No. II. is a report in "F.O.," France, No. 71, by one of our spies in Paris on the doings of the Irish exiles there, especially O'Connor, whom Napoleon had appointed General of Division in Marshal Augereau's army, then assembling at Brest for the expedition to Ireland. After stating O'Connor's appointment, the report continues:
"About eighty Irishmen were sent to Morlaix to be formed into a company of officers and taught how they were to discipline and instruct their countrymen when they landed in Ireland. McShee, Général de Brigade, commands them. He and Blackwell are, I believe, the only persons among them of any consequence, who have seen actual service. Emmett's brother and McDonald, who were jealous of the attention paid to O'Connor, would not go to Morlaix. They were prevailed on to go to Brest towards the end of May, and there to join General Humbert. Commandant Dalton, a young man of Irish extraction, and lately appointed to a situation in the Army at Boulogne, translated everything between O'Connor and the War Department at Paris. There is no Irish Committee at Paris as is reported. O'Connor and General Hartry, an old Irishman who has been long in the French service, are the only persons applied to by the French Government, O'Connor for the expedition, and Hartry for the Police, etc., of the Irish in France.
"O'Connor, though he had long tried to have an audience of Bonaparte, never saw him till the 20th of May [1805], when he was presented to him at the levee by Marshal Augereau. The Emperor and the Empress complimented him on his dress and military appearance, and Bonaparte said to him Venez me voir en particulier demain matin. O'Connor went and was alone with him near two hours. On that day Bonaparte did not say a word to him respecting his intention on England; all their conversation regarded Ireland. O'Connor was with him again on the Thursday and Friday following. Those three audiences are all that O'Connor ever had in private with Bonaparte.
"He told me on the Saturday evening that he should go to Court the next morning to take public leave of the Emperor and leave Paris as soon as he had received 10,000 livres which Maret was to give him for his travelling expenses, etc., and which he was to have in a day or two. His horses and all his servants but one had set off for Brest some time before.
"Bonaparte told O'Connor, when speaking of the prospect of a continental War, 'la Russie peut-être pourroit envoyer cette année 100,000 hommes contre la France, mais j'ai pour cela assez de monde à ma disposition: je ferois même marcher, s'il le faut, une armée contre la Russie, et si l'Empereur d'Allemagne refusoit un passage à cette armée dans son pays, je la ferois passer malgré lui.' He afterwards said—'il y a plusieurs moyens de détruire l'Angleterre, mais celui de lui ôter Irlande est bon. Je vous donnerai 25,000 bonnes troupes et s'il en arrive seulement 15,000, ce sera assez. Vous aurez aussi 150,000 fusils pour armer vos compatriotes, et un parc d'artillerie légère, des pièces de 4 et de 6 livres, et toutes les provisions de guerre nécessaires.'
"O'Connor endeavoured to persuade Bonaparte that the best way to conquer England was first to go to Ireland, and thence to England with 200,000 Irishmen. Bonaparte said he did not think that would do; d'ailleurs, he added, ce seroit trop long. They agreed that all the English in Ireland should be exterminated as the whites had been in St. Domingo. Bonaparte assured him that, as soon as he had formed an Irish army, he should be Commander in Chief of the French and Irish forces. Bonaparte directed O'Connor to try to gain over to his interest Laharpe, the Emperor of Russia's tutor. Laharpe had applied for a passport to go to St. Pétersbourg. He says he will do everything in his power to engage the Emperor to go to war with Bonaparte. Laharpe breathes nothing but vengeance against Bonaparte, who, besides other injuries, turned his back on him in public and would not speak to him. Laharpe was warned of O'Connor's intended visit, and went to the country to avoid seeing him: The Senator Garat is to go to Brest with O'Connor to write a constitution for Ireland. O'Connor is getting out of favor with the Irish in France; they begin to suspect his ambitious and selfish views. There was a coolness between Admiral Truguet and him for some time previous to Truguet's return to Brest. Augereau had given a dinner to all the principal officers of his army then at Paris. Truguet invited all of them to dine with him, two or three days after, except O'Connor. O'Connor told me he would never forgive him for it."
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FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: From a French work, "Moeurs et Coutumes des Corses" (Paris, 1802), I take the following incident. A priest, charged with the duty of avenging a relative for some fourteen years, met his enemy at the gate of Ajaccio and forthwith shot him, under the eyes of an official—who did nothing. A relative of the murdered man, happening to be near, shot the priest. Both victims were quickly buried, the priest being interred under the altar of the church, "because of his sacred character." See too Miot de Melito, "Mémoires," vol. i., ch. xiii., as to the utter collapse of the jury system in 1800-1, because no Corsican would "deny his party or desert his blood.">[
[Footnote 2: As to the tenacity of Corsican devotion, I may cite a curious proof from the unpublished portion of the "Memoirs of Sir Hudson Lowe." He was colonel in command of the Royal Corsican Rangers, enrolled during the British occupation of Corsica, and gained the affections of his men during several years of fighting in Egypt and elsewhere. When stationed at Capri in 1808 he relied on his Corsican levies to defend that island against Murat's attacks; and he did not rely in vain. Though confronted by a French Corsican regiment, they remained true to their salt, even during a truce, when they could recognize their compatriots. The partisan instinct was proof against the promises of Murat's envoys and the shouts even of kith and kin.]