Twenty-five years in the Secret Service: The recollections of a spy

by Henri Le Caron

XXXII.

My private affairs permitted of my taking a holiday in the early part of the year 1881, and so I determined to make a trip to Europe. Happening to communicate my intention to my old friend, Colonel Clingen, now the commander of the Clan-na-Gael guards in Chicago, and a very prominent member of the organisation, he gave me to understand that the Executive would avail themselves of my journey to send by me documents which could not be trusted to the mails. Nothing could have suited me better, and I willingly consented to be of any service I possibly could. Devoy, it subsequently transpired, was the correspondent whose communications I was to convey, and by an arrangement of Clingen’s a meeting took place between Devoy and myself at the Palmer House, Chicago, in the month of March 1881. Devoy on this occasion handed me sealed packets addressed to John O’Leary and Patrick Egan in Paris. O’Leary was then regarded as the representative agent and official means of communication between the Clan-na-Gael and the Irish Republican Brotherhood in Ireland; Egan was the treasurer and accredited representative of the Irish Land League.

Journeying by way of Liverpool, I reached England on the 12th of April 1881, and stopping in London in order to see Mr. Anderson and show him the packets, as well as to receive instructions, I eventually travelled to Paris. On arrival there I drove to the Hotel Brighton, where I had learned Egan was located, and where I determined to take up my abode. The first person I met with in the hotel was Egan himself. He was coming down the stairs in view of me, as I asked for him, in company with Mrs. A. M. Sullivan (wife of the late M.P.), both being bound for the opera, where, on their invitation, I subsequently joined them. I made myself known to Egan at once, only to find of course that he had received some hint of my coming, and was quite expecting me.

PATRICK EGAN

As I washed and prepared to take myself to the opera, to see some more of this strange man, I endeavoured to recall his appearance, and to see how far he fitted in with the idea I already held regarding him. A man of bright cheery presence, stout build, and jovial look and voice, the latter very marked in its Irish accent, with bright laughing eyes and warm handshake and a closely cut head of tawny hair, he was the last person in the world you would take for a deep conspirator, and a constructor of murder. I was puzzled and bewildered—I could not make it out; and so giving up all thought of trying to read the man’s character on the outward view, I determined I should leave my further studies in this direction to a later date and go and enjoy the opera, which I did.

The next morning saw me en route for the residence of John O’Leary, to whom I wished to deliver my second packet without delay. I discovered him without much difficulty in his abode at the Hotel de la Couronne, in the Quartier Latin. I found the old man surrounded by his books and manuscripts, and from his appearance more fit for the patient secluded life of the student than the troublous career of the rebel. Seated in his room, and gazing affectionately on his different treasures of old and rare editions, he seemed to have little in common with my friends of the Clan. Yet I found him fully posted, and as keen to talk with me as possible. At first somewhat suspicious and uncertain in his manner, he gradually lost his appearance of distrust, and in the end gossiped with me quite freely. As he opened Devoy’s packet in my presence, I was enabled to discover that I had been the bearer of a very long document, with an enclosure, to which he paid great heed.

From the very start I found O’Leary opposed to the “active” policy. He was as strong and bitter an opponent of the murderous idea as one could wish to meet; and, unlike Irish patriots in general, he was not without the courage of his convictions. He showed me a copy of the Dublin Irishman (the unfortunate Pigott’s paper), of some date in the month previous, containing a letter over his signature, denouncing all secret warfare. In fact, so far did this really honest patriot go, that he refused in his official capacity to take any responsibility for expenditure in connection with the “active” policy. While condemning such methods, however, he avowed himself in full accord with an open insurrectionary movement; and he spoke in the bitterest terms of the way in which J. J. O’Kelly and others had played false, while acting as paid members of the organisation. Another point in connection with our talks was the opposition shown by O’Leary to the Parnellite alliance. He would have nothing to do with such a joining of forces as was proposed, and he was all against mixing up the honest rebel movement with one which was, in his opinion, worthy of great distrust.

I enjoyed my talks with O’Leary because in him I found a fine, honest, fearless spirit. The man was old and grey, with furrowed brow and stooped figure, the result of his long confinement in English prisons. There was little about him then to remind one of the bright-eyed daring prisoner who, fifteen years before, had, from the dock of a Dublin court-house, hurled defiance at judge, jury, and Government alike; but there still remained with him the same fearlessness of tone and honesty of conviction which marked him out then, as now, a prince amongst his fellows of the Irish conspiracy.