FOOTNOTES:
[427] Vide Notes and Queries, October 8, 1859.
[428] Curran and his Contemporaries.
[429] Life of Curran, by his Son, i. 384.
[430] McNally had spoken against time for an hour and three-quarters, as he states in an autograph note. This has been enlarged into 'three hours and a half' by Dr. Shelton Mackenzie in his Life of Curran, p. [228], while professing to quote from McNally's note as given by Thomas Davis in Curran's Speeches, p. [365].
[431] Life of Curran, v. i. 397.
[432] From Curran's lines, 'The green spot that blooms on the desert of life.'
[433] The Freeman's Journal, October 13, 1817.
[434] Curran and his Contemporaries, p. [376]. (Blackwood, 1850.)
[435] Cornwallis Papers, iii. 320.
[436] Sirr Papers, MS., Library, Trinity College, Dublin.
[437] Secret Aid. 75l. would be a quarter's pay.
[438] Cornwallis, ii. 350.
[439] This letter, signed 'J. W.', speaks of Father Quigley, dressed à la militaire. The Cyclopædian Magazine for 1808 says that McNally had lived at Bordeaux, and spoke French well (p. 537). The proceedings of the Whig Club are reported. McNally was a member of this club.
[440] Halliday Collection, Royal Irish Academy, vol. 613.
[441] MS. now in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy.
[442] The attorney for the Ulster United Irishmen (see ante, p. [36]).
[443] Cornwallis Papers, iii. 320. See Appendix to present work for some account of Mr. John Pollock, who first succeeded in seducing the once staunch patriot.
[444] Lecky, vii. 139.
[445] Lecky's England, vii. 140. (Longmans, 1890.)
[446] The Grand Juries of Westmeath, from 1727 to 1853, by J. C. Lyons, p. [200].
[447] Madden, iii. 37.
[448] This letter reports an early meeting of the rebel conclave, and is dated March 30, 1792. (MSS., Dublin Castle.)
[449] Life of Curran, by his Son.
[450] For a notice of James Tandy, afterwards stipendiary magistrate for Meath, see Appendix.
[451] Lecky, vii. 141.
[452] Dr. Madden assigns Conner's death to the year 1796, but McNally's report is dated September 17, 1795.
[453] Moore's Journal, &c., vii. 75. Edited by Lord John Russell.
[454] Cyclopædian Magazine, 1808, p. 539. A sensational and detailed account of the rescue, evidently supplied by McNally, is culled from a contemporary newspaper, and, in response to the present writer, appears in Notes and Queries, of May 19, 1860, p 293.
[455] Recollections of John O'Keefe, ii. 45.
[456] McNally's name is amusingly mentioned by the Saturday Review (lxvi. 516) in a paper on the 'Immortals of 1788.'
[457] Mr. Lecky thinks that, had not McNally become a spy, he might have risen to the judgment seat. This, with the testimony of Phillips and Staunton before us, is doubtful: but I am bound to say that many contemporary Irish judges were bad lawyers, who owed their promotion solely to political claims. Higgins does not seem to have known that McNally was also a spy. He often reports him to Cooke: 'Counsellor McNally told me this night at Parisoll's, that Government had offered a sinecure employment, which he rejected. I offered to hold him 100 guineas that his services were never sought for, which completely put him down.'—Francis Higgins to Cooke, November 18, 1797. MSS. Dublin Castle.
[458] Sketches of Irish Political Characters, 1799.
[459] Personal Memoirs.
[460] This passage has been culled by Mr. Lecky.
[461] Sermon on Concealment of Sin.
[462] J. W. to Cooke, June 5, 1798.
[463] Lecky, vii. 142, 401.
[464] All these men, Keogh alone excepted, though never brought to trial, underwent a prolonged term of imprisonment. Keogh was the highly influential leader of the Catholics, and the Crown, probably, wished to make an exception in his favour.
[465] Lecky, vii. 55.
[467] See O'Connor's letter (United Irishmen, ii. 234), saying that in 1797 he expressed abhorrence of the Union Star, which had urged assassination; whereupon Cox, its editor, instantly discontinued it. Then, as regards Macnevin and Lord Edward, they are described by Reinhard as 'of the moderate party.' See the Castlereagh Papers, i. 283.
[468] Lecky, p. 423.
[470] Ibid. p. 462.
[471] Plowden's Historic Review, ii. 537.
[472] Berwick to Grattan. See Life of Grattan, vol. v.
[473] 'Trials, if they must so be called, were carried on without number, under martial law. It often happened that three officers composed the court, and that, of the three, two were under age, and the third an officer of the yeomanry or militia, who had sworn, in his Orange lodge, eternal hatred to the people over whom he was thus constituted a judge. Floggings, picketings, death, were the usual sentences, and these were sometimes commuted into banishment, serving in the fleet, or transference to a foreign service. Many were sold at so much per head to the Prussians. Other less legal, but not more horrible, outrages were daily committed by the different corps under the command of Government. The subsequent Indemnity Acts deprived of redress the victims of this widespread cruelty.'—Lord Holland's Memoirs of the Whig Party.
[474] This despatch is dated merely 'Tuesday, 25th'; but a second on the same subject bears 'April 27, 1798.' (MSS. Dublin Castle.)
[475] In 1810, Sir William Stamer, who seized John Keogh's papers in 1803, gave a masquerade. McNally went as Æsop, but scorned to wear a mask. Huband, whom he often reports, went as Pan; Dogherty, afterwards Chief Justice, as Jeremy Diddler; Wolfe, afterwards Chief Baron, as a hair-dresser; Sir Jonah Barrington as a friar; and 'Doctor Turner' (no doubt Samuel, LL.D.), as Punch. For a full account, see Hibernian Magazine for 1810, p. [125].
[476] Lecky's History of England, vii. 142.
[477] The Metropolis (Dublin, 1806), p. [43], second edition.
[478] McNally always describes himself, in his secret letters, as 'my friend.'
[479] Spy as he was, McNally trembled throughout the troubles, and is not likely to have delivered the defiant reply which he claims to have done. On May 24, 1798, he describes his family as 'all females—all live in terror.' He has moved them a short way from Dublin. He hopes that Cooke's interest will prevent the impending evil of free quarters on his house. It was astutely felt at Dublin Castle, however, that the more McNally seemed to suffer persecution for justice sake, the more freely would popular confidence be reposed in him. On June 27, 1798, he writes to Cooke, bitterly complaining that his house had been attacked by soldiers, who refused to respect Castlereagh's protection.'
[480] Life of Curran, by his Son, ii. 148-9. Compare Lecky, viii. 24, where MacNally seems humanely to lament the theft by soldiers, from a Dublin barrister, of a stand inscribed 'Erin go bragh.'
[481] J. W. (secret), September 19, 1800.
[482] Wickham seems to allude to this fact in the Colchester Correspondence, i. 456.
[483] Mr. Ross, in his preface to the Cornwallis Papers, states that Wickham's papers are destroyed. His grandson tells me that the papers are safely in his possession.
[484] Now the cemetery at Harold's Cross, Dublin.
[485] Madden's United Irishmen, iii. 330.
[486] J. W. to Mr. Secretary Cooke: endorsed 'November 1797.' McNally adds, of a subsequent Whig Lord Chancellor, on whom he had his eye: 'Geo. Ponsonby is not of the private meetings at Grattan's or Curran's.'
[487] Life of Curran, by his Son, ii. 385.
[488] The same manuscript further records, under the respective dates, March 16, 1803, and November 26, 1803, two sums of 100l. each, paid to 'J. W.'
[489] Mr. W. B. Kelly, who held the copyright of a book of mine called The Sham Squire, got it reprinted in Edinburgh many years ago. I had no opportunity for revising the proofs, and I am anxious to correct the strange misprint at p. [250], of '1,000l.' instead of '100l.' to McNally. The original edition, at the same page, states the amount correctly.
[490] Camden to Portland, December 2, 1797.
[491] Most of McNally's letters are endorsed by Cooke. This is marked by Pelham, 'November 8, 1797.'
[492] McNally himself.
[493] Cloncurry did not see Ireland again until his liberation from the Tower. The object of his mission to England was mere surmise. Pelham assumes that he carried a despatch to the French Republic (Froude, iii. 287); but Cloncurry, ignorant of the above letters, tells his law adviser: 'No papers on politics were found on me, for I never had such' (Memoirs, p. [138]). Previously, he casually mentions that his father 'insisted upon my going to London to keep my terms at the Temple, which I accordingly did in November, 1797,' the very date of McNally's letter. (Memoirs of Lord Cloncurry, p. [57].)
[494] Endorsed, 'M. secret. November.'
[495] Personal Recollections of Lord Cloncurry, p. [219].
[496] Not one of McNally's letters is dated beyond the day of the week; but many have a correct date endorsed. Some conjectural dates, supplied in late years by an official pencil, are often wrong.
[497] In 1807-8 he appears as a defendant in several judgments 'marked' by the King's Bench. To Benjamin Bradley, 38l. 4s. 9d.; to Thomas Shaw, 56l.; to the administrators of Hatch, and others; and the search, if continued, would show the same results in after years. Curran frequently accommodated him, as well as William Godwin and others.
[498] Wellington Correspondence (Ireland), p. [192].
[499] Wellington Correspondence (Ireland), pp. [99]-100.
[500] Ireland, 1810, August to December, No. 648, State Paper Office.
[501] History of Ireland since the Union, by Francis Plowden, iii. 896.
[502] The late Michael Staunton to W. J. F.
[503] Ireland, 1811, January to June, No. 652. Peter Finnerty, who, in 1798, had been pilloried as editor of the Press, was now (1811) in Lincoln Gaol for a libel on Lord Castlereagh.
[504] Mr. Lecky thinks that, so early as 1795, McNally reported to the Government a secret conference of Curran and Grattan. Hist. vii. 145.
[505] Life of Curran, i. 147.
[506] These papers are exclusively quoted in the Correspondence of Daniel O'Connell (edited by W. J. F.), ii. 420.
[507] For details, see Ireland before the Union, p. [8]. (Dublin: Duffy.)
[508] The Correspondent, November 4, 1817.
[509] Letter of Mrs. John Philpot Curran, dated 'The Priory, Rathfarnham, September 14, 1872.'
[510] John Egan, a member of the Irish Parliament, lost a judicial office he held by voting against the Union, and died in poverty. A staunch patriot to the end, he belonged to the set which numbered Curran and McNally. Curran's first acquaintance with him was in an affair of honour. Egan, a large man, complained of the great advantage which Curran's diminutive figure gave him. 'I scorn to take any advantage of you, whatever,' replied Curran. 'Let my size be chalked out on your side, and I am quite content that every shot which hits outside that mark should go for nothing.'
[511] It is a question whether 'Mac,' in society, drank as much as he may have pretended to do. See ante, p. [185].
[512] Life of Curran, 1820, ii. 380. Italics in original.
[513] He seems not to have been so badly maimed as he gave Phillips to believe. John P. Prendergast, a nonagenarian, remembers McNally saying at the Trim Assizes in 1817, 'I have a finger and thumb to tweak the nose of any man who dares to question my acts.' Luckily the present writer did not live in those days. How one thumb went, see p. [177].
[514] Letter of J. J. Scallan, Esq., M.D., to the author. Black Rock, April 23, 1890. The Doctor may not be quite right in his assumption.
[515] Mr. Lecky says that 'McNally had specially good opportunities of learning the sentiments of Grattan' (vii. 281). Grattan died May 14; McNally on February 13.
[516] Rev. John Kearney, P.P., St. Catherine's, to the author, February 10, 1860.
[517] McNally and Father Smith seem to have been old chums. So far back as 1805, 'J. W.' writes, in one of his undated letters: 'Smith, the priest whom I have before mentioned, informed me last night that a person arrived here from France within these few days. The intelligence he brings is an assurance of a Descent by the French, and that the Fleet is now in the Atlantic with this object. I do not give credence to his Information. I found it impossible to extract particulars or names, but I am to see him to-morrow (Sunday).'
Smith, suspecting McNally to be a spy, is likely to have charged his news with sensationalism, and 'Mac,' no doubt, found him useful as a scout. That he was an open-mouthed gossiping man, his account of his very solemn mission to the death-bed of the spy shows. He never received promotion, and in the end became so deaf that when officiating in his confessional he always reiterated audibly the character of the sin disclosed, so as to be sure he heard it correctly, and the result was very painful embarrassment to such neighbouring worshippers as could not fail to become en rapport with the conscience of the penitent. Compare Wellington Correspondence (Ireland), pp. [192]-3, and the 'Information of a Priest regarding threatened Invasion.'
[518] Lyons, in his Grand Juries of Westmeath, records, deprecatingly, that Leonard McNally's people were engaged in trade; but, according to their tombstone at Donnybrook, they once owned the castle and lands of Rahobeth. Like other Irish gentry of the proscribed faith, they sank during penal times, and the name of Leonard McNally is found in the official list of 'Papists' who 'conformed' early in the reign of George III. How this came about is traceable in Sheil's notice of McNally in 1820: 'His grandfather made a very considerable personal property, which he laid out in building in Dublin; but having taken leases liable to the discovery of this property, in consequence of a bill under the popish laws, he was stripped of it. His father died when he was an infant, at which time the bill of discovery was filed, and little attention was paid to his education.' The 'will of Leonard McNally, Dublin, merchant,' who died in 1756, is preserved at the Record Office.
[519] William Smith, B.L., died at Torquay, April 29, 1876.
[520] See Life of Grattan, by his Son, ii. 272.
[521] One of the more voluminous of the secret reports signed 'J. W.' is dated March 24, 1797, and details twenty-three propositions of a plan, through which the United Irishmen were to act with Grattan. The proceedings took place at a meeting at Chambers's, one of the Rebel Directory. (MSS. Dublin Castle.)
CHAPTER XV
FATHER ARTHUR O'LEARY
Dr. Madden, in a well-known work of considerable authority, singles out three divines as examples of noble qualities: i.e. 'the Right Rev. Dr. Doyle, the Rev. Arthur O'Leary, and Archbishop Murray.'[522]
Several years ago an influential journalist posted at Melbourne the following letter. He was the mouthpiece of many. It is rather late to answer his question publicly; but, in truth, the subject was not an inviting one to touch, especially as, not having studied it, I felt unable to reply in a way which would be deemed satisfactory by the querist. On the other hand, the application having come from the antipodes, I am encouraged to think that the subject possesses an interest not confined to a hemisphere. 'No one was more generally loved and revered than Father O'Leary,' writes Charles Butler. Yelverton, speaking in the Irish Parliament, said: 'Unattached to this world's affairs, Father O'Leary can have none but the purest motives of rendering service to the cause of morality and his country.' He was the subject of a grand panegyric from the pulpit. Two biographies of him have been written by anointed hands. Idolised while living, his memory was cherished by thousands. His name wore a halo! Now, according to recent commentators, it seems not free from that light which floats over unhealthy places. Let it not be denied that at different times O'Leary did good work for his creed and country. As a religionist he continued true to the end; but if we accept the high testimony of Froude and Lecky, the same cannot be said of him as a patriot and a gentleman.
38, William Street, Melbourne, December 1, 1875.
Sir,—Knowing you from your published writings to be intimately acquainted with the secret political history of Ireland at the close of the last century, I venture to trespass on your courtesy, with a query relative to a celebrated character of those times, whose name, long gratefully and affectionately remembered by his countrymen, must in future, if the statements of a recent historian are deserving of any credit, be associated only with the names of the wretches whom, in the pages of 'The Sham Squire' and 'Ireland before the Union,' you have held up to the scorn of posterity!
I allude to the famous 'Father O'Leary,' who, according to Mr. Froude, was a spy of Pitt's, systematically employed in betraying the secrets which his sacred calling and influence as a trusted patriot enabled him to become possessed of; and, with unparalleled audacity and baseness, publicly receiving the encomiums of his most distinguished contemporaries, such men as Grattan and Curran, for virtues which he only assumed, and for talents which he so basely prostituted! Is it possible that this man could have played such an odious part? Do you consider, sir, that the evidence produced by Mr. Froude in support of so terrible an accusation is sufficiently conclusive; or, has that sensational writer in this, as perhaps in other instances, accommodated his facts to his theories?[523] With tantalising reticence Mr. Froude gives only a few meagre lines from the correspondence in which he claims to have found the proofs of O'Leary's guilt. The subject has been much discussed in Australia, as no doubt it has in every country in which Irishmen are to be found. You have yourself, in one of your ...[524] volumes, referred to a mysterious connection between O'Leary and William Pitt. Was it an honourable, or an infamous one?
May I ask you to favour me with your opinion upon it, judged by the light of Mr. Froude's revelations? By kindly complying with my request, you will oblige many anxious inquirers at the 'Antipodes.'
I am, Sir, etc.,
Morgan McMahon.
W. J. Fitzpatrick, Esq.
I may at once say that, although evidence exists of O'Leary's frailty, it is not sufficient to warrant, in all details, the very sensational picture drawn by Mr. McMahon.
People always knew that O'Leary became entitled to a pension, though how he acquired it was not so clear. Perhaps it is only fair to give him the benefit of the version which his intimate friend, Francis Plowden, placed on record eighty years ago.[525] His information was, doubtless, derived from O'Leary himself; but O'Leary seems to have told him no more than it was convenient to reveal:—
O'Leary's writings on toleration had removed from the minds of many Catholics the difficulties which up to that time prevented them from swearing allegiance to the House of Hanover, and abjuring the House of Stuart. That Rev. Divine so happily blended a vein of liberality and original humour with orthodox instruction, that his writings became popular even with Protestants, and induced so much toleration and cordiality between them and the Catholics, that created a serious alarm in those who studied to perpetuate their division and consequent weakness. With much art they endeavoured to stop the progress of this terrifying liberality and harmony among Irishmen of different religious professions. The Rev. Arthur O'Leary was thanked by the British minister for the services he had rendered to the State, by frightening away the bugbear of Jacobitism, and securing the allegiance of the whole Catholic body to the House of Hanover. A pension of 200l. was granted to him for his life in the name of a trustee, but upon the secret condition that he should for the future withhold his pen, and reside no more in Ireland,—in such dread was holden an evangeliser of tolerance and brotherhood in that country. Two or three payments of this hush-money were made. Afterwards an arbitrary refusal for many years threw the Rev. Pensioner upon the voluntary support of his friends for subsistence. After a lapse of many years, by importunity and solicitation, and repeated proofs of his having complied with the secret conditions, he received a large arrear; and, in order to make himself independent for the rest of his days, he purchased with it an annuity for his life from a public office, and died before the first quarter became due.
It was, in fact, entirely by Plowden's intervention that the arrear was paid. So we learn on the authority of the Rev. Thomas England, who in 1822 brought out a life of O'Leary. Plowden was a friend of Pitt's, and undertook to write a History of Ireland under the auspices of that statesman. He had previously published in defence of the British Constitution, and received in acknowledgment the D.C.L. of Oxford. When writing eighty years ago of so popular and respected a priest as O'Leary, Plowden—himself a Catholic—made his revelation cautiously. It would now seem that some greater service was rendered than the public service to which Plowden refers. It will be shown on high contemporary authority that the object of the Castle in 1784 was to divide the two great parties. This policy later on was boldly avowed as Divide et impera.[526] The service, therefore, for which O'Leary accepted secret pay cannot have been for promoting cordial co-operation between Catholics and Protestants.
Mr. Lecky, in the sixth volume of his 'History of England,' has brought to light a letter, going far to establish the fact that in 1784 O'Leary 'consented, for money, to discharge an ignominious office for a Government which despised and distrusted him.'[527]
On studying O'Leary's public life there seems no doubt that the secret pension of 100l. a year, which in 1784 he agreed to accept, was merely supplemental to a larger subsidy previously enjoyed. How he earned the first pension is now to be shown.
A volume, 'Sketches of Irish Political Characters,' was published in 1799. The writer, Henry McDougall, commanded sources of information which gave his book value. Speaking of O'Leary, he says (p. [264]):—
During the most awful period of the American War, he addressed his Catholic countrymen, upon the subject of what ought to be their political conduct, in a manner that merited the thanks of every good citizen, and for which, it has been said, Government rewarded him with a pension; if so, never was a pension more deservedly applied.
McDougall doubtless refers to a publication of O'Leary's, largely circulated and often reprinted, i.e. 'An Address to the Common People of Ireland on occasion of an apprehended Invasion by the French and Spaniards in July 1779,[528] when the united Fleets of Bourbon appeared in the Channel.' On April 12, 1779, Spain had concluded an alliance with France and America, whereupon Vergennes, the French Premier, divulged to the Spanish minister, Blanca, that an invasion of Ireland was meditated. To promote this design, an American agent was instructed to foster the interests of the allies amongst the Presbyterians of Ulster; while the task of winning over the Irish Catholics was to be entrusted to Spanish agents.
America was all but lost at this time, and England found herself in a position of great difficulty. Ireland was drained of its garrison; the people much discontented; the Catholic middle classes, grown rich by commercial success, had established branches of their houses in France and Spain. A letter of warning, which alarmed the Cabinet, and probably led them to ask O'Leary's help, still exists. At the same time, hurriedly and with a bad grace, they conceded a measure of Catholic Relief. Lord Amherst, writing to Lord North from Geneva on June 19, 1778, says:—
I have acquired a piece of information here, concerning a plot for a revolt in the West of Ireland among the Roman Catholics, with a view to overturn the present Government, by the aid of the French and Spaniards, and to establish such an one as prevails in this country, I mean the Cantons, by granting toleration to the Protestants.[529] You may depend on its authenticity.
And again:—
My intelligence comes from Rome, and I am pretty certain these Acts have been brought in from the ministry receiving the same intelligence, which I know they have been in possession of for some time; as the measures for preventing the mischief proposed by the person who gives the information are exactly those that have been adopted.
O'Leary by his address aroused not only Catholic loyalty, but awakened the apathy of many Protestants on whom the report of invasion had previously made no impression. The Volunteers sprang into vitality, and though they at first numbered merely 8,000, the force swelled ere the year was out to 42,000 armed men, and without the cost of one shilling to the Crown. Years after, the Government dreading, like Frankenstein, the heaving mass it had helped to create, sought to suppress the Irish Volunteers; but in 1778 their feeling was very different, when O'Leary's inspiring address fanned the spirit of volunteering, and conduced to preserve the country. It was then that Lord Buckinghamshire officially declared that Ireland was prepared to offer a determined resistance to invasion.
A link or two of the heavy penal chain had now been struck from Papist limbs. The relaxation, however, was hampered with a new test oath, drawn up in terms even more subtle than that which, when handed to O'Connell fifty years later in Parliament, he withdrew rather than take. Dr. Carpenter[530] ruled the R. C. see of Dublin at this time. His flock embraced a considerable number who, from timidity of conscience, expressed doubts as to the propriety of taking the oath. Dr. Carpenter, though himself no great friend to the temporal power of the Pope, felt that to deny on oath a power already claimed by some famous theologians would seem rash and arrogant. Bishop de Burgo, author of the 'Hibernia Dominicana,' opposed the oath in terms still stronger; lay orators described as a poisoned cup the proffered measure of Catholic relief. Again O'Leary came to the front. A pamphlet of eighty-six pages was thrown on the country, entitled, 'Loyalty asserted, or a Vindication of the new Test Oath of Allegiance, with an impartial inquiry into the Pope's Temporal Power [531]
The dreaded invasion never took place; but O'Leary's address was scattered broadcast, and during subsequent years it reappeared again and again. It reads more like the argument of a paid advocate than the disinterested appeal of a poor Franciscan.
All this—not to speak of O'Leary's tracts on Toleration, and his exertions, written and oral, to deter the Whiteboys from their conspiracies—furnishes sufficient claim to a pension, without assuming that it must have been earned in the dark field of espionage. However, we now approach the time when overtures to discharge an ignominious task were undoubtedly made to him.
On August 26, 1784, the Viceroy, Rutland, addressed a 'most secret' letter to Pitt's brother-in-law, Lord Sydney:—
I have discovered a channel by which I hope to get to the bottom of all the plots and machinations which are contriving in this metropolis. As I always expected, the disturbances which have been agitated have all derived their source from French influence. There is a meeting in which two men named Napper Tandy and John Binney, together with others who style themselves free citizens, assemble. They drink the French King on their knees, and their declared purpose is a separation from England and the establishment of the Roman Catholic religion. At their meetings an avowed French agent constantly attends, who is no other than the person in whose favour the French ambassador desired Lord Caermarthen to write to me a formal introduction....[532] One of this meeting, alarmed at the dangerous extent of their schemes, has confessed, and has engaged to discover to me the whole intentions of this profligate and unprincipled combination.[533]
This is a glowing picture, one more than realising the beautiful vision of Davis:—
The mess tent is full, and the glasses are set,
And the gallant Count Thomond is president yet.
The vet'ran arose, like an uplifted lance,
Crying: 'Comrades a health to the monarch of France!'
With bumpers and cheers they have done as he bade,
For King Louis is loved by the Irish Brigade.
The first mention of O'Leary's name in the State Papers is under date September 4, 1784, when Sydney writes to the Lord-Lieutenant:—'O'Leary has been talked to by Mr. Nepean, and he is willing to undertake what is wished for 100l. a year, which has been granted him.'
On Sept. 8th [writes Mr. Lecky] Orde thanks Nepean for sending over a spy, or detective, named Parker, and adds: I am very glad also that you have settled matters with O'Leary, who can get at the bottom of all secrets in which the Catholics are concerned, and they are certainly the chief promoters of our present disquietude. He must, however, be cautiously trusted, for he is a Priest, and if not too much addicted to the general vice of his brethren here, he is at least well acquainted with the art of raising alarms for the purpose of claiming a merit in doing them away.[534]
Thus, as it would seem, O'Leary had already not been slow in claiming from the Government the merit, if not the wages, of allaying the causes of public alarm. Plowden and England admit that O'Leary had a pension of 200l. a year. He must have been in receipt of at least 100l. for his writings at the time that, for an extra hundred, it was proposed to him to undertake a base task. The promptitude and facility with which Sydney, in September 1784, made the proposition shows the close relations that had previously subsisted.
A curious letter from Weymouth, a previous Home Secretary, addressed to Dublin Castle, is printed in Grattan's 'Life' (vol. i. p. [369]). In great panic he expresses fear that the Catholic colleges of France and Flanders would despatch their alumni as secret agents to Ireland. These were among the reasons that made the Government anxious to secure O'Leary's aid.
Dr. England—his earliest biographer—lived comparatively near the time, and heard from O'Leary's publisher, Keating, a few interesting incidents which, to some extent, tally with the revelations of the State Papers. The biographer knows of an interview between O'Leary and Nepean on behalf of Sydney and Pitt, but England and his informant are deceived as to the conditions which accompanied the pension. Their memory is also at fault as regards the year. Instead of 1784, they set it down as 'soon after O'Leary had fixed his residence permanently in London,' which, of course, was in 1789. O'Leary had been a good deal in London previously, for, as Froude states, Orde in 1784 asked Sydney to send him over confidential agents, and in September 1784 he writes, 'your experts have arrived safe.'[535]
Soon after he [O'Leary] had fixed his residence permanently in London [writes Dr. England], one day whilst dining with his attached and valued friend, Mr. Keating, the bookseller, he was informed that Lord Sydney's secretary was in the adjoining parlour, and had a communication to make to him. He immediately left the table; and when, in a short time, he returned, he related the substance of the interview. The secretary stated to him that Government had observed with much satisfaction the good effects which Mr. O'Leary's writings had produced in Ireland—peace, good order, and unanimity, amongst all classes of his countrymen, had been promoted and advanced by his exertions; and that, in consideration of the services thus rendered to the Empire, it was determined to manifest the approbation of such conduct by offering him a pension suitable to his circumstances, and worthy of his acceptance; that, with a delicacy arising from the ignorance of his means of subsistence, they had as yet hesitated fixing on any specific sum, choosing rather to learn from himself what would answer his expectations, than to determine on what might be insufficient for his claims. The secretary took the liberty of asking a question to which, at the same time, he did not insist on receiving an answer: whether, in the event of any popular commotion in Ireland, as it was dreaded would be the case from the diffusion of American republican notions, O'Leary would advocate, as formerly, principles of loyalty and allegiance? To this latter question an unhesitating reply was given, confirmatory of the known inflexibility of O'Leary's political conduct; with regard to the pension, he never had sought for one, though, at a former period of his life, something of the kind had been hinted to him; in the present instance he was grateful to the Government for the recollection of him, and suggested that the utmost of his claims would be answered by 100l. a year. He was afterwards informed officially that his presence in Ireland was necessary for the purpose of having the pension placed on the list of that country. He repaired thither, and, after the necessary formalities were gone through, he became entitled to 200l. per annum; but England adds that, 'for some unexplained cause, his pension, after one or two years, was arbitrarily withheld.'[536]
It will be seen that the point here made is not consistent with Plowden's account (ante, p. [213]). According to him, the pension was 'hush-money:' he was to write no more, and, above all, he was not to write in promotion of good feeling and toleration. England upholds that it was given in the hope that O'Leary would continue to write in the same tone that had already earned Governmental gratitude. Sydney settled terms with O'Leary in London, and, through his secretary, told him what to do.
'Cedars have yielded,' says St. Peter. It was a clever thought to plan the corruption of O'Leary for the performance of a part which his employers describe with gusto. Two years previously, on February 27, 1782, popular confidence in him had reached its height when Yelverton, Grattan, and Sir Lucius O'Brien praised him with enthusiasm.
A man of learning, a philosopher, a Franciscan [said Grattan] did the most eminent service to his country in the hour of its greatest danger. He brought out a publication that would do honour to the most celebrated name. The whole kingdom must bear witness to its effect by the reception they gave it. Poor in everything but genius and philosophy, he had no property at stake, no family to fear for; but descending from the contemplation of wisdom, and abandoning the ornaments of fancy, he humanely undertook the task of conveying duty and instruction to the lowest class of the people.[537]
How he qualified for these praises Mr. Froude may now be allowed to show. After O'Leary arrived in Dublin he saw Orde, and was told what the Government expected him to do. The following letter is dated September 23, 1784:—
Your experts have arrived safe [wrote the Secretary, reporting their appearance]. At this moment we are about to make trial of O'Leary's sermons,[538] and Parker's rhapsodies. They may be both in their different callings of very great use. The former, if we can depend on him, has it in his power to discover to us the real designs of the Catholics, from which quarter, after all, the real mischief is to spring. The other can scrape an acquaintance with the great leaders of sedition, particularly Napper Tandy, and perhaps by that means dive to the bottom of his secrets.[539]
Sir Richard Musgrave was one of the alarmists who loved to purvey sensational news for Dublin Castle. His 'History of the Rebellion,' published in 1801, embodies his impressions of events for twenty years before. No wonder that Dublin Castle was fluttered by his reports. Here is clearly one of them, and it serves to show why it was that the Government were so anxious in 1784 to secure O'Leary by a subsidy:—
A corps called the Irish Brigade was raised in Dublin, of which nineteen out of twenty were Roman Catholics, and they appointed Father O'Leary, an itinerant friar, their chaplain. I have been assured that they exceeded in number all the other Volunteer corps in the city.
And again:—
In the summer of the year 1783, the Irish Brigade, with the Dublin Independent Volunteers, commanded by James Napper Tandy and Matthew Dowling, formed an encampment between Roebuck and Dublin, under the pretext of studying tactics and learning camp duty, though it was well known that they were hatching revolutionary projects. It is to be observed that the war, the only pretext for their arming, was now at an end; yet many corps in different parts of the kingdom resolved not to lay down their arms but with their lives.[540]
Musgrave's construction of the above, as in many other incidents, is not wholly correct; though in his estimate of Tandy and Dowling, both Protestants, he was accurate enough.
If O'Leary played the part assigned and attributed to him, never did face more belie internal baseness, or was more exquisitely fashioned to command the confidence of its dupes. The 'Gentleman's Magazine' for February 1802 contains a study of 'Father Arthur' from the pen of Mr. Pratt.
His manners [he says] were the most winning and artless, anticipating his goodwill and urbanity before he opened his lips; and when they were opened, his expressions did but ratify what those manners had before ensured. And you had a further earnest of this in the benign and ineffable smile of a countenance so little practised in guile that it at the same time invited to confidence, and denoted an impossibility of your being betrayed.
Curran, addressing the Irish House of Commons in 1787, revealed a trait highly honourable to the friar: 'Mr. O'Leary was, to his knowledge, a man of the most innocent and amiable simplicity of manners in private life. The reflection of twenty years in a cloister had severely regulated his passions and deeply informed his understanding.'[541] Curran's knowledge was partly derived from the fact that O'Leary belonged to 'The Monks of the Screw,' often regarded as a convivial club; but 'whose more important object,' writes Hardy, the biographer of Charlemont, 'was a co-operation of men holding a general similarity of political principles resolved to maintain the rights and constitution of their country.' Previously, O'Leary had dedicated his Miscellaneous Tracts 'to the Dignitaries and Brethren of the Monks of St. Patrick,' addressing them, with his wonted humour, as 'Reverend Fathers and illustrious Brethren.'
He had already written in denunciation of French designs on Ireland; and what more natural than that he should now be asked to track the movements of certain French emissaries which the Government heard had arrived in Dublin, and were conspiring with the Catholic leaders to throw off the British yoke.[542] This task O'Leary, as a staunch loyalist, may have satisfied his conscience in attempting, especially as he must have known that in 1784 the Catholics, as a body, had no treasonable designs, though, doubtless, some few exceptions might be found. In fact, his friend Edmund Burke, a member of the Ministry in 1783, declared, but later on, that 'the Irish Roman Catholics were everywhere loyal, save at certain points where their loyalty had been impaired by contact with Protestants.' Orde,[543] while using O'Leary, thought him a knave; yet feigned a readiness to believe his reports. The exhaustive correspondence of Count d'Adhémar, the French ambassador in London, with his Government, is now open to inquirers at the French Foreign Office; but, as it makes no allusion to any French agent in Ireland at this period, the story may be little better than one of the sensational myths so often found in the letters of informers to the Irish executive.[544] But, although no documental evidence exists of a French agent having been in Dublin in 1784, it is certain that five years later, i.e. in 1789, one Bancroft, an American by birth, was sent on a secret mission from France to Ireland.[545]
We hear of no important arrests during the troubled period that O'Leary is said to have been set in motion; but the Habeas Corpus Act had not been suspended since 1779, and was not until 1794 that Pitt renewed the suspension.
In analysing O'Leary's life and judging his conduct, it is not fair to ignore any remark of his tending to exculpate; but, if panegyrics are desired, the reader should consult the memoirs by England, Buckley and some others. Almost O'Leary's last public performance appeared in 1800: 'An Address to the Lords of Parliament, with an account of Sir H. Mildmay's Bill relative to Nuns.'
His loyalty was not [he said] the effect of necessity or timeserving policy, for in France, where the Penal Laws of England drove him for education, and where the Catholics of Ireland had Seminaries and Convents with full admission to all the degrees of her universities, I resisted every solicitation to enlist any of the subjects of these kingdoms in the French King's service, though I had then every opportunity of being appointed to superintend prisons and hospitals during the wars. It was my interest to recommend myself to the favour of people in power, and consequently more my interest to become more a courtier than a moralist. St. Paul calls God to witness when he asserts the truth: I can do the same when I assert that conscience was the rule of my conduct.[546]
This is further useful in showing that O'Leary was no admirer of the French king, and now that he was a pensioner of England would hardly object to discover the reported French agents in Dublin, who, with Napper Tandy, are said to have 'drank on their knees' the toast of 'Louis of France.'
The latter story—told by the Viceroy, Rutland, in his letter to Sydney—bears improbability on its face. It seems strange that Tandy and his party, who not long after were Red Republicans and the allies of Carnot and Hoche, would drink the health of Louis XVI. on their knees.[547] They were principally Protestants; and John O'Connell, in the Life of his father, says that Sheares shocked the future Liberator by exultantly displaying a handkerchief soaked in the French king's blood.
I suspect that when O'Leary returned from making, in September 1784, the inquiries which he is assumed to have done, his report was something in the spirit of Canning's knife-grinder: 'Story! God bless you, I have none to tell, sir;' and that Orde concluded O'Leary himself was in the plot. On October 17, Orde writes to Nepean, alluding to some rumour about our friar which is not stated. 'Del Campo's connection with O'Leary—or rather O'Leary's with him—may have given rise to all the report; but, after all, I think it right to be very watchful over the priest, and wish you to be so over the Minister. They are all of them designing knaves.'
Thus it appears that in little more than a fortnight after O'Leary is supposed to have begun to spy, Orde was far from satisfied with him.