depend.' Henry

declined to hold converse unless in presence of his brother John.

Armstrong said he would wait until John came. Conversation, however,

had commenced before his arrival; he at length appeared with Byrne, and

the latter introduced Armstrong in an equally impressive way. Armstrong

deposed on the trial that John Sheares said--'I know your principles

very well,' and asked him to join the cause by action as he had already

done by inclination. Armstrong replied--'I am ready to do everything in

my power for it, and if you can show me how I can assist I will serve

you to the utmost.' John, an impulsive youth, said that the best way he

could help was to gain over the soldiery, and confer with him as to the

best way of seizing the royal camp. Armstrong appointed to meet him at

Baggot Street with this end; he did so, and on Sunday night, May 13,

paid another visit--both brothers being present. On the 15th he called

twice; John Sheares said he would like to introduce him to a friend of

his, Surgeon (afterwards General) Lawless, with whom he might consult

and advise in his absence--he [John] being obliged to go down and

organise Cork. All this time Henry Sheares is found reticent, and at

some of the interviews he was not present at all. However, on Thursday,

the 17th, both brothers appeared to this apparently zealous convert

to their cause; Lawless was also by, and (according to Armstrong's

testimony) said: 'He had lately attended a meeting of deputies from

almost all the militia regiments, at which meeting there were two of

his [the approver's] men.'

Henry Sheares, now familiar with Armstrong as his guest and constant

visitor, let fall some remarks by which the betrayer succeeded in

implicating him as having knowledge of the military organisation.

This was not enough for Armstrong; that evening he returned to their

house. Henry did not appear; John came down and obtained a written

introduction from him to a sergeant in his regiment, known to be

a United Irishman. The most sickening part of this story has yet

to be told. Armstrong continued to worm himself into the hearts of

his victims. He accepted their invitations to dinner, mingled with

their family, listened to Mrs. Sheares singing at the harp for his

entertainment, and, as Curran declared, fondled on his knee the child

of the man whom he had marked for doom!

The time was now coming, and coming fast, when the blood of the Sheares

was to be set free--a fact the more painful, when we know that two of

their brothers had already given their lives in the service of the

King. Armstrong in the year 1843 said, in presence of Mr., afterwards

Lord, O'Hagan, that 'Lord Castlereagh persuaded him to dine with the

Sheares with a view to gather further information.' Dogging their

steps, scenting their hot blood, and measuring the days they had

to live, he at last gave tongue, and on May 21 both brothers were

seized. That evening, while John was a prisoner, but as yet ignorant

of Armstrong's perfidy, the betrayer is found paying him a visit of

condolence, probably hoping to gather, during the excitation of his

victim, facts which would compromise absent friends. Any evidence which

could incriminate Henry was far less than that affecting John. It is

surprising that the wonderful caution shown by Sheares when a younger

man should not have made him more guarded in his intercourse with

Armstrong; and at this point it is curious to look back at Collins's

report (p. 168 _ante_) where he describes Sheares warning the Society

of United Irishmen that spies were spreading snares around.

Anyone reading this trial, with the light now available, cannot fail

to be struck by a circumstance which has heretofore passed without

comment. The outlook was black for the brothers when their counsel,

Plunket, Curran, McNally, and Ponsonby, held a conference to see what

could be done. A good point was at last detected; one of the Grand

Jury who found the bill appeared to be a foreigner, or, as legally

termed, an alien. Law books had to be looked up; some searching

inquiries made. McNally, meanwhile, had been despatched to the

Court of Common Pleas to appease the judges, who had been waiting

for some time and waxed impatient. McNally explained that there was

a deliberation among the counsel on a serious point of law, and,

until they came in, he could say no more. The court made an effort

to draw him, but he parried it with seeming firmness. The case stood

adjourned, and when Plunket, Curran, and Ponsonby arrived to spring a

surprise, they found Attorney-General Toler (the Lord Norbury of after

years) fully prepared, not only by a written 'replication' bristling

with points, but by an elaborate oral argument, and, between him and

the prime-sergeant, they met the objection with a readiness quite

wonderful, and which meant ruin to the brothers. The court of course

overruled a plea which counsel for the Sheareses hoped would have

quashed the proceedings, and it cannot be doubted that the point had

been betrayed to Toler by one of the counsel engaged in the conference.

The Attorney-General said he would go on with the trial of John; but

at another conference of their counsel it was decided, in evil hour,

that both brothers should go into the dock together and join in their

challenge. The luckless suggestion is likely to have come from McNally.

Curran was not a great lawyer, his _forte_ lay in cross-examination

and classic eloquence; he revered McNally, as has been already shown,

and he was not the man to differ with him. Two witnesses, it will be

remembered, were then necessary to convict for treason in England; the

Irish judiciary were satisfied with one. The amazement of the Sheares

on beholding Armstrong enter the witness-box can be guessed. Curran

drew a picture of the children of his client sitting in the mansion

where Armstrong was hospitably entertained--the aged mother supported

by the devotion of her son--and it was suggested that the informer

'smiled upon this scene, contemplating the havoc he was about to make.'

Midnight had passed when the evidence closed. Armstrong's first cousin,

Thomas Drought, testified, among other damaging facts, to atheistical

expressions used by the approver.[693] Lieutenant Shervington, an uncle

by marriage, heard Armstrong say 'that if there could be no other

person found for the purpose, he would, with pleasure, become the

executioner of George III., and glory in the deed.' His uncle replied

that if such were his principles he ought to throw up his commission

and go over to the enemy at once.

When the trial had proceeded for fifteen hours, Curran, sinking with

exhaustion, moved for an adjournment, but Toler opposed, and at eight

o'clock next morning a verdict of 'Guilty' was returned. At these

words the brothers fell into each other's arms. At three o'clock both

were brought up for judgment. Lord Carleton, who presided, was said

to have been appointed by Sheares's father the guardian of John,

but it is correct to say that he had been only the attached friend

of their father.[694] This judge was visibly affected, and made

touching reference to the past. John, with his full blue eyes and open

countenance, as Maria Steele describes him, made an earnest appeal for

his elder brother's life, declaring that he knew nothing of a fatal

manuscript that, admittedly written by John, had been found in Henry's

desk; all in vain: Toler seemed impatient for the sacrifice, and both

were sentenced to be hanged next day. Sir Jonah Barrington prints a

painful letter addressed to him by Henry, but which by some mistake

did not reach him, he says, till the fatal morning. Henry could not

believe that an adverse verdict awaited him, and when at last it came,

he was utterly stunned by the blow. Sheares begs Barrington to see Lord

Clare:--

Oh! speak to him of my poor wretched family--my distracted

wife, and my helpless children; snatch them from the dreadful

horrors which await them. Desire my mother to go to Lord Shannon

immediately, and my wife to the Lord Chancellor.... We are to

receive sentence at three o'clock. Fly, I beseech you, and save a

man who will never cease to pray for you--to serve you. Let me hear

from you, my dear fellow, as quick as possible. God bless you.

Newgate: eight o'clock.

Sheares's wife sat for hours in a sedan chair at Lord Clare's

hall-door; and when, at length, he appeared, she threw herself at

his feet, clasped his knees, and implored him to save her husband,

but failed. Barrington, tardily acting upon Henry's letter, had more

influence with the chancellor.

I immediately waited on Lord Clare [he writes]; he read the letter

with great attention; I saw he was moved--his heart yielded. I

improved on the impression; he only said 'What a coward he is! but

what can we do?' He paused. 'John Sheares cannot be spared. Do you

think Henry can say anything, or make any species of discovery

which can authorise the Lord Lieutenant in making a distinction

between them?--if so, Henry may be reprieved.' He read the letter

again, and was obviously affected. I had never seen him amiable

before. 'Go,' said he, 'to the Prison, see Henry Sheares, ask him

this question, and return to me at Cooke's office.' I lost no time,

but I found on my arrival that orders had been given that nobody

should be admitted without a written permission. I returned to the

Castle--they were all at Council. Cooke was not at his office: I

was delayed. At length the secretary returned, gave me the order. I

hastened to Newgate, and arrived at the very moment the executioner

was holding up the head of my friend, and saying, 'Here is the head

of a traitor.'[695]

Barrington says nothing of Lord Shannon, who was related to the

Sheareses, and it is certain that the message for him miscarried.

This peer, with the object of offering condolence, called upon their

mother[696] the day of the execution, and was greatly distressed when

she threw herself upon her knees to beg the favour of his intervention

for John; she did not know that Henry had been implicated, and, of

course, was ignorant that either had already suffered death. Lord

Shannon, in an agony of mind, and unable to explain, rushed from the

room.

There was a butchery displayed in the immolation of the brothers which,

if employed at the present day on a beast in the shambles, would evoke

angry protest. The 'New Cork Evening Post' of July 23, 1798, while

supplying some painful details, bears out Barrington's recollection:--

They requested that they might not continue long exposed to the

gaze of the multitude, and, having each an halter fixed round

his neck, and a cap drawn over his face, holding by each other's

hand, they tottered out upon the platform in front of the prison.

In making the rope fast within, John Sheares was hauled up to the

block of the tackle, and continued nearly a minute suspended alone

before the platform fell. It did fall, and instantly both were

suspended. After hanging about twenty minutes, they were, at a

quarter after three o'clock, let down, when the hangman separated

their heads.[697]

Much feeling was roused by this sanguinary act. Classic students

who lived in the past started in horror, comparing the Sheareses

to 'the hapless victims' described by Gibbon: 'the two brothers

of the Quintilian family whose fraternal love endeared them to

posterity--whose bodies seemed animated by one soul--and whose union in

death is due to the cruelty of Commodus.' Grattan loudly condemned

the men 'whose misrule had brought Ireland to so black a crisis. The

question men should have asked was, not why was Mr. Sheares upon the

gallows?--but why was not Lord Clare along with him?' And two years

later, in a speech of resistance to the Union, he declared that the

treason of the minister against the liberties of the people was far

worse than the rebellion of the people against the minister. But even

in the latter sense, Henry Sheares must be held guiltless. John,

pouring out to his sister, in an agonised letter, his most secret

thoughts, writes: 'Heaven is my witness how assiduously I sought to

keep aloof, in any of my political concerns, from _him_;' and there is

not a line in the evidence of Armstrong to prove that Henry took any

active part in the treason. Addis Emmet, Arthur O'Connor, McNevin--all

the men who had been at the head of it, and its very soul, were at that

hour in gaol. O'Connor declared that he and his colleagues knew nothing

of the Sheareses; and it is certain that neither of them had ever

intrigued with France, as O'Connor and the others had done. The names

of the Sheareses find no place in the list of marked men that Turner

gave Downshire (p. 7, _ante_). This omission can be easily accounted

for. Arthur O'Connor, in a letter to Dr. Madden, which pointed out some

inaccuracies, writes:--

You seem to think the Sheares were leading men in the Union,[698]

whereas, I may say, they never entered it, so as to be known to us.

The fact is, they were just entering it when they were cut off. It

was the younger Sheares's Proclamation, which was an act purely

personal, without the knowledge or concurrence of the Union, that

has misled some to think he and his brother were deeply engaged in

the Union.'

The following is one of the letters, already promised, and now

published for the first time. It is written by Henry previous to his

trial:--

Dear Sir,--Accept my best thanks for the friendly readiness with

which you consented to present my letter, which I hope has been

received. I am now to trouble you on a subject more immediately

relating to my unfortunate situation. I have apply'd as is usual

in those cases to my different Friends to come forward on my tryal,

and to give me a character such as they think I deserve, and to put

it in a manner most likely to produce a beneficial effect. From

my knowledge of the goodness of your heart, from a sympathy which

I am sure you feel for a fond husband and an affectionate father,

from the regard which I am sure you have for Mrs. Sheares, I feel a

hope that in this instance you will gladly embrace this opportunity

of saving us both. You know that on these occasions a general

character is not admissable so that it must apply to the political

character. And so far to the domestic as will go to establish the

political.

Taking it this way may I hope that you can say that you know me

to be a man of domestic habits, fondly attached to my wife and

children, so as to make it highly improbable that I would suffer my

political conduct to endanger their happiness; that you consider me

a man of liberal but not violent principles; that I go no farther

in them than the first characters of opposition in the English

and Irish Parliament have done, namely being an advocate for a

reform in Parliament and a renovation of the ancient purity of our

constitution; that I am not a friend to violent systems, and that I

am not an advocate for Revolution.

This is what, from your knowledge of me, I trust you can say

without going farther than will justify you to yourself. And for

this friendly service I shall seize with pleasure every opportunity

of showing how much I shall feel myself obliged to you for it.

As it is usual and necessary for the use of counsel to have the

witnesses' names which they are to prove arranged in the brief, I

have given directions to my agent to wait on you for that purpose

whenever it may be convenient to you, as also to go through the

form of giving you a summons.

Your very much obliged and grateful Friend,

HENRY SHEARES.

Kilmainham Gaol: July 10, 1798.

The superscription of this letter has been removed--probably by the

recipient--and it seems very likely that he left his friend in the

lurch, and did not come forward for his defence. The prosecuting

counsel of those days loved to taunt such witnesses with a

participation in the views held by the accused; they were browbeaten

and bullied, and often left the court wincing under some dark

innuendo, dropped with jibing leer.

John, the younger brother, wrote two letters to his sister, from which

it is clear that--constituted as the jury panel was at that day--he had

no hope of acquittal. The matter omitted deals with sundry small debts

which he desired should be paid:--

Kilmainham Prison: July 10, 1798.

The troublesome scene of life, my dear Julia, is nearly closed,

and the hand that now traces these lines will in a day or two be

no longer capable of communicating to a beloved and affectionate

family the sentiments of his heart. A painful task yet awaits me.

I do not allude to my trial, or my execution. These--were it not

for the consciousness I feel of the misery you all will suffer on

my account--would be trivial in comparison with the pain I endure

in addressing you for the last time. You, Julia, who have been

kind to me beyond example; your solicitudes for my welfare have

been unremitting, nor did they leave you a moment's happiness. As

a wayward fate seems from the earliest moment of my life to have

presided over my days, I will not now recapitulate the instances of

a perverse destiny that seems to mark me out as the instrument of

destruction to all I love. Robert--Richard--and Christopher, dear,

valued brothers! If it be true that the mind survives the body,

I shall shortly join you, and learn for what wise purpose Heaven

thought fit to select me as your destroyer! My mother too--Oh!

God! my tender revered mother, I see her torn looks--her broken

heart--her corpse! What have I done to deserve this misery? I must

forbear these thoughts as much as possible, or I must forbear to

write.

My trial comes on the day after to-morrow, and the event is

unequivocal. You must summon up all the resolution of your

soul, my dear Julia; if there be a chance of snatching my

afflicted mother from the grave, that chance must arise from your

exertions; my darling Sally, too, will aid you; she will, for a

while, suspend her joy at the restoration of her husband to her

arms--for of his escape I have no more doubt than I have of my

own conviction and its consequences. All, all of you must forget

your individual griefs and joys, and unite to save that best of

parents from the grave; stand between her and despair; if she will

speak of me, sooth her with every assurance calculated to carry

consolation to her heart; tell her that my death--though nominally

ignominious--should not light up a blush in her face; that she knew

me incapable of a dishonourable action or thought; that I died in

full possession of the esteem of all those who knew me intimately;

that justice will yet be paid to my memory, and my fate be

mentioned rather with pride than shame by my friends and relations.

Yes, my dear sister, if I did not expect the arrival of this

justice to my memory, I should indeed be afflicted at the nominal

ignominy of my death, lest it should injure your welfare, and wound

the feelings of my family. But, above all things, tell her that at

my own request I have been attended in my latest moments by that

excellent and pious man, Doctor Dobbin, and that my last prayer was

offered up for her. While I feared for Harry's life, hell itself

could have no tortures for the guilty beyond what I suffered. I

pictured you all, a helpless, unprotected group of females, left to

the miseries of your own feelings, and to the insults of a callous,

insensible world. Sally, too, stripped of a husband on whom she

tenderly doats, and the children of their father--and all by my

cursed interloping, and by my residence with them! Yet, Heaven is

my witness, how assiduously I sought to keep aloof in any of my

political concerns from him. My efforts, however, have kept him

clear of any of those matters that have involved me in destruction.

When Sally has got him back to her arms, and that I, who caused his

danger, and her unhappiness, am no more, she will cease to think of

me, perhaps, with reproach. This I trust she will do; she ought,

for she herself could never have done more for his salvation than

I endeavoured to do. But the scene is changed, I am no longer the

frantic thing I was while his danger appeared imminent. A calm

sorrow for the sufferings that await you on my account, and a

heart-felt regret at being obliged to quit your beloved society for

ever, has succeeded; yet all this will soon have an end, and with

comfort I already anticipate the moment when your subsiding grief

gives you back to the enjoyment of each other. Still, my dearest

Julia, even when I shall be no more, your plagues on my account are

not likely to cease....

Good night, Julia. I am going to rest, thank God! free from the

consciousness of intentional offence, and from any wish tainted

with personal resentment.

John when in France had been an ardent admirer of Rousseau, whose style

he now unconsciously catches:--

Wednesday night: July 11.

It is now eleven o'clock, and I have only time to address my

beloved Julia in a short eternal farewell. Thou sacred power!

whatever be thy name and nature, who has created us the frail and

imperfect creatures we are, hear the ardent prayer of a creature

now on the eve of an awful change. If thy Divine Providence can be

affected by mortal supplication, hear and grant, I beseech Thee,

the last wishes of a heart that has ever adored Thy goodness. Let

peace and happiness once more visit the bosom of my beloved family.

Let a mild grief succeed the miseries they have endured, and when

an affectionate tear is generously shed over the dust of him who

caused their misfortunes--let all their ensuing days glide on in

union and domestic harmony. Enlighten my beloved brother; to him

and his invaluable wife grant the undisturbed enjoyment of their

mutual love, and as they advance let their means of providing for

the sweet pledges of their attachment increase. Let my Julia, my

feeling--my too feeling--Julia, feel the consolation she has so

often sought for others, let her soul repose at length in the

consummation of all her wishes--let her taste that happiness her

virtues have so well merited. For my other sisters provide those

comforts their situation requires. To my mother, oh, Eternal Power!

what gift shall I wish for my matchless parent? Restore to her

that peace which I have torn from her--let her forget me in the

ceaseless affections of my remaining sisters, and in their growing

prosperity--let her taste that happiness which is best suited to

her affectionate heart, and when at length she is called home, let

her find in everlasting bliss the due reward of a life of suffering

virtue. Adieu, my Julia, my light is just out, the approach of

darkness is like that of death, since both alike require I shall

say farewell for ever. Oh, my dear family, farewell--farewell for

ever!

In dealing with Armstrong's conduct in this case,[699] I regret being

obliged to take a tone different from that of Mr. Lecky, who has placed

his character in a somewhat favourable point of view.

The sealed chest in Dublin Castle, which was opened some years ago,

contained McNally's secret reports, signed 'J. W.' Among them is the

following, dated by McNally, July 14, 1798:--

_Lord Cork's First Letter_

Lord Cork writes: 'Mr. John Warneford Armstrong was certainly in

my regiment and quitted it in a most disgraceful manner. From his

conduct while there I would not pay much attention to what he did

say, nor give much credit even to his oath.

'I would send a person on purpose did I not think it would be too

late.'

[Dated by Lord Cork, July 9.]

_Lord Cork's Second Letter, dated 11th_

'Mr. Sheares's letter did not reach me till to-day. I lose no

time to inform the Lord Lieutenant circumstances concerning

Mr. Armstrong that I hope may be of service to the unfortunate

brothers.'[700] ...

It has transpired [adds McNally], perhaps without foundation,

that amnesty is to be held out to-morrow--chearfulness is the

consequence.

The letters above alluded to are in the hands of _my friend_

[_i.e._ himself]. He has kept them private.

Sheares and McNally had been old friends. Sheares stood by him in the

hour of danger.[701] These ties were strengthened by the fact that

McNally was counsel for him on the trial.[702] Assuming that McNally

had the letters in his possession of which he sends copies, it seems

quite indefensible to have kept back Lord Cork's, dated July 9, until

the very day on which the brothers were hanged. The execution took

place in Dublin at 11·45 A.M. on July 14, 1798. Sir Jonah Barrington

mentions that a reprieve was granted but did not arrive in time. It

cannot be assumed that McNally humanely used these letters in any other

quarter, for, as he assures Cooke, he 'has kept them private.'

Sir Jonah Barrington, who was constantly consulted by the Irish

Government, says, when noticing Armstrong's evidence against the

Sheares, that, unlike Reynolds--a man of spotted fame and impoverished

finances--'Armstrong had a stake and a status to lose; but he took

the bold course of sacrificing openly the honour of an officer and a

gentleman.' These words he would not use had Lord Cork's letter seen

the light.

Armstrong, forty-five years after the execution of his victims, held,

in a conversation with Dr. Madden, that Curran's statement as to taking

'baby Sheares' on his knee could not be true because he was never fond

of children. An unscrupulous man, however, playing a desperate game,

and in the excitement of hot pursuit, may have done things contrary to

his usual habits. Armstrong's sole effort was to extort the confidence

of the Sheares; and he could not forget that he who takes the child

by the hand takes the parent by the heart. It is to be feared that

Armstrong's oral 'pooh pooh' is untenable. The following anecdote,

now told for the first time, rests on the high authority of Lawrence

Parsons, Earl of Ross. Armstrong, shortly after the death of the

Sheareses, when landing from Holyhead at the Pigeon House, and anxious

to avoid hostile greetings from the mob who always awaited the coach

which brought to Dublin the usually seasick passengers, crossed the

Strand to Sandymount, and when midway observed approaching a lady in

black accompanied by two children. The latter on recognising Armstrong

ran gleefully to meet him.[703] Needless to say they were the widow and

orphans of Henry Sheares. Another authentic anecdote ought to be told.

The grand-aunt of Mr. Gray, F.T.C.D., gave him the following curious

reminiscence. Her family resided near Armstrong in the King's County,

and he was intimate at their house. One evening in 1797 the lady heard

angry voices in the parlour, where she had left the gentlemen after

dinner, and on turning the handle to re-enter a loud smash followed.

Armstrong had talked so much treason that it excited her brother to

disgust; and this feeling gave place to rage when Armstrong, having

left the room for some minutes, had returned dressed in rebel green.

The former seized a decanter and hurled it at Armstrong, who ducked,

and the panel suffered instead of his head.

The Rev. Dr. Dobbin, who attended the brothers at their execution, now

claims to be heard in a letter published for the first time. It is

addressed to Captain William Flemyng, a cousin of the Sheareses:--

Finglas: July 16, 1798.

My dear Sir,--Agreeably to your desire I send the letter which

Mr. John Sheares addressed to me, and which I received from his

own hands on Saturday morning after his participating in the most

solemn rite of our religion. However criminal I may consider his

conduct to have been in other respects, of the charges from which

he is so anxious his memory may be vindicated I acquit him from

my soul; under this conviction I shall chearfully comply with

his request, and embrace every opportunity of explaining his

real intentions in writing the paper which has so much irritated

the public mind. You, I trust, will exert yourself in a similar

manner; when you have taken a copy of the letter you will be so

good as to return it. The two unfortunate brothers, who forfeited

their lives last Saturday to the violated laws of their country,

were the sons of an eminent banker in Cork with whom I had lived,

many years since, in intimacy and friendship. The elder brother

I was but slightly acquainted with, but Mr. John Sheares I knew

more intimately. I admired his uncommon talents, and still more

the distinguished humanity and philanthropy which marked the

whole of his conversation and demeanour. It was, therefore, with

equal surprise and concern I heard of his being under confinement

on a charge of high treason. With still greater astonishment,

if possible, I heard a paper had been found in his handwriting,

the tendency of which was to excite the people to violent and

sanguinary proceedings: this was so entirely irreconcileable with

the humane and liberal principles which I was persuaded had

ever directed the conduct of J. S. that I ardently wished for an

explanation. An opportunity soon occurred. On Friday morning I

received your letter informing me of the conviction of the two

brothers, and conveying an earnest request from J. S. that I

should visit him as soon as possible. I undertook the melancholy

office with mingled pain and satisfaction. I continued with them

some hours that day. What past during the solemn interview was,

I trust, suited to the awful circumstances in which they were

placed, and becoming the character and situation in which I stood.

I shall only trouble you, however, with what relates immediately

to the subject of the letter, or is connected with it. The charge

of sanguinary intentions he disclaimed as most abhorrent to his

nature and repugnant to his principles, asserted his object to

prevent the effusion of blood, and assigned more fully and more at

large the motives and reasons contained in his letter. The whole

was delivered with a serious, solemn, and unembarrassed air, such

as usually accompanies truth, and must have imprest on my mind

the fullest conviction of his sincerity. There is one fact he

mentioned on this occasion, which I shall relate to you as nearly

as I can in his own words: 'To the taking away of the life of a

fellow creature where it can be prevented my nature is so abhorrent

that I was called by some of my democratic friends "the Informer":

assassination was mentioned, and I reprobated the idea with horror

and positively declared that, unless it was instantly given up, I

would myself inform against them: in consequence of my peremptory

declaration it was given up, and the lives of some persons were

preserved.'

On my strongly representing to him the fatal and unjustifiable

part he had taken, and the miserable condition of his country, he

made the following reply: 'Dr. Dobbin, many wished for reform who

did not think of rebellion, but you know the progress of the human

mind; where demands, just in the opinion of those who make them,

instead of concession produce further coercion, discontents are

encreased, and a man is gradually led on step by step to lengths he

would in the beginning shudder at.'

His behaviour with respect to his near relatives was tender and

affecting; resigned to his own fate, he expressed the strongest

desire to save, if possible, the life of his brother. When I was

parting from him at my last visit, he conjured me in visible

emotion with tears in his eyes to visit his poor mother and

endeavour to console her.

Adieu, my dear Sir,[704] most truly yours,

WILLIAM DOBBIN.

Finglas: July 16, 1798.

The enclosure does not seem to have been sent back by Flemyng as

requested. The original of John Sheares's letter is now before me,

preserved within the decaying folds of Dr. Dobbin's manuscript:--

_To the Rev. Dr. Dobbin._

My dear Sir,--As to-morrow is appointed for the execution of

my brother and me, I shall trouble you with a few words on the

subject of the writing produced on my trial, importing to be a

proclamation. The first observation I have to make is that a

considerable part of that scrolled production was suppressed on

my trial; from what motive, or whether by accident, I will not

say--certain it is that the part which has not appeared must have

in a great measure shewn what the true motives were that caused

that writing, if it had been produced. To avoid a posthumous

calumny in addition to the many and gross misrepresentations of

my principles, moral and political, I shall state, with the most

sacred regard to Truth, what my chief objects were in writing,

or rather in attempting to write, it, for it is but a wretched,

patched and garbled attempt. It was contained in a sheet of paper

and in one or two pieces more, which are not forthcoming--the sheet

alone is produced. It is written in very violent revolutionary

language, because, as it in the outset imports, after a revolution

had taken place could it alone be published--and the[705]

occurrence of such an event I thought every day more probable.

The first sentence that has produced much misrepresentation is

that which mentions that some of the most obnoxious members of the

Government have already payed the forfeit of their lives--I cannot

state the words exactly. From this it is concluded I countenanced

assassination--Gracious God!--but I shall simply answer that this

sentence was merely supposititious, and founded on that common

remark, oftenest made by those who least wished it verified, that

if the people had ever recourse to force and succeeded, there were

certain persons whom they would most probably destroy. The next

most obnoxious sentence--more obnoxious to my feelings, because

calculated to misrepresent the real sentiments of my soul--is that

which recommends to give no quarter to those who fought against

their native country [unless they should speedily join the Standard

of Freedom]. With this latter part of the sentence I found two

faults, and therefore drew my pen over it as above. The first fault

was that the word 'speedily' was too vague and might encourage the

sanguinary immediately to deny quarter, which was the very thing

the whole sentence was intended to discountenance and prevent--the

next fault was that it required more than ever should be required

of any human being, namely, to fight against his opinions from

fear. The sentence was intended to prevent the horrid measure of

refusing quarter from being adopted: by appearing to acquiesce in

it at some future period, when the inhuman thirst for it should

no longer exist. But as the sentence now stands in two parts of

the sheet it would appear as if I sought to enforce the measure I

most abhor. To prevent it was, in fact, one of my leading motives

for writing the address: but I had also three others that are

expressed on the piece or pieces of paper, which made part of the

writing, but which, tho' laid all together in the same desk, have

disappeared.

The three objects alluded to are these, the protection of property,

preventing the indulgence of _revenge_, and the strict forbiddal

of injuring any person for religious differences.

I know it is said that I call on the people to take _vengeance_

on their oppressors, and enumerate some of their oppressions. But

this is the very thing that enables me to point out the difference

between _private revenge_ and _public vengeance_. The former has

only a retrospective and malignant propensity, while the latter,

though animated by the recollection of the past, has ever only in

view the removal of the evil and of the possibility of occurrence.

Thus the assassin _revenges_ himself; but the patriot avenges

his country of it's enemies, by overthrowing them, and depriving

them of all power again to hurt it: In the struggle some of their

lives may fall, but these were not the objects of his vengeance.

In short, even the Deity is said in this sense to be an _avenging_

Being; but who deems him _revengeful_? Adieu, my dear sir. Let me

entreat you, whenever an opportunity shall occur, that you will

justify my principles on these points. Believe me your sincere

friend,

JOHN SHEARES.

Newgate: 12 o'clock at night, July 13.[706]

The Proclamation which brought John Sheares to the scaffold (Henry had

no part in it, and died, so far, innocent) ended with these words:--

Vengeance, Irishmen, vengeance on your oppressors! Remember

that thousands of your dearest friends have perished by their

merciless orders! Remember their burnings--their rackings--their

torturings--their military massacres, and their legal murders.

Remember Orr!

These declamatory words of a young barrister and amateur tragedian, who

probably had no serious design of going red-handed into revolution,

were by no means confined to _his_ mouth. In the Appendix will be found

some account of William Orr. Meanwhile, the late Henry Grattan, son of

the greater Grattan, writes:--

'Remember Orr!' were words written everywhere--pronounced

everywhere. I recollect, when a child, to have read them on the

walls--to have heard them spoken by the people. Fortunately I did

not comprehend their meaning. The conduct of the Irish Government

was so reprobated, that at a public dinner in London, given in

honor of Mr. Fox's birthday, in one of the rooms where the Duke of

Norfolk, Lord Oxford, Mr. Erskine, Sir Francis Burdett, and Horne

Tooke sat, two of the toasts were,--'The memory of Orr--basely

M--D--D. May the execution of Orr provide places for the Cabinet of

St. James's at the Castle!'

The fate of the Sheareses was soon forgotten, but occasionally a

pilgrim in thoughtful mood wended his way to their last resting place.

William Henry Curran sent to the 'New Monthly Magazine,' in 1822,

an account of St. Michan's crypt, Church Street, Dublin. This vault

possesses the rare virtue of preserving human remains.[707] He was

struck on entering to find that decay had been more busy with the

tenement than the tenant:--

In some instances the coffins had altogether disappeared; in others

the lids or sides had mouldered away, exposing the remains within,

still unsubdued by death from their original form.... I had been

told that they (the Sheares) were here, and the moment the light

of the taper fell upon the spot they occupy, I quickly recognised

them by one or two circumstances that forcibly recalled the close

of their career--the headless trunks and the remains of their

coarse, unadorned penal shells. Henry's head was lying beside his

brother; John's had not been completely detached by the blow of

the executioner--one of the ligaments of the neck still connects

it with the body. I knew nothing of these victims of ill-timed

enthusiasm except from historical report; but the companion of my

visit to their grave had been their cotemporary and friend, and

he paid their memories the tribute of some sighs, which, even at

this distance of time, it would not be prudent to heave in a less

privileged place.

The late Richard Dalton Webb, when a boy, also went to see these

reliques. With a penknife he severed the ligament mentioned by Curran,

and carried away the head to his own home, where it remained twenty

years. He finally regretted having taken it, and offered it to Dr.

Madden, at whose door the gruesome relic duly arrived.

The head was finely formed [he writes], but the expression of the

face was that of the most frightful agony. The mark of very violent

injuries, done during life to the right eye, nose, and mouth, were

particularly apparent; the very indentation round the neck, from

the pressure of the rope, was visible; and there was no injury to

the cervical vertebræ occasioned by any instrument.

These horrible marks were doubtless caused by the brutal and bungling

way in which the executioner had done his work. Madden, in good

taste, restored to the shrunken trunk its long-lost head. When John

Sheares, in his last letter, spoke of 'an affectionate tear shed over

his dust,' he little foresaw the grim irony by which the words of the

Burial Service--'Dust to dust, ashes to ashes'--were to be thwarted. He

never married. Roche, in his 'Essays of an Octogenarian,' says that,

happening to occupy the rooms in Dublin where John Sheares had once

lived, he discovered, in a recess, a package of his letters, which, on

finding them addressed to a lady, he instantly burned. Rich material

for romance was thus, happily, lost.

John Sheares's last letter to his sister makes feeling reference to

his natural daughter Louise, then aged seven years. Julia Sheares gave

from her pinched resources what served to educate this girl. Louise

married a Mr. Coghlan, but, owing to his loose habits, left him. John's

dramatic dash descended to his child. She became a popular actress, and

was known on the London stage as 'Miss White.' Here the gentle histrion

went through many struggles, and was pursued by much adulation. But

panting--like Goldsmith's hare--to the spot from whence at first she

flew, Louise returned to Ireland, and died there in 1828.

Whilst the parchment features of the Sheareses grinned in agonised

expression, and their orphans shivered in the storms of a cold,

neglectful world,[708] John Warneford Armstrong battened on his

blood-money, and posed as a prosperous and popular man. Lord Cork's

damaging account of his antecedents in the letter which remained near

a century sealed will be remembered. The magisterial bench hailed his

adhesion; he took a leading place on the grand jury of his county;

Burke's 'Landed Gentry' enrolled him in its ranks.

In 1843 the name of Captain Armstrong again came before the public, in

connection with the prosecution of his servant, Egan, for stealing,

among other effects, a gold medal in commemoration of his discoveries

in 1798. The late F. Thorpe Porter, from whose lips I had the following

anecdote, was on the bench with Sir Nicholas FitzSimon as police

magistrate, when the latter, recognising through a glass door the

well-known figure of Armstrong approaching, said: 'Here is Sheares'

Armstrong; I don't care to meet him,' and retired into a private room.

FitzSimon, as former member for the King's County in which Armstrong

lived, had been in pleasant touch with him, and often chuckled at his

quaint conceits. Armstrong with his accustomed swagger took his seat,

uninvited, on the bench. Mr. Porter said that he had not the honour of

his acquaintance, and requested him to withdraw. 'I always had this

privilege from Major Sirr,' replied Armstrong, unabashed; 'and I am a

magistrate for the King's County.' 'This not being the King's County,'

retorted Porter, 'I must only repeat my request. If you continue to sit

here people in court might suppose that you were--what I should much

regret--a friend of mine.'

Sir Thomas Redington, the Under-Secretary, informed Mr. Porter that

Armstrong had reported to the Government the words of which he

complained, but that it was decided to take no action in the matter.

Soon after a case came on for hearing before the judicial Chairman

of the King's County, to whom the Clerk of the Peace, speaking in a

half-whisper, said: 'Sheares' Armstrong' (a nickname by which he was

well known) 'has some testimony to offer which it might be well for

you to hear.' This was done, and the chairman, in summing up, said:

'I now come to the evidence of Mr. _Sheares_ Armstrong'--and he

then proceeded to observe upon it, innocently using--over and over

again--the stigmatising nickname, to the amusement of the audience

and the agony of Armstrong. All was not _couleur de rose_ with this

prosperous person. 'The Attornies Guide,' a local satire, published

at Dublin in 1807, and written by the Rev. Richard Frizell, rector of

Ilfracombe, notices as a judgment, a fact which can be regarded merely

as a coincidence: 'Shortly after he gave his ever-memorable evidence

on the trial of these unfortunate gentlemen--the Sheareses--he was

afflicted with a fistula in the face, which rendered him as remarkable

an object as Cain is supposed to have been after the murder of his

brother.' Frizell finally exclaims (p. 42):--

Unhappy Sheares--an Armstrong thus caressed

Thy infant, hanging at its mother's breast;

Friendship pretending, revelled at thy board,

While round your neck he tied the fatal cord!

Stings like these must have severely tried his patience. His temper

was of as hair-trigger a character as the pistols which he carried for

protection. Robert Maunsell, a leading solicitor, of whom Armstrong

was a client, informed me that the captain, on one occasion, when

entertained by Mrs. Maunsell in Merrion Square, smashed, by an awkward

swinging gesture, the leg of the chair on which he sat, whereupon his

exclamation was not a gallant apology, but--'D---- n your chairs,

madam!' This, Maunsell said, was intoned with a nasal twang--the

penalty paid for the _lupus_--which ate into his beauty fifty years

before.

To earn 500_l._ a year Armstrong must have done something more than

merely to ensnare the Sheareses, although hitherto he has been

credited with that exploit alone. William Lawless was Professor of

Physiology at the College of Surgeons, Dublin, a man of mark, and very

highly connected. Immediately after his interview with Armstrong at

Sheares's house we find a warrant issued for his arrest, and it was

not Armstrong's fault if he failed to meet the fate of the brothers.

A timely hint from Surgeon-general Stewart put Lawless on the alert.

By hair-breadth escapes he eluded his pursuers, and at last reached

France, where he became a distinguished general under Napoleon.

Armstrong, when stealing on the Sheareses, sought to kill another

bird with the same stone. He was clearly making notes for the ruin of

Lawless as well, and mentioned on Sheares's trial, among other remarks

alleged to have been made by Lawless, that the trees near the Royal

camp would come handy in suspending prisoners captured by the rebel

force. Lawless had luckily escaped at this time, but at once wrote

indignantly denying that he had ever made so horrible a suggestion.

Previous to his flight he had resided in French Street, Dublin, whither

Major Sirr proceeded with a warrant both for his arrest and that of

John Sheares, who had been in daily conference with him. While Sirr was

engaged in searching Lawless's house a knock came to the door, Sheares

entered, and Sirr at once said, 'You are my prisoner.'

Lawless had seen Lord Edward constantly during the period of his

concealment; but Armstrong knew nothing of the chieftain's movements,

and, of course, had no hand in his betrayal, though some infer to

the contrary from a passing remark made by Mr. Froude.[709] But he

qualified for his pension by a general vigilance and activity in

support of that red system and policy which John Sheares's proclamation

brands. Armstrong having been questioned by Curran as to three peasants

which he had taken prisoners in '98, he replied: 'We were going up

Blackmore Hill, under Sir James Duff; there was a party of rebels

there. We met three men with green cockades. One we shot, another we

hanged, and the third we flogged and made a guide of.'[710]

The murder of a little child by a yeoman named Woolagan excited, even

in those days, a feeling of abhorrence, and Plowden, in his 'History

of Ireland,' notices Woolagan's acquittal by the court-martial which

tried him, but does not cite the evidence. This we find in the 'Dublin

Magazine' for October 1798. There it will be seen that the murderer

threw the onus on the general orders issued by Captain Armstrong.

Phillips and Curran, who have written of that man, do not appear to

have read this trial. The crime was proved and not denied, yet Woolagan

was acquitted. But the Viceroy, Lord Cornwallis, condemned the verdict,

and disqualified the president of the court-martial, Lord Enniskillen,

from again presiding in that capacity.

Captain Armstrong, though hot-tempered, was capable of generous acts,

and his redeeming points must not be ignored. He was a bad hater, a

good laugher. Affable to all, he frequently went out of his way to

be civil; and with him sweet words had more than their proverbial

value. In days when landlordism reigned with iron sceptre, he showed

indulgence to his tenantry; but when giving leases, or using his

influence with higher lords of the soil for that end, he cunningly

got his own life inserted as a beneficial interest to the tenants.

Thus in the hot-bed of Ribbonism he gloried to the end in a sort of

charmed life. He survived until April 20, 1858, when he died at Clara,

in the King's County, after having drawn from Dublin Castle 500_l._ a

year, or about 29,464_l._ Castlereagh, who had urged him to his work,

recommended him for a pension, and predeceased him by nearly forty

years, might have deemed this sum excessive had he lived to see it paid.

Seeking to disarm prejudice and cultivate rural friendship, Armstrong

maintained cordial relations with the peasantry. He would enter their

cabins, sit with rude hosts, and converse with their wives on various

domestic points solely of interest to themselves. We must suppose that,

consistently with his later utterance, their children attracted from

him no moving manifestation of regard. His long life had one decided

advantage. It is stated that he lived down every political enemy

and contemporary, becoming in the end downright popular. His face,

familiar from childhood even to old men, became at last endeared to

early memories, and his neighbour, Captain Fuller, who attended his

funeral, testifies to the almost incredible fact that he saw some

well-known Ribbonmen, who were present, weep, and horny hands upraised

which, in the hot blood of youth, had dispensed 'the wild justice of

revenge.'[711]

FOOTNOTES:

[692] The fact that Mr. Lecky, when noticing the Sheares, tells his

readers to 'see a curious anecdote about them' in a former book of

mine, affords in itself an excuse for now offering something new. Vide

_England in the Eighteenth Century_, viii. 191.

[693] Ridgeway's _Report of the Trial of the Sheares_, p. 129.

[694] The will of Sheares senior lends no support to this often

repeated statement; but he commits his children to the care of Lord

Shannon, a relative of their mother. This peer had been created, in

1786, Baron Carleton in the peerage of England, and hence the confusion.

[695] _Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation_, p. 365. (Paris, 1833.)

[696] She did not long survive the great shock, but a prolonged

purgatory was reserved for Henry's widow. She never raised her head,

loved to occupy a darkened room, and always spent in fasting and prayer

the anniversary of his death. Like her husband she was a Protestant.

[697] Brutal and bungling as all this was, it would appear that, from

the first, it was designed that a cruel butchery should desecrate their

death. The original warrant for their execution orders that:--

'They, and each of them, be hanged by the neck--but not until they be

dead--for whilst they are yet alive, they are to be taken down--their

entrails are to be taken out of their bodies, and, whilst they are yet

alive, to be burned before their faces; their heads are then to be

respectively cut off; their bodies to be divided into four quarters,

and their heads and bodies to be at His Majesty's disposal.'

The above death warrant, with written directions from Mr. Cooke, as

to the troops to attend at the scaffold, is addressed to Alderman

Archer, High Sheriff for Dublin in 1798, and is now preserved by his

grandnephew, Rev. Thomas Gray, M.A., F.T.C.D.

[698] The Society of United Irishmen.

[699] Most writers on the period, in noticing the anomaly that in

England two witnesses were necessary in cases of treason, but in

Ireland only one, assume that this law continues in force. The law as

regards two witnesses dates from the reign of Edward III. It received

strengthening touches by the 7 & 8 Will. III. cap. 3. But in 1822 it

was extended to Ireland (1 & 2 Geo. IV. cap. 24); and editors of Haydn

might note this fact.

[700] General Edward Boyle, eighth Earl of Cork, survived until June

29, 1856, and was the last surviving peer who had sat in the Irish and

in the English House of Lords.

[701] See notice of the duel, p. 177, _ante_.

[702] 'Anonymous letters are flying. _My friend_ got two this week

threatening death and destruction if he exerted himself on the

approaching trials.' 'My friend' is the 'cipher' by which McNally

always means himself.--J. W. to Cooke, July 10, 1798. (MSS. Dublin

Castle.)

[703] The late Lord Ross, a friend of Armstrong's, to Rev. Thomas Gray,

M.A., F.T.C.D., who has communicated it to W. J. F.

[704] The late Dr. Ireland, a nonagenarian, who had filled official

posts in Dublin Castle, knew Flemyng, to whom Dr. Dobbin's letter is

addressed. Flemyng had been in the East India Company's service, but

joined the United Irishmen during leave of absence from Bengal, in

which place he had known Lord Cornwallis, its then Governor-General,

but later Viceroy of Ireland. 'Flemyng,' says Dr. Ireland, 'attained

popularity for having, with his own arm, killed the largest boar seen

in India, an animal which had often ripped open horses and oxen. One

night, at Dublin, the Viceroy sent for Flemyng and surprised him by

saying that all that had passed between him and the Sheares was known

to the Privy Council. The Lord Lieutenant, then placing his arm on

Flemyng's shoulder, said: "Let not another day elapse, or not all my

influence can save you from the gallows. Start for India at once; those

fellows at Ghazapore must be put down; you are just the man to do it.

You will be gazetted to your company ere you reach Bombay." Flemyng

went to India, did the work, rose, and died rich. In 1805 he again met

Lord Cornwallis, on his arrival in India charged with the re-assumption

of its reins of government; with gratitude he acknowledged the

timely service he had rendered him in 1798. Death was written in the

face of Lord Cornwallis as he landed at Calcutta: India, the grave

of Europeans, folded him to its embrace, and a few weeks later the

soldier-statesman was no more.'--Richard Stanley Ireland, M.D., to W.

J. F. This aged physician died on March 13, 1875.

[705] The word 'possible' was written here, but afterwards crossed out.

[706] The above letter of John Sheares, enclosed in Dr. Dobbin's

communication, has, I find, been printed by Dr. Madden; but, on

comparing the original document with the printed copy, no fewer than

thirteen discrepancies are detected.

[707] The soil and walls of the crypt being a compound of argillaceous

earth and carbonate of lime, a singularly antiseptic character is thus

imparted to these vaults.

[708] In 1860, a daughter of Henry Sheares, then seventy-two years of

age, was an occupant of an almshouse in Cork.

[709] Froude, iii. 341.

[710] _The Trial of the Sheareses_, reported by Ridgeway, p. 129.

[711] The late Sir Robert Peel.

APPENDIX

_LORD DOWNSHIRE'S MYSTERIOUS VISITOR_

(_Vide_ p. 8, _ante_.)

The following is a _résumé_ of some earlier evidence which had

convinced me that the informer whose name Mr. Froude says is

still wrapped in mystery[712] could be only Samuel Turner, LL.D.,

barrister-at-law.

Speaking of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Mr. Froude says: 'His meeting with

Hoche on the Swiss frontier was known only to very few persons. Hoche

himself had not revealed it even to Tone.'

But Turner knew a vast deal about the arrangements with Hoche. An

intercepted letter addressed by Reinhard, the French Minister at

Hamburg, to De la Croix, and written on July 12, 1797, may be found in

the 'Correspondence of Lord Castlereagh,' and assigned by mistake to

the year 1798. In this letter Reinhard tells De la Croix that he sent

Turner to General Hoche. From Hoche[713] himself Turner most likely

learned of the secret interview between Lord Edward and the French

general.

But what proof have we that Lord Downshire's muffled visitor had had

himself an interview with Hoche?

Mr. Froude at some pages distant from the part where he refers to Lord

Edward's meeting with Hoche, when recurring to Downshire's visitor,

whose identity was 'kept a secret even from the Cabinet,' states, from

knowledge acquired after reading the spy's secret letters, 'He had

actually conferred with Hoche and De la Croix.'

The intercepted letter in the 'Castlereagh Papers' refers at much

length to the proceedings of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, MacNevin, and

Turner; but Turner in this letter is called _Furnes_. The general

index to that work states[714] that Furnes is an alias for Samuel

Turner; and further he is described as 'an Irish rebel.' Had the noble

editor supposed that Turner was a spy in the pay of the Crown, this

letter would doubtless have been suppressed in common with others

which Dr. Madden misses. Lord Londonderry brought out his brother's

correspondence in 1848, during the 'Young Ireland' agitation, and was

careful to let few secrets appear.

'He had accompanied the Northern delegacy to Dublin,' proceeds Mr.

Froude, 'and had been present at the discussion of the propriety of an

immediate insurrection.'

John Hughes, of Belfast, an officer in the Society of the United

Irishmen, was arrested immediately after Turner opened communication

with Downshire, and while in gaol turned King's evidence. From the

sworn testimony of John Hughes we learn that, in June 1797, he was

summoned by Lowry and Teeling to attend a meeting in Dublin of

delegates from the different provinces of Ireland, in order to receive

a return of the strength of the United Irishmen. Whilst he was in

Dublin, in June 1797, Teeling invited him to meet some friends at his

lodgings, including Tony McCann of Dundalk, _Mr.[715] Samuel Turner_,

John and Patrick Byrne, Lowry, Dr. MacNevin, and others.[716] The

leaders differed as to the expediency of an immediate rising. 'He met

the above mentioned persons at several other times in Dublin, in June

1797.'[717]

'The Northern delegate had been present at the discussion of the

propriety of an immediate insurrection. The cowardice or the prudence

of the Dublin faction had disgusted him,' writes Mr. Froude.

The Northern leader who was disgusted with the prudence of the Papist

conspirators in Dublin must have been Turner. In the 'Castlereagh

Papers' is a letter of Reinhard, the French Minister, stating, on

the authority of Turner, 'that it was of dilatoriness and indecision

several members of the Committee were accused; that the Northern

province, feeling its oppression and its strength, was impatient to

break forth.'[718]

Reinhard adds, what will surprise many regarding Lord Edward: 'Macnevin

and Lord Fitzgerald are of the moderate party. Furness [Turner] is for

a speedy explosion, and it is some imprudences into which his ardent

character hurried him that obliged him to leave the country, whereas

the conduct of Macnevin has been circumspect.'[719]

Among the men whom Hughes swears he met in June 1797, with the Northern

delegates in Dublin, were _Turner_, Teeling, MacCann, John Byrne [Union

Lodge, Dundalk], Dr. Macnevin, Colonel Plunket,[720] and Andrew Comyn

of Galway. These men--Turner excepted--were all Roman Catholics; so

were John Keogh, Braughall, MacCormick, and other influential Dublin

leaders--whose names do not appear. Tone was abroad. Downshire's

visitor speaks of the men he met in Dublin as 'Papists' whose prudence

and cowardice disgusted him, and he came to the conclusion that the two

parties could not amalgamate.

Mr. Froude, again describing Downshire's visitor, writes: 'He had seen

Talleyrand and talked with him at length on the condition of Ireland.'

The 'Castlereagh Papers' contain a remarkable letter, headed 'Secret

Intelligence,' and describing very fully an interview with Talleyrand

in reference to an invasion of Ireland. On the third page of his letter

the spy writes: 'Enclosure containing the cyphers _I sent to the

Marquis of Downshire_.'[721]

To this letter I must again return.

Mr. Froude states that Downshire's visitor had discovered one of the

objects of the Papists to be a seizure of property, and had determined

to separate himself from the conspiracy.

Turner belonged to a family of Cromwellian settlers. This we learn from

Prendergast's 'Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland,' p. 417. The letter

(quoted above), printed in the Castlereagh Papers, and acknowledging

to have spied for Lord Downshire, mentions that the writer's 'most

particular friends' were men 'who feared in a Revolution the loss of

their property, especially such as held their estates by grants of

Oliver Cromwell.'[722]

Mr. Froude says that when the mysterious visitor threw back his

disguise Downshire recognised in him the son of a gentleman of good

fortune in the North of Ireland. Lord Downshire is part proprietor

of Newry, where Turner lived, and Hill Street, Newry, is named after

the Downshires, just as Turner's Hill, Newry, is called after the

Turners.[723]

It may be added that Jacob Turner, of Turner Hill, in the county

of Armagh, esquire, by his will, dated April 27, 1803, acquits and

discharges his son 'Samuel from a judgment debt obtained by me against

him for 1,500_l._'[724]

'"The person" had been a member of the Ulster Revolutionary Committee,'

writes Mr. Froude. This Turner admittedly was.

'He had _fled_ with others,' he tells Lord Downshire when describing

how he came to leave Ireland and settle at Hamburg.

James Hope, in his narrative supplied to Dr. Madden in 1846, when

noticing Turner, writes, 'He _fled_ and settled in Hamburg, where he

was entrusted by the Directory with carrying on the correspondence

between the Irish and French Executives.'[725]

Mr. Froude says that the mysterious man was intimate with all the

United Irish refugees at Hamburg, received instructions from the

Home Office to open a correspondence with rebel leaders, and had the

_entrée_ to the house of Lady Edward Fitzgerald.

No wonder that Lord Downshire's friend should command these exceptional

facilities for spying when we know, on the authority of James Hope, a

veteran rebel of Ulster, that Samuel Turner was the accredited agent at

Hamburg of the 'United Irishmen.'[726]

Mr. Froude tells us that he revealed such evidence of his power to be

useful--at Hamburg--that Pitt was extremely anxious to secure his help.

As Turner is shown by Hope to have been the authorised agent of the

'United Irishmen' at Hamburg, the reason becomes clear why Pitt was so

anxious to secure a man who had access at that place to all the secrets

of his party.

'An arrangement was concluded,' writes Mr. Froude. 'He continued at

Hamburg, as Lady Edward's guest and most trusted friend, saw every one

who came to her house, kept watch over her letter-bag, was admitted to

close and secret conversations upon the prospect of French interference

in Ireland with Reinhard,[727] the Minister of the Directory there, and

he regularly kept Lord Downshire informed of everything which would

enable Pitt to watch the conspiracy.'

The first volume of Castlereagh should here be opened. At pp. 277-286

will be found three intercepted letters, addressed by Reinhard at

Hamburg to De la Croix, revealing minute particulars regarding the

United Irish envoys, and bearing testimony to the zealous help rendered

to the conspiracy by Turner.

'I showed Reinhard Lowry's letter,' quotes Mr. Froude.

Turner and Lowry were old allies in Ireland, and had no secrets between

them. The sworn information of John Hughes mentions that he saw Lowry,

Turner, and Teeling engaged on a committee for conducting the defence

of United Irishmen at the Antrim and Down Assizes in February, 1797.

Mr. Froude tells us that the spy who hurried to London and sought

Lord Downshire was able to describe an important letter which was on

the point of going over from Barclay Teeling in France to Arthur

O'Connor.[728] Great confidence must have been reposed by Teeling in

the man who could tell all this; and such confidence could be earned

only by old intimacy and association. What proof is there that early

intimacy existed in Ireland between Barclay Teeling and Samuel Turner?

The correspondence of Major Sirr, the Fouché of Dublin, with minor

spies, is preserved in Trinity College, Dublin. These papers contain

an information in which Dr. Conlan of Dundalk denounces, as deep in

the conspiracy, Samuel Turner, Barclay Teeling, Lowry, and Byrne. He

describes some hair-breadth escapes of Barclay Teeling, Turner, and

Lowry, and how they spent one night in a barn near Dundalk. Conlan had

been a United Irishman, who finally brought to the gibbet his cousin

Hoey and Marmion[729] of Dundalk.

After the betrayer had hurried from Hamburg to London to sell his

secrets to Pitt, and then as suddenly disappeared, 'he wrote to Lord

Downshire,' observes Mr. Froude, 'saying that he had returned to his

old quarters, for fear he might be falling into a trap.'

In fact, as Mr. Froude shows, he was in mortal terror of the assassin's

knife. Conlan's sworn information, describing the previous doings of

Teeling and Turner in Ireland, mentions how Teeling, Corcoran, and

Byrne had a password for putting informers out of the way. Whenever one

was detected he was sent to some United Irishman with the password,

'Do you know Ormond Steel?' 'But,' adds Conlan--laying 'the flattering

unction to his soul'--'there never was occasion for this.'[730]

Turner's treachery was of enormous magnitude, and most momentous in

its results. Once a man of indomitable courage, conscience made him an

arrant coward in the end.

'I feared,' writes the betrayer to Lord Downshire, 'lest Government

might not choose to ratify our contract, and, being in their power,

would give me my choice either to come forward as evidence or suffer

martyrdom myself. Having no taste for an exit of this kind, I set out

and arrived here safe.'[731]

His dread of 'Ormond Steel' is further proved by Portland's words in

reply to the Viceroy Camden, who vainly begged that he might come over

to Dublin--'he is convinced he would go to utter destruction.'[732]

Speaking of Napper Tandy, Mr. Froude says of the veiled informer that

he 'had been naturally intimate with the other Irish refugees.'[733]

Tandy, in the chapter devoted to him, tells how he and three other

Irish refugees had been invited at Hamburg by 'T.' to sup, and were

betrayed. Watty Cox, a sound authority on such points, broadly states

in the 'Irish Magazine' for January 1809, p. 34, that Tandy and his

comrades were 'betrayed by TURNER.'

'He had come to England to sell his knowledge to Pitt,' says Mr. Froude.

It will be seen that the price paid to _Samuel Turner_ is officially

reported in Dublin Castle. For centuries it had been the custom for

England to charge her Pension List on the Irish Establishment. Irish

spies and informers are generally of a low type. Reynolds--perhaps

the most important of them--could not spell, as his letters, placed

in our hands by Sir W. Cope, show. The same remark applies to the

correspondence of other informers printed by Dr. Madden. The letters

of Mr. Froude's spy are those of an educated man, and show that

he corresponded and conversed in French. Samuel Turner was well

qualified for all this and more, having graduated in the University of

Dublin.[734]

These are but a few of the reasons which satisfied me that the betrayer

described by Mr. Froude was SAMUEL TURNER. I arrived at my conclusions

slowly--according as certain facts, 'far between,' presented themselves

in the field of research. But the reader, if he cares to trace the

career of this man, and does not object to meet a repetition or two,

will find an array of circumstantial evidence amounting to moral

demonstration. It may be added that documental proof finally came to

crown these researches.

_GENERAL NAPPER TANDY_

(See chap. viii. _ante_.)

The late Mr. Allingham, of Ballyshannon--father of William Allingham

the poet--in one of his last letters, dated April 25, 1866, recalls a

strange incident. 'Should you treat of the stirring period of 1798,'

he writes, 'perhaps the following little fact may be acceptable. Some

forty years ago I chanced to be on a visit at the hospitable residence

of the late N. Foster, Esq., in the Rosses;[735] he told me of J.

Napper Tandy having put in to the Rosses, in the year 1798, with a

French ship of war, the "Anacréon," and how he at once hoisted an

Irish flag emblazoned with the words "Erin go Bragh." Tandy was then

a general in the French service. He had with him, for distribution, a

sheaf of proclamations, addressed to the Irish nation; they had been

printed in France, and he left several copies at Mr. Foster's. I got

Miss Grace Foster to take an exact copy of the strange document, and

which now I send you.

'The French General Rey also had a grandiloquent proclamation with him,

beginning "The soldiers of the Great Nation have landed on your coast,

well supplied with arms and ammunition of all kinds, with artillery

worked by those who have spread terror amongst the ranks of the best

troops in Europe, headed by French officers; they come to break your

fetters, and restore you to the blessings of liberty. James Napper

Tandy is at their head; he has sworn to lead them on to victory or die.

Brave Irishmen! the friends of liberty have left their native soil to

assist you in re-conquering [_sic_] your rights; they will brave all

dangers, and glory at the sublime idea of cementing your happiness with

their blood."[736]

'Napper Tandy had a large number of saddles and cavalry appointments

on board the French ship of war, but he could not procure any horses

in the Rosses. So Mrs. Foster said to him, "I fear, General, you will

not be able to put the saddle on the right horse!" N. Tandy asked

Mr. Foster: "What news?" to which Foster replied that a part of the

French troops had landed at Killala, and, after winning the battle of

Castlebar, had been finally compelled, near Longford, to capitulate

to Lord Cornwallis. Napper Tandy seemed to doubt this intelligence,

and proceeded to take forcible possession of the Rutland post-office,

which was kept by Mr. Foster's sister. He opened the newspapers,

and, to his dismay, found that all was over with the expedition.

His descent on Rutland took place September 16, 1798. Tandy, when

embarking from the Island for France, wrote an official letter, signed

and sealed, with a view to exonerate Foster from blame for not having

despatched his mail-bags. Tandy testified that, being in temporary

want of accommodation, he was obliged to put "citizen Foster under

requisition," and place sentinels around the island. He and his

officers paid for everything they took, including two pigs and a cow.

General Rey, when leaving, removed a gold ring from his finger and

presented it to Mrs. Foster, as a token of fraternity. Tandy not only

discharged every obligation, but discharged a cannon as a farewell

note. Foster was a staunch loyalist, and ere the "Anacréon" was under

way he despatched two expresses, one to Letterkenny, in hopes that the

Lough Swilly fleet would intercept them. This was not so easy, for

Tandy told Foster they had met several English cruisers _en route_, but

had outsailed them all. The "Anacréon" was equally successful on its

return voyage, captured two English ships near the Orkneys, after a

stiff engagement, and at last landed Tandy and his A.D.C.s in Norway.'

A copy of Tandy's letter, deliberately penned when leaving Rutland,

appears in the appendix to Musgrave's 'Rebellion,' and seems not quite

consistent with the statement in the Castlereagh Papers that he got

so drunk on the island he had to be carried to the ship.[737] But his

grief was so poignant on finding his dearest hopes frustrated that it

would not be unnatural, in days when hard drinking was the fashion,

if the amateur French general had recourse to _eau-de-vie_. How he

was arrested on neutral territory, contrary to the law of nations,

subjected to cruel suffering, and sentenced to death, a previous

chapter tells.

Fuller inquiry into the career of this quondam merchant of Dublin

finds it curiously interwoven with the history of Europe and his

fate influential in its affairs. In 1793 Holland was the scene of

disaster to the Duke of York; and his second campaign to that country

in 1799 ended in a disadvantageous capitulation. Previously he had sent

General Don into the interior of Holland to foment among the natives

an insurrection against French rule. Don was seized as a spy and

threatened with death for seeking to corrupt an enemy which England had

failed to conquer in the field.[738] He was, however, safely restored

during the negotiations of 1799, and Plowden makes the statement,

as one generally believed, that in the Helder convention there was

a secret article for restoring to liberty Tandy and Blackwell, in

return for the delivery of Don, who, by the laws of war, had incurred

the penalty of death. The Paris journals of October 1799 said that

the Duke's capitulation contains some private articles which his

Royal Highness did not wish to submit to the consideration of the

coffee-houses in London.

Prolonged delay attended the liberation of Tandy. Brune bitterly

complained of it in the Council of Five Hundred; and then it was that

Buonaparte branded, as an attack upon the rights of nations and a crime

against humanity, the surrender, by Hamburg to England, of Tandy,

Blackwell, Morres, and Corbet.

The painful details already given as regards the severity of their

imprisonment it is pleasant to relieve by some notice of the conduct of

one official who, superior in gentlemanly instinct to others of higher

rank, treated Tandy and his companions with a courteous consideration

most acceptable to men whose hearts ached from recent persecution. This

letter--unknown to Mr. Ross, the editor of the 'Cornwallis Papers'--was

addressed, we believe, to a near kinsman of that writer.

_To Mr. Ross, the King's Messenger._

'Dublin: November 18, 1799--_in prison_.

'Sir,--We find ourselves at a loss to know how we best can express

our acknowledgments for the very polite, gentlemanly, and philosophic

manner in which you have uniformly behaved towards us, ever since

the period of our first getting under your care at Sheerness, during

our subsequent stay in London, upon the whole of our journey through

England, and until our arrival here; a conduct the peculiar inheritance

of a man of sense, education, and honour; and which, upon all

occasions in life, must leave with the feeling mind a pleasing and

everlasting impression.

'All that we, sir, on our parts, can offer (and request your acceptance

of as a just tribute to your merit) is our sincerest wishes for your

happiness and future welfare--and to all of our fellow-citizens whom

the casualties of the day may hereafter chance to place in similar

circumstances with us, we wish from our hearts the superior good

fortune of falling into the hands of an officer who, knowing his duty

like Mr. Ross, like him also executes it in a manner that honours

humanity--an idea, that, with us, while drawing a comparison between

such-like conduct as we now speak of, and that which we but very

recently experienced in a foreign country, restores to its pristine,

but nearly lost worth, in our minds, the invaluable weight of social

law, and of all generous and liberal-minded converse betwixt man and

man.'

The following signatures are affixed:

'JAMES NAPPER TANDY.

COLONEL BLACKWELL.

HARVEY M. MORRES.

GEORGE PETERS.'

The interest which continued to attach to Tandy's memory long after his

death, even in quarters not likely to evince sympathy, is curiously

shown in the following extract from a letter addressed in 1846 by

Robert Shaw Worthington, B.L., to O'Connell, soliciting his patronage

with the Whig Government: 'My Liberal opinions I inherit from my

father, who, strange as it may appear, was Lord Mayor of Dublin in

1795.[739] _His_ liberal opinions did not serve him in those days; he

was a supporter of Catholic Emancipation, and in the year 1809, at a

private dinner-party at the house of Mr. Farrell, Blackhall Street, my

father proposed the memory of Napper Tandy.[740] One of the company

(the perfidious name was Fanning) reported the circumstance next day at

the Castle; my father received a letter from the Chief Secretary (the

present Duke of Wellington) calling upon him to disprove the charge;

but, being unable to do so, he was dismissed from his office of Dublin

Police Magistrate, the salary of which was 500_l._ per annum.'[741]

'O'

The letters of secret information in the 'Castlereagh Papers,' though

assumed by most readers to come from the one source, are divided

between two spies. No successful attempt has been hitherto made to

identify the writers. The result of Dr. Madden's inquiry went no

further than to show that the letters were penned, not by spies of a

low type, but by _gentlemen_ of high standing.[742] It was then that

I sought to draw aside their masks. 'Downshire's friend' (Turner)

was traced more easily than a correspondent of the Home Office,

London, whose initial 'O' is dropped once only by Wickham. The spy

who contrived to accompany General Tandy's staff in the expedition to

Ireland in 1798 has left us a curious account of what passed on board

the 'Anacréon'[743] during their brief visit to Ireland. The perilous

character of his enterprise was quite as striking as Tandy's descent

on Donegal and escape from the English fleet. Wickham confides to

Castlereagh merely the initial letter of this spy's name.[744] The

written statement from 'O' is a curious document, and one which has

been more than once quoted by historians. An old note-book of mine

contains the following:--'I have long and vainly tried to discover

this man; but to Dr. Madden it will be at least satisfactory to know

that "O" can never have taken any prominent part in the councils of

the United Irishmen, and his name, even if discovered, would not be a

familiar one. He can never have been in the Executive Directory, or on

any of the baronial committees. He mentions incidentally that he has

been but once in Ireland for eight years.'

Some readers fancied that the spy 'O' who accompanied Tandy was

O'Herne,[745] O'Finn,[746] Ormby,[747] O'Mealy,[748] O'Hara,[749]

O'Neill,[750]

O'Connor,[751] or O'Keon[752]; my own theory was that 'O' stood for

some man whose name would prove to be Orr. At p. 309, vol. i., of the

'Castlereagh Papers,' in a report of the French fleet preparing to

invade Ireland, a list is given of the Irish agents at Brest: 'Orr,

_who accompanied Murphy_, was still at Paris.[753] Did not seem to like

going.' The letter of 'O,' describing the crew on board the 'Anacréon'

in its expedition to Ireland, mentions 'Murphy ... and myself' (p. 407).

'O,' in his secret letter dated 1798, speaks of having been in Trinity

College, Dublin, nine years before. An 'Orr' graduated as B.A. in

1789, but this proved not much. His letter shows (pp. 406-10) that

he had the confidence both of the French Directory, and of the Irish

envoys in France. Another anonymous letter of secret information from

Paris (Castlereagh, ii. 2-7) is undoubtedly Turner's. He speaks of

Orr and Murphy as together; the first as a 'relation of him that was

hanged,' and 'Murphy as having been lately expelled Dublin College,'

and both, he adds, were applying for passports at Altona (p. 6). John

Murphy made a deposition[754] at Bow Street, dated November 2, 1798,

in which he names _George Orr_ and himself, proceeding to the Hague,

thence to Paris, and afterwards joining Tandy's expedition, when Murphy

became secretary to the General. It is curious to find Turner[755]

and Orr--each ignorant of the treachery of the other--reporting their

movements to the Secretary of State.[756]

'By direction of the Duke of Portland,' writes Wickham to Lord

Castlereagh, 'I send for the information of the Lord Lieutenant the

enclosed extract from some very important communications that have been

made to his Grace by a person of the name of O----.'

In this letter, describing Tandy's descent on Ireland, the relations

between him and the French Directory are minutely detailed, with an

account of the equipment of the expedition, and studies of the officers

on board and their antecedents.[757] It is not unlikely that Orr and

Murphy, especially the latter, had been at first zealous adherents of

the movement headed by Lord Edward and Tone; but that after the death

of these leaders and the consignment of the Rebel Directory to dungeons

they considered their own position as materially changed.

When Buonaparte broke faith with Addis Emmet, and sent his legions to

the Pyramids of Egypt, instead of encamping them among the Round Towers

of Ireland, Orr then sought to fill his purse, and console a baulked

ambition, by extracting gold from Pitt: 'To show how the finances of

France are,' he writes regarding Tandy's expedition, 'and how they

meant to make their Irish friends pay their expenses, three generals

went out on that little expedition; and all the money they could muster

among them was about thirty louis d'or. One of them, to my own certain

knowledge, had but five guineas in all.'[758]

Again, in a subsequent letter, he writes: 'The grand object of the

French is, as they term it themselves, London. _Delenda_ (sic)

_Carthago_ is their particular end; once in England, they think they

would speedily indemnify themselves for all their expenses and recruit

their ruined finances.'[759]

England, unlike France, could pay lavishly, and it would be curious

to know if Orr's increasing facilities for acquiring valuable

information, according as Napoleon's power grew, were acknowledged by

the '5,000_l._, and not more than 20,000_l._ within the year,' which

Wellington in 1808 thought fair fees for the unnamed informer who sent

secret news from France--a man who, it is added, had been paid at this

rate by Pitt.[760]

Orr continued long after to discharge in France the perilous _rôle_ of

a vigilant spy, and, as such, was a small thorn in Napoleon's side. The

Pelham MSS. contain a long letter signed 'G. O.' (33-112, folio 205),

further described in a separate note as 'George Orr,' and beginning--'I

much fear that the French have outgeneraled the British Government

with respect to what is to go forward in the West Indies.' The date

would be about 1802, but it is incorrectly placed with papers of 1807.

This is the only report from Orr preserved by Pelham. With complicated

precautions of secrecy it is addressed 'C. W. F., Esq.', and by this

mysterious official passed on to Pelham for perusal. These initials are

often met in the State Papers, both of England and Ireland; and future

inquirers have a right to know something of the man who played no

unimportant part during an eventful period of our history. 'Cornwallis'

and 'Castlereagh' furnish no note on this point; the 'Gentleman's

Magazine,' that great storehouse of facts, knows him not. At last, in

'Three Thousand Contemporary Public Characters,' published by Whittaker

in 1825, I found the following notice of a career which deserves more

permanent record.

'_SIR CHARLES WILLIAM FLINT_

Was born in Scotland in 1775; and, after having finished his studies

at Edinburgh, was taken, in 1793, by Lord Grenville, into the office

of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In 1796 Lord Grenville

sent him as confidential secretary with Mr. Wickham, then going

minister to Switzerland: with that gentleman Mr. Flint entered into

a close intimacy. He was recalled in 1797, and again employed in the

Foreign Office. Next year the Alien Bill passed, and Lord Grenville

recommended Mr. Flint to the Duke of Portland, as a fit person to put

it in execution; and his Grace, who was then Home Secretary, appointed

him Superintendent of Aliens. In this situation he was very active,

and is said to have rendered essential service to many of the Royalist

emigrants.[761] When Pichegru returned from Cayenne, he confided to

Mr. Flint those plans which, in the end, brought on his destruction.

In 1800 the Duke of Portland granted Mr. Flint leave of absence, and

he was sent as secretary of legation to Mr. Wickham, then envoy to the

allied armies in Germany. After witnessing the campaigns in Bavaria

and Austria, he returned to England, where he was employed until 1802,

and was then sent to the sister kingdom as Under-Secretary of State in

Ireland. He is now [1826] agent, in London, of the Irish Department. In

1812 he received the honour of knighthood.'

It may be added that the Irish 'S. S. Money Book' records a number of

payments in 1803 by Flint to minor informers, including Murphy, the

colleague of George Orr. The Wellington Correspondence makes frequent

reference to Flint; but readers are left without any information as to

who this 'very clever fellow' was--to quote the Duke's own words. (v.,

p. 643).

_ROBERT AND ROGER O'CONNOR_

The unscrupulosity with which spying was practised in the days of 'the

First Gentleman in Europe' is not pleasant to contemplate. I find

Robert O'Connor, nephew of Lord Longueville, betraying his own brother!

Pelham writes to Brigadier-General Coote on May 27, 1797:--

'I have received at different times very important information from

Mr. Robert O'Connor, and indeed he was the first person who gave me

information against his brother.

'I hear that you have excellent spies, and I expect great success from

your exertions.'

General Eyre Coote writes ('Pelham MSS.' July 24, 1797):--

'I enclose you strong information against Roger O'Connor just

received from Robert. It is very curious that one brother should be

so inveterate against the other. I, however, am of opinion that Roger

O'Connor has been the principal in all the treasonable practices in

this part of the country.'

Roger, of whose adventurous feats volumes might be written, was noted

more for backsliding than backbone. Pelham, in a letter to Coote, dated

Phœnix Park, July 25, 1797, says:--

'He [Roger] declares himself to be disposed to give every information,

and to render every service to the King's Government, in his power.'

No circles, however cultured, were untainted by the spy. Dr. Madden

gives a very ugly picture of Sir Jonah Barrington revealing at

Dublin Castle the seditious talk that he heard at Lady Colclough's

dinner-table, and how Grogan, Colclough, and Harvey, men of rank

and fortune, who were present, died on the gallows ere the year

expired.[762]

Mr. Pelham's Papers afford curious glimpses of social life in Ireland

as presented by his correspondents. A priest, who resided near Collon

in the county Louth, is described as having dined at a squire's house

in the neighbourhood,[763] and a paper having fallen out of his pocket,

'curiosity tempted some of the gentlemen to read it. A copy of it

was brought to England by Mr. William Beaufort, son of the Rev. Dr.

Beaufort, rector of Collon, and Mr. Young, his connection, furnished a

copy.' The paper, in point of fact, embodied merely secret tenets of

his religious rule.

_ARTHUR O'CONNOR_

On his way to Fort George prison, in Scotland, O'Connor distributed

some curious lines, which at first passed as an exemplary effusion,

but, on being more closely scanned, they developed rebel sentiments.

O'Connor intended that the lines of the second verse should be read

after the corresponding lines in the first. The first lines of the

two verses constituted the great sentiment which O'Connor liked to

emphasise.

The pomp of courts, and pride of kings,

I prize above all earthly things;

I love my country, but the King

Above all men his praise I sing;

The royal banners are display'd,

And may success the standard aid.

I fain would banish far from hence

The 'Rights of Man' and common sense;

Confusion to his odious reign,

That foe to princes, Thomas Paine!

Defeat and ruin seize the cause

Of France, its liberties, and laws!

_LADY MOIRA AND TODD JONES_

(_Vide_ chap. xii. p. 156.)

An unpublished letter, addressed to John Philpot Curran, though

anonymous, bears internal evidence to show that the writer was Lady

Moira, whose daughter, Selina, had married Lord Granard. In those days

it was not unusual to intercept and read letters at the post-office,

and to this circumstance is doubtless due the great caution with which

the noble writer describes her relations with Todd Jones. He was then

in custody, and Lady Moira's great object was to exculpate him as well

as herself, for 'Cæsar's wife should be above suspicion.' Enough has

been already said to indicate the spy[764] who kept his eye on Moira

House and the movements of Todd Jones.

_To John Philpot Curran, K.C._

'Castle Forbes: August 13, 1803.

'Read, reflect, and do not answer. Time will unfold _the intentions_.

But it is common prudence to watch knaves, who are playing the fool,

and who may not chance to consider that others, from having hearkened

to the precept to be, although "innocent as doves," induced to adopt

somewhat of the "wisdom of the serpent," will scrutinise their

measures. To state the case, Mr. Todd Jones is the son of a physician,

who in the year 1752 I formed the acquaintance of, and attendant

on the family into which I entered by marriage; he was a sensible

well-informed man, and having studied abroad his profession at the same

college with Doctor Aberside, a person known to Lord Huntingdon and me;

as a friend to that medical poet, he became an intimate acquaintance of

mine; and having for thirty years and upwards exercised his Æsculapian

skill with such success as to have recovered me from dangerous fevers,

and also never letting a single patient die in his hands beneath my

roof, he became the intimate friend of the family, and his son was

the companion of _my_ sons in his early youth, and an inmate like to

a relation till my sons went into the world, and since then he has

regarded me with a sort of filial respect and attention, and I have

shown to him the return of maternal kindness and goodwill. However,

his residence for many years past being in England and Wales, has

confined our intercourse to correspondence; now and then a letter from

me in answer to many of his, which, as he excels in letter-writing,

I always received his letters as real sources of amusement, and

of information on the subject they transmitted, which usually had

reference to antiquities.[765] I had not seen him for several years

when he came over a twelvemonth ago, to settle some pecuniary affairs

with Lord Downshire's executors or agents, having sold his estates as

an annuity during his life; and a sum of money, which money was to be

kept for a space of time in his lordship's hands, lest any claim should

be made on the estate. I saw him frequently whilst he was in Dublin,

which was during that space of time that Sir Richard Musgrave and he

quarrelled and at length fought. He left Dublin before I quitted it,

and came here in the first week of last October. He wrote to me lately

from the Lake of Killarney giving me a description of the lake and its

odd traditions, mentioning his return to Dublin in a month, and from

whence he was to return to Wales. I then heard from general report

that he was arrested and in Cork jail, which I imputed to Sir Richard

Musgrave's malice.[766] For as to any treasonable practices, Jones's

indolence as well as his turn of thinking and whimsical pursuits were

a conviction to me that he was neither inclined to be, or capable

of being, a conspirator. However, in the course of last week I was

informed from _Moira House_ that a person, by warrant from the Castle,

had come to search _for a trunk in consequence of their having received

intelligence that Mr. Todd Jones had sent off a trunk directed to me

at Moira House_. My servants were examined, my house and storerooms

explored, but not any such trunk had arrived nor been heard of, and

orders were left that when it did, where it was to be sent to. Some

English letters that were directed to him at my house were conveyed to

Mr. Marsden.[767] They were opened to show their contents. One was from

a Mr. Maddox, who, I think, is married to Lord Craven's sister[768]

(better known by being the daughter of the Margravine); another from

a young man going to India, and not conveying a trace of injury to

him. I wrote to a person who was employed to execute the warrant that

I could not be blind to the affront intended to be cast upon me;

that, if such intimation had been given of a trunk then sent, the

person that communicated the intelligence was able and would certainly

inform by what coach it went, and consequently they might have had it

seized when Mr. Jones was arrested. That time had now sufficiently

elapsed to have had another key made for the trunk and to place in

it whatever papers, &c., _might be reckoned convenient_. That if any

trunk did come, the _lock_ and the hinges should be well examined,

before credible witnesses, before it _went out of my house_; and that

I neither was awed, nor capable of being frightened, by so mean and

paltry a contrivance. Thus they had taken up McCan,[769] but, I find,

have liberated him, and given out that, as he was connected with Mr.

Grattan, it was to get papers of Mr. Grattan's into their hands that he

was arrested for that purpose; now, whether this report is to blacken

the character of the famous ex-senator, or with further views, I do

not decide. In respect to the insult I have met with, it is aimed

against Lord Moira through me. It is, however, to me a much blacker

and more artful attempt against him, in which _high and mighty ones_

were blended when too many cooks spoiled the broth. The former plot,

however, has made me alert, and awakened all my expectations respecting

possible malevolence. But my spirit, like the palm-tree, rises by the

pressure of oppressive indignity. My eyes are so weak that I fear you

will not be able to decipher this hasty scrawl. How absurdly are they

acting! Lady G----[770] does not know that I write this. It is not in

my nature to worry people with disagreeable humours, nor to humiliate

myself by complaints, though I like to guard against probable evils, in

which case I shall, sir, depend upon your aid if it comes to publicity.'

_JAMES TANDY AND McNALLY_

Any person who has read the secret reports furnished by McNally to

Dublin Castle must see that the source from which he drew his more

important knowledge was James Tandy, son of the arch-rebel Napper

Tandy. This information, however, may have been gathered partly during

the unguarded intimacy of friendship. Its accuracy, not less than the

promptitude and opportuneness of each disclosure, led a very shrewd man

to suspect that James Tandy was betraying his party, and not McNally

who picked his brains. In the 'Cornwallis Papers' (iii. 85) is one of

the many secret reports sent by J. W. to Dublin Castle. He probably

chuckled when penning the following allusion to the source from which

he himself mainly derived his knowledge.

'Wright, the surgeon, of Great Ship Street, has had a long conversation

with J. Tandy, in which he [J. T.] urged him to send a paper from

Wright to his father, Napper; and this he did in such a manner as has

created in Wright's mind very strong doubts of his sincerity; indeed,

_he conceives him to be a spy_, and has resolved to avoid all further

conversation with him.'

Dr. Thomas Wright, M.R.I.A., secretary to the United Irishmen, was a

long-headed man, still well remembered in Dublin; but I do not think

that James Tandy--beyond being indiscreetly open-mouthed--can be called

an informer, much less a spy.

James Tandy is found a state prisoner with others after the rebellion,

but this fact in itself is not enough to exculpate him; for Turner

is also found a state prisoner. During his detention he addressed a

letter to the Secretary of State, solemnly declaring that while he

loved Napper Tandy as his father, he abhorred his politics; and he

complains of an oral slander circulated by the Solicitor-General,

afterwards Baron McCleland, that he 'was guilty of high treason, and

to a certainty would be hanged.' I may here remark that the manuscript

list of United Irishmen, furnished by Collins the spy so early as 1793,

includes James Tandy's name. Tandy with thirteen others petitioned

the Viceroy on July 11, 1804, in regard to harsh treatment they had

received when state prisoners, entered into a personal correspondence

with Mr. Secretary Marsden, whom he holds responsible for it, and

threatens to horsewhip him in case he should ever be set at liberty.

James Tandy--though not his companions in durance--was liberated

on bail in September following, and he states in a public letter:

'I obtained my enlargement on condition that I would relinquish my

intention of horsewhipping Mr. Marsden.'[771] This statement, however,

which Plowden quotes as history, must be taken _cum grano_, for

Tandy in his memorial to the Viceroy Bedford says: 'Petitioner was

discharged from prison when in a state of health which allowed no

hopes for his life--a fact which Dr. Richards can testify, as also the

surgeon-general, Mr. Stewart.'[772]

The antecedents of his family earned no gratitude from Government, and

yet we find James Tandy appointed to a lucrative post. Lord Cloncurry

casually mentions him exercising his functions as a stipendiary

magistrate.[773]

James Tandy's arrest and imprisonment were certainly not due to

McNally, who would be the last to kill the goose which laid the

golden eggs; more than that, he tells Cooke that James Tandy was no

republican. How McNally utilised James Tandy may be seen from his

secret letters. Both are found constantly together. A hurried despatch

from McNally, dated January 31 (he rarely gives the year) says:

'McNally and James Tandy went yesterday morning to Mr. Grattan's at

Tinnehinch, and returned in the evening.'

A negotiation between Arthur O'Connor and Napper Tandy in France is

detailed by McNally: 'James Tandy has consulted McN. on the danger

of such an undertaking.'[774] On September 23, 1800, McNally writes:

'Emmet, T. assures me (and he made inquiry), is in Paris.' On September

19, 1800, McNally writes, 'my friend,[775] passed yesterday morning

with T., junior,' and he jots down a large amount of matter as the

result of the conference.

'Mr. Pelham's answer to James Tandy is expected with anxiety,' records

a previous report.

The secret letters of Higgins to Cooke constantly point to James Tandy.

On March 7, 1798, he urges Cooke 'to watch Napper Tandy's intercourse

with his son, and through him with the rest of the incendiaries. His

son waited on a Mr. Connell with a letter this day.' I quote this

passage because of the name 'Connell' which occurs in it. The allusion

is to the subsequently celebrated Daniel O'Connell. Higgins tells Cooke

that 'Connell holds a commission from France (a Colonel's). He was to

be called to the Bar here to please a very rich old uncle, but he is

one of the most abominable and bloodthirsty republicans I ever heard

of. The place of rendezvous is the Public Library in Eustace Street,

where a private room is devoted to the leaders of the United Irish

Society.'

The words are given as a curiosity, and not as accurately describing

O'Connell's real sentiments, and the statement that this ardent youth,

fresh from the mint of the French College at Douai, held a commission

from France is one of the sensational myths with which Higgins loved to

garnish his reports. In 1798 Daniel was called to the Bar to please,

as Higgins correctly states, his rich uncle, Maurice Connell of

Darrinane--traditionally known as 'Old Hunting Cap.' Higgins is also

right in regarding the future Tribune as a rebel. He had joined the

United Irishmen in 1798, but escaped in a turf-boat previous to the

insurrection. It will be remembered that Maurice Connell, as shown by

the Pelham MSS., was the first to report the arrival of a French fleet

in Bantry Bay.

It is worthy of notice, in exploring the _genus_ 'spy,' that the

violently incisive language used by Higgins is never employed by

McNally. The latter gives a man a wound and leaves him there. Higgins

poignards his victims over and over again, and kicks their dead bodies,

as in the case of Lord Edward Fitzgerald.

The arrest of James Tandy was made in 1803, a year after the death of

Higgins, and is likely to have been prompted by Magan, who was active

(see p. 157 _ante_) at that time. In closing these notices of the Tandy

family, it may perhaps be mentioned that Napper Tandy's father took an

ultra loyal part during the excitement caused by the rising of Charles

Edward in 1745. A run on the Dublin Banks was made, and _Faulkner's

Journal_ of October 8 in that year contains a manifesto from some

Dublin merchants, including Tandy, agreeing to accept their notes as

cash.

_A TARDY AMENDE TO LORD CAMDEN.--THE FRENCH IN IRELAND_

Lord Camden, the Irish Viceroy in 1798, has been often styled a dull

man; but he seems to have had his wits about him, as will presently

appear.

I find, by a remarkable letter of this Lord Lieutenant, written two

months previous to General Lake's retreat from Castlebar, that he saw

the weak points of the somewhat overrated warrior who afterwards got a

peerage for beating the Mahrattas. It may be said that the defeat at

Castlebar was due to panic among the troops, but all accounts agree

that Lake and Hutchinson had been out-manœuvred by Humbert.

'I remain in the opinion I originally held,' writes Lord Camden at a

time anterior to the arrival of the French, 'that General Lake is not

fit for the command in these difficult times, and have written to Pitt

in the most serious and impressive manner I am able to make him master

of the actual danger of the country. It is unfortunate that he should

have lost the advantage of General Lake's services where he was really

well placed, and have brought him to one which is above his capacity.

He has no arrangement, is easily led, and no authority.'[776]

Passing reference has been made to the arrival at Killala, on August

22, 1798, of a small French force under Humbert; and some notice of

the sequel is due. Humbert had started from Rochelle solely on his own

responsibility. General Lord Hutchinson held Castlebar with 5,200 men;

but Lake, as the senior officer, assumed the command. Lake arrived at

dark with a large reinforcement, and next morning was surprised to see

the French troops rise from a defile hitherto regarded as impassable,

General Taylor having been previously sent forward to cut off their

approach by road. Although the French were jaded after a forced march

of fifteen hours, they advanced with much vivacity, and attacked the

King's troops, who had posted themselves on a steep hill-side with

nine pieces of cannon. 'They advanced in excellent style--with great

rapidity as sharp-shooters,' Cooke writes.[777] Lake's line wavered, a

retreat was sounded, the flight of the infantry was most disorderly,

and Sir Jonah Barrington compares it to that of a mob. Lord Jocelyn's

Light Dragoons (he was taken prisoner soon after by Humbert) ran

like so many 'Tam O'Shanters' to Tuam, a distance of forty miles,

followed by such of the French as could get horses for the chase.

All the artillery, with five pair of colours, fell into the hands of

the French. This disgraceful panic is remembered as 'The Races of

Castlebar.'[778]

Such conduct, unlike their position, was indefensible; for Lake's

men, different from the enemy, had been refreshed by a good night's

rest. The French had left 200 men to garrison Killala, and Humbert's

soldiers, when in action, did not exceed 800, according to the

statement of Lake's secretary.[779] But it has been often said that the

French, in making so successful an attack, must have been supported by

vast numbers of native insurgents. Again Cooke writes, on the authority

of Lake's secretary, 'he saw no peasantry.'[780]

Mr. Vereker, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Limerick Militia, got a peerage

for having repulsed the French at Coloony, and the motto on his arms is

simply the name of that place. Lord Carleton records, in his autograph,

on the margin of a book, some curious facts:--

'The skirmish at Coloony,' he writes, 'began and ended in a blunder.

Vereker (who knew nothing of the rapid march of thirty-five Irish miles

which the French had made from Castlebar) supposed he was attacking

only their vanguard; and Humbert, equally ignorant of Vereker's force,

mistook the troops which attacked him for the vanguard of a larger

body, and altered his plan of marching to Sligo, which must have

surrendered at his approach. When Lake, with his division, arrived at

Coloony next morning, he found eighteen Frenchmen, dangerously wounded,

who were left behind by their army.'

The strangest part of the story is that Vereker in this attack acted

on his own responsibility, and contrary to the instructions he had

received from Lake. This brief campaign was marked by a series of

wonderful misapprehensions. French accounts say that Humbert, seeing

the strength of the British line at Castlebar, thought of retiring to

Ballina, and to cover the retreat ordered General Sarrazin to make a

feigned attack, which, being mistaken by Lake for an attempt to turn

his flank, produced the panic, where upon Sarrazin, changing his plan,

and without Humbert's orders, charged the enemy and sent them flying.

But here Humbert's triumph stopped. Meanwhile, as Lord Carleton in

another note states, 'The Hompesch Dragoons were of infinite service,

being chiefly Hungarians, and hanging close on the enemies' rear;

the (common) Irish, deceived by their dress and foreign language,

took them for the French, and came to join them in great numbers, but

were immediately cut down, and their pockets rifled by their supposed

friends.'

Again, as Lord Carleton notes, the French mistaking, by its picturesque

dress, a Highland regiment for guerilla troops, sought to fraternise

with them, and greatly to their cost.

It has been repeatedly stated, and is generally believed, that Lord

Camden was recalled in order to make way for the milder policy of Lord

Cornwallis; but it is a fact now worth recording, though somewhat late,

that the appointment of Cornwallis was directly due to Camden himself.

Camden continues:--

'I return to the opinion I had entertained before, that the Lord

Lieutenant ought to be a military man. The whole government of the

country is now military, and the power of the chief governor is almost

merged in that of the general commanding the troops. I have suggested

the propriety of sending over Lord Cornwallis, whose name, with some

good officers under him, will have great weight; and I have told Pitt

that which I really feel, that without the best military assistance I

conceive the country to be in the most imminent danger, and that my

services cannot be useful to the King.'[781]

Mr. Froude quotes from a letter of Camden's 'The insurgents will be

annihilated.'[782] But his tone to Pelham is widely different. He

writes:--

'Unless Great Britain pours an immense force into Ireland the country

is lost.... I cannot suffer my character and my peace of mind to be

trifled with.'[783]

Pitt acted on Camden's counsel and appointed Lord Cornwallis. Camden

confides to Elliot:--

'If I relinquish my situation, as I do now, merely for the public good

at the risque of a false construction, it becomes doubly necessary that

I should receive some mark of confidence that it may not be supposed I

am recalled from any opinion on the part of the ministers that I have

not acted as became me.'[784]

And in a letter of the same date to Pelham, Camden says he is the

servant of the public, and ready himself 'to act in Ireland, or

elsewhere, in whatever manner I might be the most usefully employed.'

Camden's counsel was followed, that the Viceroy of Ireland--in such

times--ought to be a military man. Lord Cornwallis, the new chief

governor, went down to Connaught at the head of 20,000 troops, and

Humbert surrendered. On September 8, 1798, after a fortnight's progress

through the country, 96 officers and 748 French rank and file became

prisoners of war; and, according to Gordon, 500 peasant auxiliaries

were put to the sword. Several sympathisers, chiefly local gentry,

were hanged; including, as Lord Carleton notes, Messrs. Blake, French,

and O'Dowd. Thus ended Humbert's quixotic enterprise; but the previous

expedition to Bantry Bay, in 1796, was very formidable; and England had

not had such an escape since the Spanish Armada. In this connection

Lord Carleton has another word to say; and I do not feel warranted

in omitting what serves to explain some things hitherto a puzzle.

Few believed that Hoche's expedition of 1796 could have escaped the

vigilance and vengeance of the English fleet which had long been

watching it off Brest.

'Admiral Kingsmill (a most excellent naval officer), who commanded in

Cork Harbour, was one of these sceptics. He thought it impossible so

large a fleet could have escaped the vigilance of all his cruisers.

Kingsmill had no intelligence of it, and repeatedly said, if the French

fleet was in Bantry he would suffer his head to be chopped off on his

own quarter-deck. Had not the French, when they first made the land,

mistaken the Durseys for Three-Castle-Head, by which they missed their

port, and were several hours beating back again, they would have got

so far up the bay as to have been able to effect their purpose. It is

much to be lamented that an officer of high rank in the British navy,

Keith Elphinstone (afterwards Lord Keith), returning from India in the

'Monarch' of 74 guns, and putting by accident into Crookhaven at the

very time the two French ships and frigates were in Bantry Bay, could

not be prevailed upon to put himself at the head of the ships then in

Cork Harbour--the 'Powerful' of 74 guns, and three stout frigates--and

block up the bay till Lord Bridport's fleet could arrive. "_It was not

his business._" He got all the stores Kingsmill could send him, and

sailed off to England. I assert this fact as positively true.--H. C.'

The signature of Lord Chief Justice Carleton is affixed to all the

Government proclamations of the time. His peculiar knowledge was

largely derived as a member of the Irish Privy Council, and from his

relations with Cork, of which he was a native.

It was not 'the Shan Van Voght' who first announced, as the old

ballad has it, that 'the French were on the sea.' The news came from

Darrynane Abbey, where the waves roll in unbroken from Labrador. Daniel

O'Connell's people have been accused of treasonable leanings--but

unfairly. Old Maurice Connell, or O'Connell, chieftain of Darrynane,

made money through 'smuggling,' but he was no rebel. Opening that

scantily explored mine--the Pelham MSS.--I find Maurice Connell

announcing to an under-strapper of the Government, who reports it to

Pelham, that a French fleet is in Bantry Bay, and he calls it 'most

melancholy intelligence.' The letter is dated 'Darrynane, December 20,

1796.' 'I give you this early information,' writes Maurice from his

mountain crag, 'in order that every proper measure should be pursued on

an event _soe_ very alarming.'[785]

This timely information had the start by two days of Mr. Richard

White's, who notoriously received his peerage in acknowledgment of a

message of similar tenor. We learn from the old pamphlet of Edward

Morgan, that 'A servant of his (White's) brought the first despatch

to General Dalrymple, in Cork, of the arrival of the French, on the

night of Thursday, December 22, who was but four hours going forty-two

miles, Irish, on a single horse.'[786] The above is culled from Lord

Carleton's copy, and it is added in his autograph, 'Mr. White, for his

services on this occasion, which were very meritorious, was created

Lord Bantry.'

Communication with London proved so slow in those days that reward was

justly due to those who sought to mend a state of things now hard to

realise. The King's messenger, when autumnal or wintry winds prevailed,

had often to wait three or four weeks ere the boat could sail from

Dublin to Holyhead; and on one occasion in the seventeenth century

Dublin Castle was three months without letters from London.[787] Even

on _terra firma_ a snail's pace too often marked the progress of great

officials who ought to have set a better example. Carew, when going

from Dublin to London, lost five days in accomplishing the 'run'

between Holyhead and Chester. When the winds proved propitious, and the

King's messenger was an active man, he was able to deliver in Dublin in

one week the despatch from Whitehall.

_JOHN POLLOCK_

(See p. 178, _ante_.)

John Pollock, Clerk of the Crown for Leinster, who, according to

the 'Cornwallis Papers,' 'managed' the counsel and attorney of the

United Irishmen, deserves a note, especially as he is one of the men

regarding whom the industrious editor of that work found it impossible

to ascertain particulars. His services, which, Cooke says, 'ought to

be thought of,' were rewarded in 1800 by the Deputy Clerkship of the

Pleas of the Exchequer. Gross abuse defiled this post; but until 1816

the iniquity was not brought before Parliament. On April 29 Mr. Leslie

Foster declared that 'Mr. Pollock drew 10,000_l._ out of the profits,

and on which he ought to pay the salaries of the other clerks; but,

instead of this, he pocketed the whole of the money, leaving them to

raise the fees upon the suitors on no other authority than their own

assumptions!' In 1803 Pollock's emoluments from this office did not

exceed 3,000_l._ a year. Mr. Attorney-General Saurin impeached him in

nine distinct charges, and as a result he was deposed.[788]

Pollock's name constantly appears in that curious manuscript known as

the 'S.S. Money Book,' one of the last payments to him being on January

10, 1799, for 1,137_l._ 10_s._ The frequent payments to 'John Pollock

for J. W.' suggested to me that the gold which he disbursed was usually

for persons connected with the law, and with this clue I am able to

trace and make clear various ciphers which Dr. Madden was unable to

explain when publishing a copy of the Secret Account just named. For

instance, we find: '1799--16 Feb. J. Pollock for J. W.--£150--G. M.

£50.' Again, on May 3 following: 'J. Pollock for G. M. I.--£50.' And on

June 5 and August 3, '£150 to G. M. I.' Who is 'G. M.' and 'G. M. I.'?

George McIntagart is described in 1798 as an attorney-at-law. Benjamin

P. Binns, in an autobiographical sketch, speaks of this man as his

step-father. It was George McIntagart who, when Mayor of Drogheda in

1798, dressed up Orangemen in French uniforms, and sent them through

the country to entrap simple peasants. He then flogged them until, they

revealed whatever they knew. The future Duke of Wellington, writing to

the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland on March 17, 1809, observes: 'Will you

have Mr. McIntagart appointed to be Collector of Drogheda?'[789]

'February 24, 1798. Mr. Pollock for J. W. H.' appears on record.

Turning to the list of attorneys in that year, the name of 'J. Wright

Heatly' is found. Dr. Madden also prints, 'August 23. Major Sirr for W.

A. H., £68 5_s._ 0_d._,' but offers no conjecture as to the owner of

these initials. He must be the man described by Plowden who, after an

interview with the Irish Privy Council, was equipped at the expense of

Dublin Castle with a showy rebel uniform, including a cocked hat and

feathers, and sent on a mission to Belfast to seduce and to betray. An

orderly dragoon repaired with instructions to General Sir Charles Ross,

who commanded in Belfast, that Houlton was a confidential agent and not

to be molested. Houlton, however, having started in a chaise and four,

arrived at Belfast in advance of the orderly, and the result was that,

when in the act of declaiming treason at a tavern, he was arrested

by the local authorities, paraded in his uniform round the town, and

sent back a prisoner to Dublin.[790] The Belfast papers of the day give

his name as William Ainslie Houlton, and he is clearly identical with

the W. A. H. of Mr. Cooke's cipher. It would be endless to pursue this

subject. Meanwhile, those who care to follow the various ciphers in the

'S.S. Money Book,' and to know the circumstances under which each item

is penned, can obtain full information from the present writer.

Pollock in his new sinecure did not cease to gratify the instincts

which made him so efficient in 1798. A letter from him is found in

the 'Wellington Correspondence,' dated January 12, 1809, directing

attention to McNevin's 'Pieces of Irish History,' then recently

published in New York. Pollock assures the future subjugator of

Napoleon that, from information he received, this book is the precursor

of a French invasion of Ireland. '_If you have Cox_,'[791] he adds

'(who keeps a small bookshop in Anglesea Street), he can let you into

the whole object of sending this book to Ireland at this time; and

further, if you have not Cox, believe me that no sum of money at all

within reason would be misapplied in riveting him to the Government.

I have spoken of this man before to Sir Edward Littlehales and to Sir

Charles Saxton. He is the most able, and, if not secured, by far the

most formidable man that I know of in Ireland.'[792] This letter, from

the niche assigned to it in the 'Wellington Correspondence,' calls

for a distinct notice of Cox, whose name occurs so frequently in the

foregoing sheets.

_WALTER COX_[793]

(See p. 71, _ante_.)

Mr. O'Donoghue, in 'Irish Humourists,' states of Cox and his rebel

sheet, the 'Union Star,' which openly urged assassination: 'While

the moderate organs of the United Irishmen--the 'Press' and the

'Northern Star'--were being suppressed and their editors persecuted

and imprisoned, Watty Cox and his sheet were left severely alone.' I

am sure the author will allow me, in the interests of history, to set

this point right. The Pelham MSS. contain the following letter from

Cooke:--'This day I suppressed the "Union Star." Cox offered [Justice]

Bell to disclose the author, and to tell what he knew to Government

on condition of pardon. I accepted the terms and have seen him. He

was sole author, printer, and publisher. He composed the "Star" at

different printing houses with types of different printers and struck

them off by a small bellows press of his own. He says he continued the

publication more from vanity than mischief; says that he has been for

some time against continuing the scheme of separation from England

because he thought it could not succeed ... thinks it will if there be

any invasion. Lord Edward F. [_sic_] and O'Connor have been often with

him; they knew of his writing the "Star." Cox pronounced Lord Edward

"weak but very zealous"; O'Connor has abilities and is an enthusiast,

but he thinks they want system.' Much more follows, and Cooke adds, 'he

[Cox] is a clever man and deep.'[794]

The viceroy, Camden, writing two days later, says: 'He [Cox] seems

able to give much important information;'[795] but Camden assumes this

merely on the strength of the fact mentioned in Cooke's letter, and Cox

does not seem to have compromised his friends by any actual disclosure.

Arthur O'Connor, addressing Dr. Madden in 1842, declared that Cox

remained always faithful to him, and also to Lord Edward Fitzgerald.

Whatever changes may have taken place in his conduct, it was not until

after Lord Edward's death and O'Connor's exile. While there was a

chance of success, he was one of the staunchest men in Ireland to their

cause. Had O'Connor--a person of great vanity--dreamt that Cox called

him an enthusiast, and Lord Edward weak, his praise might perhaps have

been modified.

In 1803, when Dublin Castle was dismayed by the outbreak of Emmet's

rebellion within shadow of its walls, I find addressed to Cox the copy

of a letter from Under-Secretary Marsden requesting him to call upon

him, and 'nobody would be the wiser.' Cox replies in writing to the

effect that he did not care how public their communications should be;

and certainly at this time he cannot be called 'a spy,' if indeed he

ever was.

The Viceroy Hardwicke wrote, soon after, an official vindication of his

conduct; and he mentions incidentally that it had been meditated to

place Cox under arrest as a dangerous democrat. His 'Irish Magazine' is

a marvellous medley, and contains, intermingled with some rubbish, a

good deal of valuable matter useful for future reference. Having been

put in the pillory more than once for his writings, and finally been

sentenced to pay a fine of 300_l._, and enter into security himself

for one thousand, with two others of 500_l._ each, to keep in good

behaviour for seven years, as well as suffer one year's confinement in

Newgate, Cox at last consented, on receiving a pension of 100_l._ a

year, to expatriate himself to America. This Lord Mulgrave stopped in

1835, and the death of Cox occurred soon after.[796]

'_REMEMBER ORR!_'

(See chap. xxi.)

Documents previously quoted make ambiguous reference to the fate of

William Orr. This unfortunate person was arraigned at Carrickfergus in

September 1797, for having administered to a soldier named Wheatley the

United Irishman's oath. He was found guilty on evidence so glaringly

bad that Baron Yelverton, in sentencing him, sobbed. Most of the

inhabitants left the town to mark their horror of the sacrifice.

Newspapers of the last century did not deal much in sensational

headings. The _Courier_, an influential London journal, of December 25,

1797, affords some exception:--

'Murder Most Foul!--The Irish papers which arrived this morning contain

the affidavits of the Rev. George Macartney, D.L., magistrate for

the county Antrim; the Rev. James Elder, Dissenting Minister; and

of Alexander Montgomery, Esq., stating that Hugh Wheatley--one of

the witnesses brought forward by the Crown against Mr. Orr, lately

executed in Ireland--had confessed that he had been guilty of _perjury_

and _murder_!!'

Some of the jury also came forward and admitted that they were drunk

when they gave their verdict. These facts, duly deposed to and

attested, were laid before the Viceroy, Lord Camden, by the magistrate

who had caused Orr to be arrested, 'and who,' writes Dr. Madden, 'when

he found the practices that had been resorted to, used every effort,

though fruitlessly, to move Lord Camden to save the prisoner. Orr was

executed because of his known connection with the United Irish system,

but not on account of the crime legally laid to his charge.'

The date of Lord Camden's fatal decision, in reply to the influential

appeal which had reached him, merits attention. Turner, on October

8, 1797, disclosed to Downshire--for the private information of the

Government--a list of men, including 'two Orrs,' who, he said, were

members of the Executive Directory of the United Irishmen; and Camden,

probably, thought that Orr, who then lay in jail, adjudged guilty of

having administered the rebel oath, was one of them. On October 13,

Camden surprised Great Britain quite as much as Ireland, by deciding

that William Orr should hang, and within forty-eight hours he suffered

death.[797] A painful sensation passed through the country: Drennan's

fine lyric, 'The Wake of William Orr,' will live as long as 'The

Burial of Sir John Moore.' '_Remember Orr_' were the last words in

the manuscript which hanged Sheares. The fate of Orr had more effect

in hurrying rebellion to a premature explosion than all the efforts

of Tone, McNevin, and O'Connor. The latter urged that Ireland should

strike without further waiting for French aid.

Dr. Madden re-awakened interest in this case of Orr by claiming to

show that Wheatley, by whose tainted testimony he died, was identical

with a subsequently well-known military officer. Hugh Wheatley, the

informer and common soldier (Dr. Madden holds), is the same man who

afterwards figured as Captain Wheatley in the West Middlesex Regiment,

who served in Egypt, 'wore the Sphinx on his cap,' and in 1827 resided

at Uxbridge.[798] In 1844 Dr. Madden addressed to a brother officer of

this man--a Captain Hester--various queries, all of which drew forth

answers disparaging to Captain Wheatley, including the fact that he

was remarkable for his love of money and his profligacy. 'How did he

get his commission?' asked Dr. Madden: 'I cannot say,' replied Hester,

'nor could any of the officers. The commanding officers appeared always

in fear of him. It was not because he had good pistols, for he never

used them himself, but he would lend them--as he would his cash--on

interest.'

It seems almost a pity to spoil the piquancy of an attractive page, but

'truth is stranger than fiction,' and as Dr. Madden declares more than

once that justice to the dead and historic accuracy are his objects,

it is right to show that in this case he has confounded two utterly

different men. Even a son of the wronged officer is brought on the

_tapis_ as a person Dr. Madden had known in another land. The following

letter confirming my doubts will help to distinguish between the two

Wheatleys:--

'War Office: September 6, 1866.

'Sir,--I am directed by the Secretary of State for War to

acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 21st ultimo, asking

for particulars of the service &c. of a Mr. Hugh Wheatly in the

West Middlesex Militia, between the years 1799 and 1810, and to

acquaint you that he regrets that he is unable to give you the

information you wish for.

'I may add that a Mr. W. Wheatley was appointed to the Regiment

as Lieutenant on the 21st February, 1804, and was promoted to a

Company, 17th December, 1811.[799]

'A Mr. Hugh Wheatly was serving in the Tenth (Edinburghshire)

Militia in 1800 as Lieutenant. His commission was dated 26th March,

1798.

'I am, Sir, your obedient Servant,

'L. SHADWELL, Col.

'W. J. Fitzpatrick, Esq., J.P.'

The Hugh Wheatley who--as we are informed by the War Office--received

a commission in the Edinburghshire Militia on March 26, 1798, is

certainly Orr's Wheatley. One of the depositions of the Rev. George

Macartney--a magistrate and D.L. for Antrim--speaks of Hugh Wheatly as

a _Scotch_ soldier, who confessed he had been instigated to give false

evidence against Orr. Even after he had received his commission we

find Wheatley in receipt of Secret Service money; and on February 5,

1800, 115_l._ 2_s._ 9_d._--or one hundred guineas old currency--appears

on record to his credit.

Notes of a conversation with the late Dr. Verdon--a representative of

William Orr--discloses some things new to students of the time. Major

Orr, son of William Orr, served with distinction in the Peninsular

War; he obtained his commission at the age of twenty-three, and on his

return to England the Duke of York, then Commander-in-Chief, after

complimenting him upon his services, asked if there was any promotion

he ambitioned. 'I hate the sword I wear,' was Orr's sullen reply;

'perhaps your Royal Highness will allow me to retire from the service.'

'Pray are you related to Orr who suffered in '98?' inquired the Duke.

'I have the honour to be his son,' the soldier replied. The Duke with

reluctance accepted the resignation, and next day wrote a cheque for

1,000_l._, and sent it to the widow of William Orr 'as some slight

compensation for the loss she had sustained' twenty years before. The

Duke of York was at this time heir apparent to the throne. Captain Orr

retired on full pay with the rank of brevet major. Some years after,

finding that his means were inadequate to meet domestic expenses, he

asked the Duke for a barrack mastership. Orr filled this office in

Longford, and subsequently in Dublin till his death.

'_THE WEARING OF THE GREEN_'

Mrs. Anastasia O'Byrne, who died in 1875, had been in the habit of

sending me rough recollections of such small things as came within the

cognisance of a very unobtrusive woman. Some of her letters appeared in

a former book. The following is new:--

'In May, 1798,' says Mrs. O'Byrne, 'the narrator, then a comely

matron of thirty, possessing a soft innocent expression and a

delicate rose-hue complexion, donned her bonnet of the previous

season, with intent to make some purchases in the drapery line

at a flourishing mart in Thomas Street. The bonnet was of bright

green silk, had often been worn without remark, was purchased for

its supposed becoming effect, and had lain quietly ensconced in

its bandbox throughout the winter. But during that eventful season

the political atmosphere had undergone disturbance, and the storm

which shattered to pieces many happy homesteads was about to sweep

through Ireland. Amid other signs of the times, "the wearing of

the green" came to be regarded with suspicion and dislike by the

authorities of the day. Of this, however, the wearer of the green

bonnet was then quite unconscious. On she went, but was rather

concerned, and somewhat puzzled, to find herself attracting an

unusual share of the attention of the passers-by, particularly as

she was alone. As she passed out of Dame Street into Castle Street

and Skinner's Row,[800] where the narrowness of the flag-way made

collisions of passengers a rule rather than an exception, she was

startled to hear, every other moment, a voice whispering, almost

under her bonnet: "God bless your colour, ma'am!" She remarked

that those who did not use this phrase regarded her with an angry

scowl; but still no thought of connecting these incidents with

the _hue_ of her bonnet ever crossed her mind. On her return

from Thomas Street her attractive power seemed to increase, the

cabalistic words: "God bless your colour, ma'am!" were not uttered

so frequently, but the streets were greatly crowded by men, some of

whom regarded her bonnet with so fierce a glare that she thought

they had a notion of plucking it from her head. She then began to

perceive, with some alarm, that scarcely any women were abroad,

and that military and yeomanry paraded the streets. When she

reached Cork Hill she saw masses of people thronging the line of

way in Dame Street, whilst the crowd about the Castle gates and

the Royal Exchange seemed heaving in agitation like the waves of a

troubled sea. Whilst trying to pierce the dense crowd around the

Royal Exchange she heard a familiar voice shout her name twice in a

loud, excited tone. She glanced in the direction of the sound, and

saw the pale, eager face of a young man of her acquaintance, the

husband and brother of two intimate female friends, peering at her

through one of the windows of the Royal Exchange, then a receptacle

for State prisoners. Entering a little by-street she turned with

great difficulty from the surge of the crowd which was floating

from College Green side, and soon got into more quiet quarters.

By the circuitous route she reached home unmolested, but found the

household in great alarm about her, for tidings had reached them

that several females during the tumult of the day had been rudely

insulted, and roughly treated, for wearing ribbons or garments

of green hue, one most respectable lady having had a gown of the

obnoxious colour sliced from her body by the sabre of a loyal

trooper. The excitement of the day was caused by the arrest of the

unfortunate brothers Sheares. The young prisoner who called on

her from the window had just recently been arrested in the street

on suspicion, solely on account of having used indignant words of

remark in the hearing of a loyal yeoman. His great anxiety to gain

the notice of the wearer of the green bonnet was caused by his

desire that his relatives, who were ignorant of his arrest, should

learn it, and take measures for his release, before the tidings of

it could reach the ears of a very youthful wife in a very delicate

condition.

'The poor fellow was speedily released, for higher game had been

bagged, and nothing beyond his warm words could be adduced against

him. But the young wife, whom he soon after left a widow, always

believed that his early death was caused by his arrest. He had

caught a severe cold whilst in prison, his lungs became affected,

and rapid decline and early death ensued.

'On the day of the arrest of the Sheareses the wearer of the green

bonnet beheld the sacking and the attempted burning of the house

and stock-in-trade of Patrick Byrne, the bookseller of Grafton

Street in whose shop the brothers were first introduced to their

betrayer, Captain Armstrong. It was a pitiful sight to behold the

amount of property in beautifully bound books ruthlessly torn

to pieces and tossed out of windows into the street. Byrne was

arrested, but afterwards got safely out of the country, and settled

in Philadelphia. His brother, a Roman Catholic priest in Rosemary

Lane Chapel, followed him to America.'

The old lady's garrulousness about her green bonnet has been allowed

space the more readily because the following contemporary statement

comes to illustrate and explain, not only her own reminiscence, but an

oft-quoted phrase which has become historic. I have culled it from the

London _Courier_ of August 29, 1797. The _Dublin Journal_ to which it

refers was the organ of the Irish Government, and the property of Jack

Giffard:--

IRELAND.

_Dublin, August 24._--The _Dublin Journal_, with base malignity,

throws out the most indecent insinuations against the virtue of

every female who wears _green_ in her apparel. How the citizens of

Dublin, and the inhabitants of the country, who are also included

in this infamous denunciation, will bear to have their wives and

daughters so stigmatised, remains to be seen. A more villainous

libel never disgraced the Press. In case of success, it must render

useless all the goods in silk, cotton, or woollen which have been

dyed green, to the ruin of the manufacturers. Language is not

adequate to express the abhorrence that arises at this hellish

meditation to rob women of their character and working-people of

bread!

A corps, called the 'Antient Britons,' attained by their cruelties

notoriety in '98. Pelham, in a secret letter, recognises their activity

and loyalty; but casually adds (a trait which, coming from him, will

be more regarded than if told by a partisan): 'They were quartered

at Newry,' he writes, 'where there was a lady as active as the Miss

Greggs at Belfast, and upon her accosting a soldier on guard, she was

certainly very roughly treated.... They tied her petticoats round her

neck, and sent her home showing her garters.'[801] Pelham probably

learned this fact from one of the letters of Samuel Turner, formerly of

Newry.

_FATHER O'LEARY_

(See chap. xvi. p. 236.)

O'LEARY IN 1782.

The following letter--one honourable to O'Leary--has escaped the

vigilance of all his biographers. It seems to have been addressed

to Mr. Kirwan, a Catholic leader who held some military rank in the

Volunteer army, and who at mess had been asked to drink 'The glorious,

pious, and immortal memory' of William III.! '_Jungamus dexteras_'

was the motto of O'Leary and Grattan at this time. The former, in his

reply to the Bishop of Cloyne in 1796, states that the policy of Dublin

Castle was '_Divide et impera_.'

This letter is dated a year previous to Lord Sydney's effort to corrupt

O'Leary. From that hour no such courageousness of demand marked his

utterances.

'Cork: October 4, 1782.