FOOTNOTES:
[190] The words of the French writer will be found at p. [78], infra.
[191] The London Courier of September 14, 1799, displays the following translation of a letter addressed to a Paris journal: 'Citizens,—The Redacteur has said, and many other Journalists have repeated it, that Napper Tandy had been given up by the Senate of Hamburg. I declare to you, Citizens, that not a word is said of this in any letters received in any of the Banking houses in Paris, nor in those which I myself have received. I hasten to give you this information, because the Public ought never to be deceived.
(Signed) 'Daniel C. Meyer,
'Consul General from Hamburgh.'
[192] Castlereagh Papers, i. 405. The letter, of which this is a bit, was written by a spy who contrived to accompany Tandy as a sort of aide-de-camp, and was on board the 'Anacreon' during the voyage. Wickham divulges merely his initial, 'O,' but the reader will find his name and career successfully traced in the Appendix.
[193] Cox's Irish Magazine, January 1809, pp. [32]-4.
[194] It will be shown, later on, that an Irish spy named 'Durnin' resided at Hamburg.
[195] See letter to Talleyrand, ante, p. [27]. Some persons supposed that because Duckett lived at Hamburg like Turner, he used that great gangway to France for espionage. In the Castlereagh Papers (ii. 6) Duckett is described as 'Secretary to Léonard Bourdon.' Bourdon is noticed in the Nouvelle Biog. Génèrale, was 'l'agent du Directoire à Hambourg, d'où il fit partir les émigrés.'
[196] Sir James Crawford, British minister at Hamburg from 1798 to 1803. Crawford afterwards filled a similar post at Copenhagen, where Reynolds, the Kildare informer, is also found acting as British consul. Reynolds's betrayals were long subsequent to those of Turner, and of a wholly different sort. His evidence was given in court publicly. The editor of the Cornwallis Papers states that Crawford died on July 9, 1839; but Mr. Ross confounds him with an utterly different man. The Black Book, published in 1820, records (p. [31]) a pension of 1000l. 'continued to the family of Sir James Crawford, late minister at Copenhagen, dead.' The 'most exhaustive' works of biographical reference omit Sir James Crawford, a remarkable man, and one who played an important part in European history; and a letter of mine in Notes and Queries, asking for facts about him, failed to elicit a reply.
[198] Castlereagh Papers, i. 306-9.
[199] Why Tone's Diary, as published, does not once name Turner, may be due to the uncertainty as to whether Turner was alive in 1826, and perhaps Tone's son, from motives of prudence, cut out some allusions to him. Tone died in a Dublin prison on November 19, 1798, three days before the arrest of Tandy. Tone and Turner were closely associated in their studies, distinctions, and political pursuits. Turner entered Trinity College, Dublin, on July 2, 1780; Tone entered on February 19, 1780. Turner was called to the Bar in 1788; Tone in 1789.
[200] Muir's trial took place on August 30, 1793. He was transported to New South Wales, from which he escaped by American agency. After a series of great sufferings he arrived at Paris in February 1798, but died on September 27 that year from the effect of the hardships he had endured. The papers of the Home Office show that in 1793 Muir came to Dublin to confer with the United Irishmen, and on January 11 in that year was elected one of the brotherhood. Vide also Life of Thomas Muir, Advocate, by P. Mackenzie (Simpkin, 1831).
[202] A man whom he found in consultation with Joubert, planning the invasion of Ireland with a map of it before them, he describes in this and subsequent letters as O'Herne. Students of the Castlereagh Papers have been unable to identify this man; but it is clear that the O'Herne who figures in them was no other than Ahearne, so often mentioned by Tone in his Diary. The letter to Wickham mentions General Daendels as a co-conspirator with O'Herne. In Tone's Diary we read (p. 460): 'Received a letter from General Daendels, desiring me to send on Aherne to him, without loss of time, to be employed on a secret mission.'
[203] The writer mentions his election in Tandy's place as proof of his unsleeping vigilance and increased power to betray. Portland, instead of seeing that the man thus ready to take a false oath would not scruple to say anything, was so struck by the importance of the letter that he sent a copy of it to Dublin for the guidance of Lord Castlereagh. Here was a man, as Curran once said of an approver, 'willing to steep the Evangelists in blood.' Turner, in a previous letter (ante, p. [28]), glibly writes: 'I attest the business on oath.'
[204] Vide ante, p. [68] et seq.
[205] Harvey Morres, of the ennobled family of Frankfort (b. 1767), had been in the Austrian service previous to joining the Irish rebellion; married, in 1802, the widow of Dr. Esmonde who was hanged in '98. He subsequently gained the rank of a French colonel, and died in 1839.
[206] Castlereagh Papers, ii. 96.
[207] Ibid. i. 405.
[208] Tandy had borne a part in every Irish national movement from November 1783, when the Volunteer Convention met. He was a most determined man and a firm believer in artillery, a brigade of which he commanded in Dublin, with the words 'Free Trade or ——' inscribed on the breeches of the guns. The procession of Volunteer delegates from the Royal Exchange to the Rotunda was announced by the discharge of twenty-one cannon.
[209] It is doubtful whether the supper formed part of the plan for the arrest. All arrangements with that design had been already organised. In vino veritas; and the effect of the supper was, of course, an increased knowledge and command of the conspiracy, with proportionate profit to the spy. For such suppers he had a special gusto. 'I supped last night with Valence, who mentioned having introduced Lord Edward, &c., &c.' See letter to Lord Downshire, p. [4] ante.
[210] See Carhampton's command to Turner, when at Newry, to remove his green neckcloth, p. [11], ante. Reinhard, writing to De la Croix, says that these 'imprudences' compelled Turner to leave Ireland.
[211] These are his words: 'Pauvre de forme et bien simple de style, mais d'une puissance d'autant plus entraînante, surtout sous le charme d'une voix qui jetait toute l'intensité de la passion Anglaise dans les accens de douleur et de colère, toujours un peu vagues et flottans, de la fantaisie celtique. L'air et les paroles ne me sortaient point de l'oreille; et, comme toute impression d'ensemble se concentre toujours sur un détail unique, il y avait surtout une strophe étrange qui me hantait.'
[212] The London Post-Office Directory, eighty years ago and later, gave the names of those only who were engaged in trade. But Holden's Triennial Directory for 1808 includes the name 'Samuel Turner, Esq. 21, Upper Wimpole Street.' The name disappears from the Dublin Directory about the same time.
[213] The Conduct of the Senate at Hamburg revealed, by William Corbet (Paris, 1807). The number of copies privately printed was small; the pamphlet is very scarce, and obtains no place in the Halliday Collection, R.I.A.
[214] Corbet's Narrative. (Paris, 1807.) General Corbet did not live to see the day when the recovery of such treasure was regarded as feasible. In 1889 appeared the prospectus of the Aboukir Bay Company for recovering the treasure sunk in the 'L'Orient,' destroyed by Nelson at the Nile.
[215] Ibid.
[216] File in possession of the writer. The British Museum, so rich in other respects, does not embrace the Courier for 1798-9.
[217] Castlereagh Correspondence, ii. 94-6.
[218] Howell's State Trials, xxvii. 1194-1243.
[219] John Wolcot is a rare name. All have heard of John Wolcot, well known as 'Peter Pindar,' the merciless assailant of George the Third.
[220] The intercepted memorial from Morres to the French Government, preserved in the Castlereagh Papers (ii. 96), urges: 'In case of future attempts on Ireland on the part of France, the province of Munster, which abounds in good havens, and whose men are the best republicans in Ireland, is the point to be looked to.' The capture of Cork is proposed, i. 295.
[221] See Appendix, 'James Tandy.'
[222] Cornwallis Papers, iii. 284.
[223] See memoir of Blackwell in Cox's Irish Magazine of Neglected Biography for 1811, p. [32].
[224] Life of Napoleon.
[225] English in Ireland, iii. 488.
[226] Appeal to the Public, by James Tandy (Dublin, 1807), p. [108], 2nd ed. Halliday Pamphlets, vol. 915, R.I.A.
[227] This is probably the same Mr. Elliot (see ante, p. [77]) who states that instructions had been sent to have Tandy arrested on the neutral ground of Hamburg. Elliot, who applied the term 'insignificant' to Tandy, must have read the informer's letter (since published in the Castlereagh Papers, pp. 405-9), where Tandy is described, among other contemptuous epithets, as 'insignificant'! Elliot is styled in the Castlereagh Papers, 'Military Secretary to Lord Cornwallis, the Viceroy.' 'Cornwallis Elliot' is a favourite name in the St. Germans family. Tandy addresses his assailant merely as 'Mr. Elliot.' The Elliots formed a powerful diplomatic coterie.
[228] Elliot, writing to Lord Castlereagh, says: 'The Americans absolutely refuse to admit the Irish traitors into their territories' (Castlereagh Papers, i. 405, 411, 413, 415, 421). This is the letter which refers to the contemplated arrest of Tandy at the Hague, and in it he further says: 'I have begged Pelham to come to London immediately.' Succeeding letters describe Elliot and Pelham closeted together at various places.
[229] The Society of United Irishmen had no treasonable design when first formed, as the following letter admitting the O'Conor Don would almost in itself convey.
Tandy writes to Charles O'Connor from Dublin, December 8, 1791:—
'Sir,—I have to acknowledge the favour of your very polite letter, and to assure you that I had particular pleasure in seconding the motion for the admission of Mr. O'Conor into the Society of United Irishmen—and that no exertion of mine shall be wanting to compleat the emancipation of my country, give her a free and general representation, and render to every man what I conceive to be his just and undoubted rights, security for his liberty and property, and a participation in the blessings of that land where Nature has placed him.
(O'Conor Don MSS.) Parliamentary Reform and Catholic Emancipation were the two objects sought; and it was only when both demands had been spurned by the Irish Parliament that the organisation drifted into deeper plans. Some recollections of Tandy's expedition to Ireland will be found in the Appendix.
[230] Bingham's Correspondence of Napoleon, ii. 96. (Chapman and Hall, 1884.)
CHAPTER IX
ARREST OF JÄGERHORN IN LONDON—THE PLOT THICKENS—TURNER SHOT THROUGH THE HEAD
In 1799, Turner's stealthy steps can be traced once more in London. It will be remembered that Lord Edward Fitzgerald had met, by appointment near Whitechapel, M. Jägerhorn, a secret envoy of France, and gave him, in full detail, information regarding every point on which that agent had been charged to inquire. Jägerhorn was 'the estimable Swede' named by Reinhard, the French minister at Hamburg, when writing the intercepted letter. This document, dated July 12, the editor of the 'Castlereagh Papers' assigns to the year 1798;[231] but as Lord Edward was dead at that time,[232] it must belong to the previous year. Other secret missives were sent to Dublin at the same time by the Home Office, in order to guide the course of the Irish Government. These papers, filling forty pages of the book,[233] were the result of a successful stroke of espionage at Hamburg.
M. Jägerhorn is of course the person alluded to by Mr. Froude when describing the nocturnal visit to Lord Downshire. 'He [Lord Edward] had been watched in London, and had been traced to the lodgings of a suspected agent of the French Directory, and among other papers which had been forwarded by spies to the Government, there was one in French containing an allusion to some female friend of Lady Edward, through whom a correspondence was maintained between Ireland and Paris.'
Hamburg was Turner's usual residence, and Jägerhorn had an estate near that place.[234]
Although the case of M. Jägerhorn is opened in the first volume of the 'Castlereagh Papers,' and misplaced among the incidents of another year, we do not find until far in the second the letters addressed to him in 1797 by General Valence and Lord Edward. In 1799 Jägerhorn had sought to renew his perilous enterprise. The same keen scent which traced Lord Edward, in 1797, to the lodgings of the confidential envoy in London, was once more on his track. Wickham, writing from the Home Office on March 28, 1799, has news for Castlereagh in Dublin: 'I have the satisfaction to inform your lordship that we have secured M. Jägerhorn, who was coming over here on a mission similar to that which he undertook some two years since, when he met Lord Edward Fitzgerald in London.'
A full report is given of Jägerhorn's examination, in which he is asked: 'Were you not charged to deliver to Lord Edward Fitzgerald a letter from somebody?' and he replied, 'Madame Matthiessen.' This was the lady, nearly connected with Lady Edward, and alluded to by Mr. Froude as a name found in secret papers. He is further questioned about Lord Edward, Lady Lucy, General Valence, and a number of other persons whose names had cropped up in the interview between Turner and Downshire; but, though the queries were searching, and Jägerhorn now seemed completely in Pitt's power, nothing material was wrung from him. England and Russia were at this time allied, and Jägerhorn, pretending that he had a pension of 2,000 roubles as a spy of Russia, rather dumb-foundered his examiners, and he at last regained his liberty. All this is to be found, with full details, in the 'Correspondence of Lord Castlereagh.'
The paltry sum which Turner received for his services now comes to be considered. This man, who had every facility of access to Lady Edward's house at Hamburg and its rebel entourage, held the key of a position so incalculably important that he never himself discerned its marketable value. Thousands would doubtless just as readily have been paid to him as 'the cool 500l.' that he modestly asked. 'To get the information had cost him,' he said, 'three times that sum, and to keep up the acquaintances and connections he had at Hamburg he could not live on less.' 'Small profits and quick returns' seems to have been his motto.
'Fresh evidence of the person's power to be useful,' writes Froude, 'made Pitt extremely anxious to secure his permanent help.' The Cornwallis papers record, but without any attempt to identify him, that the pension Samuel Turner received—dating from 1800—was but 300l. a year. Wellington when Irish Secretary addressed to Portland a letter in which a present payment of 5,000l., and 'not more than 20,000l. within the year,' appears guaranteed to one nameless informer.[235]
Another case may be cited. A document placed in my hands by Sir W. Cope, Bart., records that his grandfather was told by Under-Secretary Cooke to stop at no sum, not even 100,000l., in urging Reynolds to turn approver. Reynolds, not realising the importance of his evidence, consented to take 5,000l. and 1,000l. a year, with the post of British consul. The tergiversation of Reynolds did not take place until 1798, long after Turner had sold the pass.
The services of 'Downshire's friend' were more timely and, perhaps, more valuable. He told what he knew in 1797: the names he gave of the Executive Committee (p. [7], ante) proved more important than might appear at first sight. Reynolds, it is true, gave the hint that a Committee would be found sitting at Bond's on March 12, 1798, but he does not seem to have disclosed names; his son says that the names were inserted in the warrant purely 'on speculation.'[236]
As regards the more distinct whisper of Turner, the betrayal of the Belfast Directory, at the very hour that Tone was leaving Brest with a French fleet, proved in itself a paralysing blow, and one worth its weight in gold. But the arm that dealt it struck from behind unseen. However, as most of the information that Downshire's friend gave concerned the Northern organisation, he may, perhaps, be credited with this exploit. The loss of Ulster was the loss of the right arm of the rebellion. Turner made his disclosures on October 8, 1797. Besides the list of the Executive Directory, there can be no doubt that in the information which followed he named, with others, John Hughes of Belfast, the date and place of whose arrest tally with the presumption that to Turner it was due. The 'History of Belfast' records: 'October 20, 1797—John Hughes, bookseller, having been apprehended in Newry[237] on a charge of high treason, was brought in here escorted by a party of light dragoons.'[238] Mr. Froude says that 'Downshire's friend' kept him informed of everything.[239]
How well Turner knew Hughes is proved by the sworn testimony of the latter,[240] in which he describes a breakfast in June 1797, with Samuel Turner, Teeling, Macnevin, etc., when the fitness of the country for an immediate rising was debated. Hughes had been a great patriot previously, but now to save himself became a mercenary informer, and even sought to criminate Grattan, who thereupon was dismissed from the Privy Council, though, as Stanhope[241] admits, without just cause. There had been no more zealous propagandist of the rebellion than Hughes, and he names a long list of men whom he himself had sworn in on a prayer-book. In 1802 John Hughes retired to the United States and became a slave-owner.
Wickham's letter of June 8, 1798, enumerated, for the information of Lord Castlereagh, a number of men whose arrests in England seem consequent on the information furnished by Downshire's visitor. These names include McGuckin, the attorney, who had been concerned for O'Coigly at Maidstone. The subsequent career of this once determined rebel, but who soon after his arrest in 1798 became a spy for the Crown, enhances the importance of Turner's information at a great crisis. The first recorded payment to McGuckin of secret service money is March 5, 1799.[242] His son migrated to France, and was created a baron by Louis Philippe.
The peril of assassination which shadowed every step made by Turner was not adequately weighed by Pitt when estimating the value of his services. The risk he ran was not confined to Ireland. The life of an English spy abroad was deemed equally unsafe, and there is much reason to fear that more than one met with short shrift. Even a successful diplomat, if his subtlety touched French interests, could not regard his life as safe. The disappearance of Benjamin Bathurst, a kinsman of Earl Bathurst, has never been explained. Bathurst was sent on a secret mission to Vienna, at the time that England before opening the Peninsular campaign sought to persuade Austria to declare, by way of a distraction, war against France. Austria soon after crossed the French frontier, and Bathurst received hints of threatened personal doom. Hoping to avoid assassination, he took a northerly route in returning to England, and on reaching Perleberg in Brandenburg, he visited, in his agitation, the commandant of cuirassiers, requesting that sentries might mount guard at the inn where he stopped. These were supplied, and Bathurst spent the day in writing and destroying letters. Shortly before his carriage came to the door in the dark of a November evening, he told some troopers who escorted him that they might withdraw. While all the household was on the alert to see him off, he walked beyond the circle of the lantern glare, and was lost to sight at the heads of the horses. This occurred on November 25, 1809, and Bathurst was never seen or heard of more, notwithstanding that, as we are reminded by Baring Gould, England offered 2,000l. reward, and Prussia 100 Friedrichs d'or, for the discovery even of his remains.
To trace the spy with whom these chapters mainly deal seemed, at the outset, almost as hopeless as to find Bathurst's bones. Of all the Government informers not one has been more ingeniously guarded from discovery. Wellington, with all his astuteness, supposed that the fact of a man's name appearing in the Banishment Act was conclusive evidence against him of having been a rebel,[243] and therefore disqualified from claiming any favour from the Crown. But had he known the secret history of Turner's case, it would have opened his eyes. A Fugitive Bill was passed in July 1798, enumerating the rebel leaders who had fled from justice. In this bill we find Samuel Turner named. During the following year Parliament was asked to lend itself to the fraud of branding as a traitor the same Samuel Turner, by passing against him an Act of Attainder. From 1797 he lived abroad, posing as an 'exile of Erin.'[244]
The sealed chest in Dublin Castle which was opened a few years ago contained the only letter I ever saw signed with Turner's name. It related to his pension, and it was necessary to lay the mask aside for once. We have already seen him styled Furnes, Richardson, and especially 'Lord Downshire's friend.'[245] A new name is now adopted to puzzle posterity. He directs that 500l. be lodged to the account of 'J. Destinger,' and this sum he was to draw through a third party. Turner's letter is addressed, not to Dublin Castle, but to Cooke in London, that gentleman having been succeeded, as Under-Secretary for Ireland, by Mr. Marsden.
Rt. Honble Mr. Secretary Cooke.[246]
Hamburg: May 18, 1802.
Sir,—In consequence of letters I've had the honour of receiving from Lord Castlereagh and Sir James Craufurd, I take the liberty of intruding relative to a pension of 300l. per annum the Government has thought proper to bestow on me for information on Irish affairs.
His lordship states that you have been so kind as to offer to pay the pension to any person I would name as agent—or in any way I was to propose. At present there is no person in Ireland I'd like to trust, and till some mode is adopted, I should be extremely obliged if you'd take the trouble of lodging in any bank in London the sum of 500l. (British) on account of J. Destinger—the name I shall draw it under—through Sir Geo. Rumbold.[247]
Now that the war is over, and it is supposed all persons in my line are discharged, I make it a point to spend much more money than heretofore in order to do away any idea of my being employed and income diminished, and it is for that reason I request your attention, and beg the honour of a line through Sir George to say where the draft is to be sent.
Hoping one day or other to merit your good opinion, I remain, most respectfully, &c. &c.
S. Turner.
Turner spent money freely, and often when he could ill afford it. He had a social status to maintain: he was the son of a county magistrate; had distinguished himself in college; belonged to an honourable profession. He was the trustee of marriage settlements. He was 'Lord Downshire's friend!' If he continued to wear his mask well, why might he not aspire to attain, in America at least, the high official rank of his late colleague and fellow-prisoner, Thomas Addis Emmet, whom she at last honoured by a public funeral and a monument raised by national subscription?
The 'Dublin Directory' for 1804 describes Samuel Turner's address as 58 St. Stephen's Green, in that city. The volume must have been compiled during the previous year, and it may be that the Irish Government, in 1808, removed him to Dublin, with the object of picking the brains of those who had been concerned in Emmet's rebellion of that year. Until the very night of its outburst, in July 1808, the existence of a slumbering volcano had not been suspected. After the vain attempts to convict and hang Tandy, Turner had returned to his old quarters.[248]
The Irish Government were wholly unprepared for Emmet's revolt. No wonder that Wickham, with the experience he had acquired, confessed amazement that the secret should have been kept so well.
The Secretary of State cried out with astonishment to think that such a preparation for revolution could be carried on in the very bosom of the seat of Government, without discovery, for so long a time, when any of the party could have made their fortunes by a disclosure of the plot; and remarked, at the same time, in presence of Mr. Stafford and the two Mr. Parrots, John and William, that it was because they were mostly all mechanics, or working people, that the thing was kept so profound; and said that if the higher orders of society had been connected, they would divulge the plot for the sake of gain.[249]
Turner was at once set in motion: but how? We find him put into the same gaol with a swarm of State prisoners, many of whom had been active in 1798. All daily met for exercise in the yard of Kilmainham Gaol, and had every opportunity for converse. Here Robert Emmet himself had been confined until the very day of his execution.
The execution was followed by that of several of his confederates. Let us look back. Martial law is proclaimed; a dead calm prevails. Turner is now traced stealthily making his way to the Secretary of State's Office, Dublin Castle. Anxious to avoid committing himself in writing, especially with a true signature, he seeks the safer medium of oral communication. Mr. Marsden cannot be seen; he is engaged just then in conference with the chief law officer of the Crown. Turner scribbles the following and sends it in; no signature is attached, but the paper and enclosure are endorsed, by Marsden, 'Mr. Samuel Turner':—
Understanding the Attorney-General is just with you, I take the liberty of sending in a letter of Mr. Ball, but wish to speak on other matters.
Sergeant Ball's letter is dated
Temple St., October 3, 1803.
I have looked into the Act of Parliament and considered in what manner you should proceed in order to do away the effect of the attainder thereby passed against you. Nothing short of an Act of Parliament, reversing the former as far as it affects you, will be sufficient to enable you to sue for your property in our courts of justice. I think you mentioned that some other plan had been suggested as sufficient. If you will let me know what it is, I will give it the most attentive consideration.
How Marsden and the Attorney-General settled the difficulty, no correspondence exists to show; but the London 'Courier' of December 5, 1803, most lucidly reveals the facts:—
On Friday last, Samuel Turner, Esq., barrister-at-law, was brought to the bar of the Court of King's Bench, in custody of the keeper of Kilmainham Prison, under a charge of attainder, passed in the Irish Parliament, as one concerned in the Rebellion of the year 1798; but having shown that he was no way concerned therein, that he had not been in the country for a year and seven months prior to passing that Act—i.e. for thirteen months prior to the rebellion—and therefore could not be the person alluded to, his Majesty's Attorney-General confessed the same, and Mr. Turner was discharged accordingly.[250]
The 'Dublin Evening Post' of the day states that Turner's arrest was due simply to his indiscretion in visiting Ireland on business arising from the death of his father.[251] But as the 'Post' in 1803 had been subsidised by the Crown, this account was probably meant to mislead. The Castle archives bulge with the brimful letters of its editor, H. B. Code. Turner's committal to Kilmainham was only another act in the great drama, one scene of which Mr. Froude has so powerfully put before us. 'Samuel Turner, Esquire,' of imposing presence and indomitable mien, a veteran in 'the cause,' the man who had challenged the Commander-in-Chief, the envoy to France, the exile of Erin, the friend of Lord Edward and Pamela, the disinherited by his father, the victim of State persecution, now stood before his fellow-prisoners the 'Ecce Homo' of martyrdom, commanding irresistibly their confidence.
Of his detention in Kilmainham Dr. Madden knows nothing; but he mentions that Turner accompanied the State prisoners—nineteen in number—to Fort George in Scotland, the final scene of their captivity. Here Turner's work was so adroitly performed that we find a man of incorruptible integrity suspected instead. Arthur O'Connor told John Patten that Thomas Addis Emmet 'gave information of a letter which O'Connor was writing, through which means Government became acquainted with the circumstance.' A long correspondence on the subject has been published by Madden. Emmet at last challenged O'Connor. Patten,[252] the brother-in-law of Emmet, was told to bring a certain pair of duelling pistols to Fort George; but, thanks to the efforts of Robert Emmet to allay the dispute, the weapons were not used. It was Patten's impression that Turner's machinations had set the two friends by the ears. Although O'Connor apologised, and both parties shook hands, it is painful to add that half a century after, when the upright Emmet had been more than twenty years dead, O'Connor, in his book 'Monopoly,' stigmatised him as a man of bad faith. A suspicion more baseless was never uttered. In this book the name of his fellow-prisoner, Turner, is not once mentioned. Indeed, the inference is that he thought well of Turner; for O'Connor, after criticising the Catholic members of the Directory, declares that he had much greater reliance on the Northern chiefs. O'Connor, Emmet, Neilson and others were detained at Fort George until the Peace of Amiens, and then enlarged on condition that they should expatriate themselves for ever.[253]
In 1807 Sir Arthur Wellesley, afterwards Duke of Wellington, entered on his duties as Irish Secretary. A letter, dated Dublin Castle, December 5, 1807, and addressed to the Admiralty, recommends a midshipman in the navy, Francis Turner, for promotion. 'He is the son of a Mr. Turner in this country, who has strong claims to the favour of the Government for the loyalty and zeal with which he conducted himself during the rebellion in Ireland.'[254] Doubtless the new hand merely wrote in this letter what the permanent officials prompted.[255]
Downshire, although a staunch Tory of the old school, uniformly supported the Catholic claims. This example probably influenced his protégé. O'Connell, while inculcating moral force in his struggle for civil and religious liberty, was fond of enlisting in his bodyguard men who in more troubled times had staked their lives and fortunes for Ireland. He had himself been a 'United Irishman,' as will be shown. The rebel General Clony presided as chairman at the Catholic Association. Rowan, Teeling and 'Con' McLoughlin sat at the Council board, or stood on the National platform. What confidence must not O'Connell have reposed in the man who, as will appear, avowed himself ready to die for his chief!
An aged gentleman, Patrick O'Byrne, who was born at Newry, almost under the shadow of Turner's patrimonial gable, but who never once doubted his fidelity to the cause in which O'Byrne himself has been no silent ally, supplies a fact of sufficiently curious import:—
When the Orange ascendancy faction resolved to put O'Connell out of the way [he writes], and their champion, the unfortunate D'Esterre, horsewhip in hand, was ostentatiously parading the streets of Dublin, accompanied by leering friends, to compel O'Connell to fight him, Mr. Samuel Turner took up his position in a hotel where it was known D'Esterre would go to seek O'Connell. He had not been there long before D'Esterre and his staff entered and inquired for O'Connell. Immediately Mr. Turner advanced and stated that his friend Mr. O'Connell was not there, but he—Mr. Turner—was there to represent him. No: they did not want Mr. O'Connell's friend; the Liberator himself was the object of their search. Mr. Turner, with the same spirit that he had challenged Lord Carhampton, now declared that he adopted Mr. O'Connell's words, publicly uttered, and made himself responsible for his actions. In vain; none but O'Connell himself would serve their purpose, and Mr. Turner was denied the opportunity of doing battle for his friend.[256]
All this time it cannot be said that, although undiscovered, Turner was still a happy man. The dread spectre of assassination ceased not to haunt him. 'After long experience of the world,' says Junius, 'I affirm before God I never knew a rogue who was not unhappy.' Nor was Turner's presentiment surprising. McSkimmin's History of Carrickfergus, 103-73, in his 'History of Carrickfergus,' states that the pistol and the dagger were no uncommon means of dealing with informers; and he supplies a list of men who thus suffered.
Books which treat of 'Ninety-eight' often mention Byrne of Dundalk. In 1869 the late Mr. John Mathews of that town gathered from Byrne's representative, Mr. P. J. Byrne, Clerk of the Crown, several facts, and, in enclosing them to me, styled his informant 'the highest authority on the unpublished history of the County.' Two days later Mr. Byrne was no more. The inquiries I then made had no reference to Samuel Turner, but some passing notices of this man which occur in the manuscript are useful in now supplying missing links. Mr. Mathews was an ardent patriot, and he described, not without emotion, how Turner died. Regarding him as a rebel true to the end, he writes:—
Turner went to the Isle of Man, and having quarrelled there with a Mr. Boyce, agreed that the dispute should be settled by an appeal to arms. Both, with their friends, repaired to the field of honour, and as Turner was preparing for the struggle his adversary shot him through the head; and [adds Matthews] thus terminated the career of a man whose only regret was that his life was not lost in the service of his country.[257]
Was the vengeance wreaked by Boyce meant as a tardy retribution? Was the John Boyce, who with five other prisoners was consigned in 1797 to Carrickfergus Gaol, connected with the Boyce who shot Turner? What Boyce had against Turner was a secret which died with both. No proceedings seem to have been taken against the man by whose hand he fell. And possibly this forbearance was not uninfluenced by the fact that the Crown had need no longer for their informer's services, but, on the contrary, gained by his death. Turner was a clever man, troublesome to deal with, haughty, touchy, and resentful; and, like Maguan,[258] Bird and Newell, he might at any moment publicly turn upon his employers and betray them with as little compunction as he had already sold his comrades.
A word as regards Lord Downshire, through whom Turner's disclosures were at first conveyed. This peer, who at one time had wielded potential influence at Whitehall, and had the ear of Pitt, lived to fall into deep disfavour with Government. He steadily opposed the Legislative Union, and helped to form a joint-stock purse with the object of out-bribing Dublin Castle. In chastisement he was dismissed from the Lord Lieutenancy of Down, deprived of his rank as colonel, expelled from the Privy Council, and threatened with a parliamentary inquiry into his conduct. These blows told, and on September 7, 1801, he breathed his last.