Alas! it was his own mistaken trust in the turnkey of Kilmainham, George Dunn, which put Government in possession of the knowledge they had hitherto vainly sought. Dunn had been bribed by St. John Mason, Emmet’s cousin, to facilitate his escape, but while pretending to fall in with Mason’s plans he had in reality betrayed them to the Castle. Knowing nothing of this, Emmet entrusted to George Dunn, a letter openly addressed to “Miss Sarah Curran”—and this letter (which clearly indicated her as the writer of the others) was, within an hour, in the hands of the Chief Secretary.
Amid the other grim documents of the Home Office Secret Papers this love letter of Emmet’s keeps strange company. It has been published, for the first time, in “The Viceroy’s Post-Bag” (p. 358):—
“My dearest Love,
“I don’t know how to write to you. I never felt so oppressed in my life as at the cruel injury I have done to you. I was seized and searched with a pistol over me before I could destroy your letters. They have been compared with those found before. I was threatened with having them brought forward against me in Court. I offered to plead guilty if they would suppress them. This was refused. Information (without mentioning names) was required. I refused, but offered since if I would be permitted to consult others, and that they would consent to enter into any accommodation of that nature to save the lives of those condemned, that I would only require for my part of it to have those letters suppressed, and that I would stand my trial. It has been refused. My love, can you forgive me?
“I wanted to know whether anything had been done respecting the person who wrote the letters, for I feared you might have been arrested. They refused to tell me for a long time. At length, when I said that it was but fair if they expected I should enter into any accommodation that I should know for what I was to do it, they then asked me whether bringing you into the room to me would answer my purpose, upon which I got up and told them that it might answer theirs better. I was sure you were arrested, and I could not stand the idea of seeing you in that situation. When I found, however, that this was not the case, I began to think that they only meant to alarm me; but their refusal has only come this moment and my fears are renewed. Not that they can do anything to you even if they would be base enough to attempt it, for they can have no proof who wrote them, nor did I let your name escape me once, nor even acknowledge that they were written directly to myself. But I fear they may suspect from the stile, and from the hair, for they took the stock[[99]] from me, and I have not been able to get it back from them, and that they may think of bringing you forward.
[99]. Is this the black velvet stock with the lock of hair, marked Miss C., attached to it which Madden says was sold at Russborough’s auction in “the thirties”?
“I have written to your father to come to me to-morrow. Had you not better speak to himself to-night. Destroy my letters that there may be nothing against yourself, and deny having any knowledge of me further than seeing me once or twice. For God’s sake, write to me by the bearer one line to tell me how you are in spirits. I have no anxiety, no care, about myself; but I am terribly oppressed about you. My dearest love, I would with joy lay down my life, but ought I to do more? Do not be alarmed; they may try to frighten you, but they cannot do more. God bless you, my dearest love.
“I must send this off at once; I have written it in the dark. My dearest Sarah, forgive me.”
The next morning Major Sirr and a party of yeomanry presented themselves at the Priory with warrants to search the house for papers, and arrest Sarah Curran. The events of that morning are graphically described by the Chief Secretary, Mr. Wickham, to the Home Secretary.