It was at Hamburg, Pamela’s second child, her little daughter, Pamela, was born. She had left her boy with his grandmother in London, and when Lord Edward’s business was done, and they were in the English capital again on their way home to Ireland, little Eddie was given to the Duchess “for her very own.”
Was his father clearing the decks for action? It would seem so. Two months after his return to Ireland the French were in Bantry Bay.
In February of 1797, Arthur O’Connor was arrested for his address to the Electors of Antrim, and was lodged in Newgate. From this time Lord Edward was indefatigable in his activities. He was one of those who believed—as did the greater number of the Northern leaders—that the time had come “to rise,” without waiting any longer for the French aid, which had been such a rotten crutch to them. But the Dublin leaders, influenced by the more cautious counsel of men like John Keogh and MacCormick, were dead against the attempt. The moment passed—and affairs hastened to their tragic end.
In February, 1798, Arthur O’Connor who had been liberated from his captivity in Birmingham Tower, Dublin Castle, after six months stay there, was again arrested with Father Quigley at Margate, on his way to France, on a political mission. Among O’Connor’s papers were found documents incriminating Lord Edward. But the Government were loth from his family and political connections to proceed against him. Even Lord Castlereagh entreated his aunt, Lady Louisa Connolly, to get him to leave the country, and much pressure was put on Pamela to influence him to seek safety in flight.
It was in vain. Lord Edward refused to desert his post; and whatever remained to be endured he would endure it even to the end.
We must leave him for a time, passing from hiding place to hiding place between the fatal March 12th when the other leaders were captured, until May the 19th, when he himself was run to earth at Murphy’s, while we turn to the poor little frightened wife, who with no kind friend near at hand to console her, lonely and desolate in a foreign land, with her little helpless child, must bear her woman’s burden, and go through her woman’s hour of mortal anguish all alone. After Lord Edward went “on his keeping” she found it desirable to leave Leinster House for a less conspicuous lodging in Denzille Street, whither she went with no other companion than her maid and Lord Edward’s black servant, the faithful Tony. Once or twice Lord Edward managed to see her. Once the maid, going into Lady Edward’s room, found him sitting in the firelight with her, and both of them weeping over little two-year-old Pamela who had been roused from her cot that her father might see her.
In April, Pamela’s third child, a little girl called Lucy, was born—prematurely, as Moore informs us, owing to a fright caused the poor mother by the risk run by her husband in order to see her again. It has been asserted, somewhere, that so high was the political feeling of the period that no doctor could be found to attend Lady Edward. For the honour of Ireland it is pleasing to be able to contradict this assertion, on the unassailable authority of Lady Sarah Napier. Lady Moira “mothered” the desolate creature, and saw that as far as nurse and doctor went, there was nothing to be desired.
When Pamela recovered, her kind friend took her to Moira House, and it was there the news of Lord Edward’s capture on May the 18th reached her.
Three days later, Government ordered Lady Edward to leave Ireland. The order, which it was not possible for her to disobey, caused her the most heartbreaking distress. But she was spared, then at least, the grief of knowing that Lord Edward’s wounds were fatal.
We know from Charles H. Teeling that she made her way into Newgate, in spite of Lord Castlereagh’s refusal—and we know that it was the same chivalrous, romantic boy who took on himself the perilous duty of escorting her. He had known Lady Edward in the happy days when the eager young band of patriots gathered in Kildare Lodge, and his brother, poor Bartle, saw in Lady Lucy (as so many have seen her in the loved form of some fair, living woman) the realisation of his dreams of Kathleen Ni Houlihan. The sense of chivalry and romance which was for so much in the heart of young Charles Teeling made the lad one of the most devoted knights whom Pamela’s fascination enlisted in her service. “Formed to charm every heart, and command every arm that had not been enlisted in the cause of Ireland”—it is thus, thirty years after, he remembers her. “Ireland was her constant theme, and Edward’s glory the darling object of her ambition. She entered into all his views; she had a noble and heroic soul, but the softer feelings of her sex would sometimes betray the anxiety with which she anticipated the approaching contest, and as hopes and fears alternately influenced her mind, she expressed them with all the sensibility characteristic of her country. In the most sweet and impressive tone of voice, rendered still more interesting by her foreign accent, and imperfect English, she would, with unaffected simplicity, implore us to protect her Edward. ‘You are all good Irish,’ she would say; ‘Irish are all good and brave, and Edward is Irish—your Edward and my Edward,’ while her dark brilliant eye, rivetted on the manly countenance of her lord, borrowed fresh lustre from the tear which she vainly endeavoured to conceal. These were to me some of the most interesting moments I have experienced, and memory still retraces them with a mingled feeling of pleasure and pain.”