Mr. Lecky says that McNally often betrayed to the Crown the line of defence contemplated by his clients, and other information which he could only have received in professional confidence, and the Government archives contain several of his briefs annotated in his own hand. Mr. Lecky finds that
he was also able, in a manner not less base, to furnish the Government with early and most authentic evidence about conspiracies which were forming in France. James Tandy[450] ... was his intimate friend; McNally, by his means, saw nearly every letter that arrived from Napper Tandy, and some of those which came from Rowan and Reynolds. The substance of these letters was regularly transmitted to the Government, and they sometimes contained information of much value. Besides this, as a lawyer in considerable practice, constantly going on circuit, and acquainted with the leaders of sedition, McNally had excellent opportunities of knowing the state of the country, and was able to give very valuable warnings about the prevailing dispositions.[451]
Among the earlier victims to the severe legislation of that time was Laurence Conner, a poor schoolmaster of Naas, charged with Defenderism, whose case has been invested with interest by Sir Jonah Barrington, Dr. Madden, and others. A moving speech from the dock failed to avert his doom, and his head, for years after, grinned from a stake at the top of the gaol. McNally, who had defended him, stated in his secret report to Pelham that a provision had been offered for Conner's family if he would make discoveries; but his reply was, 'He who feeds the young ravens in the valley will provide for them!'[452] It is strange that McNally should report to his employers this chivalrous speech, which places in marked contrast his own frailty and disgraceful fall. But corrupt as his heart had now become, he could not help admiring magnanimity wherever he met it. The man who sought to make Conner inform was, doubtless, McNally himself, at the instance of Crown Solicitor Pollock, who, as the 'Cornwallis Papers' record (iii. 120), 'managed Mac.'
This is the man whose name Earl Russell erased from Moore's Diary of February 27, 1835, leaving merely the initials 'L. McN.,' because some doubts of his honesty had been expressed postprandially by Plunket, a man more clear-sighted, it appears, than Charles Phillips. Succeeding chapters will show Plunket associated with McNally during the State trials of '98.
Lord Holland amused with my saying how much I used to look up to this L—— McN—— [writes Moore], on account of some songs in a successful opera which he wrote, 'Robin Hood.' 'Charming Clorinda' was one of the songs I used to envy him being the author of.
'Your profession should have taught you principles of honour,' McNally writes in the piece which first roused the muse of Moore. With such fine sentiments it must have caused him a struggle to betray. All will rejoice that he who sang
Let Erin remember the days of old
Ere her faithless sons betrayed her—
escaped the blight of McNally's breath. Moore was the bosom friend of Emmet, sympathised with the 'cause,' and wrote for the organ of the United Irishmen. Shortly after '98, however, he entered at the Middle Temple, London, and saw McNally no more. Plunket told Moore that it was in a duel McNally received the wound in the hip that lamed him, and on a subsequent occasion, when he was again going out to fight, a friend said, 'I'd advise you, Mac, to turn the other hip to him, and who knows but he may shoot you straight.'[453]
McNally was indeed a brave man. If anyone seemed to doubt him, he would be called out and probably shot. In early life he practised at the English Bar. It is recorded in the 'Cyclopædian Magazine,' for 1808, that during the Gordon Riots, when the mob had smashed down the Bishop of Lincoln's coach, had dragged him out, and were beating him with bludgeons, McNally, at the risk of his life, rescued Dr. Thurlow, on whose forehead, he heard them say, they meant to cut the sign of the cross. This prelate, who somewhat favoured Catholic Relief, was the brother of Lord Chancellor Thurlow; and the young barrister may have had an ulterior object in thus exposing himself to danger. McNally himself evidently supplied the account, of which but a few details are here borrowed, and we learn that 'the Bishop required, and received, the address of his protector, but never after acknowledged the obligation.'[454] Some pamphlets on the Regency struggle, and the 'Claims of Ireland' vindicated on the principles of the English Whigs, introduced him to Fox, for whom he acted as counsel at an election for Westminster. 'By whatever right England possesses Liberty,' he said, 'by the same right Ireland may claim it!'
McNally as an orator was declamatory, and at times theatrical. His outward man has been often caricatured, but John O'Keefe tells us that he had 'a handsome, expressive countenance, and fine sparkling dark eyes.'[455] Sir Jonah Barrington recognises the same features. Contemporary memoirs of him supply a long list of his dramas, farces, comic operas, touching lyrics, prologues and masques, all produced at Covent Garden. But when in England he was a genuine, thoroughgoing Irishman very unlike the sham which he afterwards became; and why he resigned a dramatic for a forensic career is curiously shown by 'Sylvanus Urban.' The opening of Covent Garden Theatre, on September 23, 1782, was commemorated by a prelude from McNally's pen.