He had already written in denunciation of French designs on Ireland; and what more natural than that he should now be asked to track the movements of certain French emissaries which the Government heard had arrived in Dublin, and were conspiring with the Catholic leaders to throw off the British yoke.[542] This task O'Leary, as a staunch loyalist, may have satisfied his conscience in attempting, especially as he must have known that in 1784 the Catholics, as a body, had no treasonable designs, though, doubtless, some few exceptions might be found. In fact, his friend Edmund Burke, a member of the Ministry in 1783, declared, but later on, that 'the Irish Roman Catholics were everywhere loyal, save at certain points where their loyalty had been impaired by contact with Protestants.' Orde,[543] while using O'Leary, thought him a knave; yet feigned a readiness to believe his reports. The exhaustive correspondence of Count d'Adhémar, the French ambassador in London, with his Government, is now open to inquirers at the French Foreign Office; but, as it makes no allusion to any French agent in Ireland at this period, the story may be little better than one of the sensational myths so often found in the letters of informers to the Irish executive.[544] But, although no documental evidence exists of a French agent having been in Dublin in 1784, it is certain that five years later, i.e. in 1789, one Bancroft, an American by birth, was sent on a secret mission from France to Ireland.[545]
We hear of no important arrests during the troubled period that O'Leary is said to have been set in motion; but the Habeas Corpus Act had not been suspended since 1779, and was not until 1794 that Pitt renewed the suspension.
In analysing O'Leary's life and judging his conduct, it is not fair to ignore any remark of his tending to exculpate; but, if panegyrics are desired, the reader should consult the memoirs by England, Buckley and some others. Almost O'Leary's last public performance appeared in 1800: 'An Address to the Lords of Parliament, with an account of Sir H. Mildmay's Bill relative to Nuns.'
His loyalty was not [he said] the effect of necessity or timeserving policy, for in France, where the Penal Laws of England drove him for education, and where the Catholics of Ireland had Seminaries and Convents with full admission to all the degrees of her universities, I resisted every solicitation to enlist any of the subjects of these kingdoms in the French King's service, though I had then every opportunity of being appointed to superintend prisons and hospitals during the wars. It was my interest to recommend myself to the favour of people in power, and consequently more my interest to become more a courtier than a moralist. St. Paul calls God to witness when he asserts the truth: I can do the same when I assert that conscience was the rule of my conduct.[546]
This is further useful in showing that O'Leary was no admirer of the French king, and now that he was a pensioner of England would hardly object to discover the reported French agents in Dublin, who, with Napper Tandy, are said to have 'drank on their knees' the toast of 'Louis of France.'
The latter story—told by the Viceroy, Rutland, in his letter to Sydney—bears improbability on its face. It seems strange that Tandy and his party, who not long after were Red Republicans and the allies of Carnot and Hoche, would drink the health of Louis XVI. on their knees.[547] They were principally Protestants; and John O'Connell, in the Life of his father, says that Sheares shocked the future Liberator by exultantly displaying a handkerchief soaked in the French king's blood.
I suspect that when O'Leary returned from making, in September 1784, the inquiries which he is assumed to have done, his report was something in the spirit of Canning's knife-grinder: 'Story! God bless you, I have none to tell, sir;' and that Orde concluded O'Leary himself was in the plot. On October 17, Orde writes to Nepean, alluding to some rumour about our friar which is not stated. 'Del Campo's connection with O'Leary—or rather O'Leary's with him—may have given rise to all the report; but, after all, I think it right to be very watchful over the priest, and wish you to be so over the Minister. They are all of them designing knaves.'
Thus it appears that in little more than a fortnight after O'Leary is supposed to have begun to spy, Orde was far from satisfied with him.
FOOTNOTES:
[522] United Irishmen, iii. p. vi.