“Napper Tandy is a large, big-boned, muscular man, much broken and emaciated. His hair is quite white from age, cut close behind into his neck, and he appears much enervated. This is indeed very natural if it be considered that he is nearly seventy years of age and has just suffered a long and rigorous confinement, his mind a constant prey of the most painful suspense. He wore a large friar’s hat, a long silk black greatcoat and military boots, which had a very ‘outre’ effect.
“Of Blackwell and Morres, the latter seemed to be five and thirty. They are two tall, handsome looking men. They wore military dress and had a very soldier like appearance. The first named is a man of very enterprising genius, about the middle size and apparently not more than four or five and twenty, and has the look of a foreigner.”
Eventually Tandy and his companions were removed to Ireland and were placed at the bar of the King’s Bench, when the Attorney General prayed that sentence of death should be passed upon them. The case was argued for several days and finally Lord Kilwarden ruled that Tandy should be discharged. But he was scarcely given his liberty when he was again arrested in the district where, two years before, he had made a hostile descent from France. He lay in the jail there for seven months, during which time great efforts were made to insure the conviction of what was regarded as a very dangerous character.
Tandy, finding the evidence against him overwhelming, admitted the truth of the indictment and was sentenced to die on the 4th of the following May. Meanwhile Napoleon, on his return from Egypt, claimed Tandy as a French general and held an English prisoner of equal rank a hostage for his safety. At this stage of the historic affair it was not quite so clear that the English had a legal claim to the life of a man who wore the uniform of a French general and who had been arrested under such peculiar circumstances. A pardon was eventually made out for him on condition of banishment to Botany Bay. He indignantly refused it, but was finally induced to accept it on the ground that all that was required was merely the name of transportation, and that if he pleased, it might appear to the world as if he had made his escape at sea.
Napper Tandy arrived at Bordeaux on the 14th of March, 1802, where he was received with military honors. Bordeaux was illuminated and the old rebel was promoted to the rank of a general of division. In the midst of his vindication, as he termed it, he read with real horror a speech of Pelham’s in Parliament saying that he owed his life to the useful information and discoveries he had given to the British Government. Instantly he addressed a letter to Pelham branding the statement as audacious and false. Mr. Elliott repeated in Parliament the taunt cast by Pelham, and spoke of Tandy’s ignorance and insignificant birth. Tandy immediately challenged him to a duel, saying: “A French officer must not be insulted with impunity, and you, as well as the country which gave me birth and that which has adopted me, shall find that I will preserve the honor of my station.”
When eight weeks had elapsed and Elliott had failed to reply, Tandy at once proclaimed him “A calumniator, liar and poltroon.”
The most curious part of the whole business is that General Tandy never knew that he had been betrayed by a spy who was serving under him as an aide-de-camp. His private character was as clean as a hound’s tooth, a fact that led one of his friends to say that “it furnished no ground to doubt the integrity of his public one.”
But his experiences in and out of prison undermined his health, and after a lingering illness, he died at Bordeaux in 1803. By one of the curious decrees of destiny George Orr, the spy, lived and prospered long after Tandy’s death, and, if rumor be correct, managed to accumulate not only English but French gold!