Sir Jonah Barrington describes Orde as 'a cold, cautious and sententious man.'[556] These letters in some respects support that impression. A few years later he was created Lord Bolton. His letter, announcing O'Leary's arrival at Dublin on secret service, is dated September 23, 1784.[557] Let us look back a little and see what the previous year was doing.
The Dungannon Convention, which won great boons for Ireland, was followed by provincial assemblies in Leinster, Munster and Connaught. Resolutions were carried, delegates were appointed, and the nation anxiously awaited the great Volunteer Convention in Dublin, on which the fate of Ireland was declared to depend. Meanwhile one hundred and sixty envoys of the Volunteer army met, electing Lord Charlemont chairman. Red uniforms fringed the streets, and the delegates, two by two, marched through the lines, amid the roll of drums and the waving of national ensigns. The Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry rode to the Convention with an escort of dragoons.
A distinguished corps of volunteers [writes Mr. Buckley] had conferred on O'Leary the honorary dignity of chaplain; and we are assured that many of the measures submitted for consideration at the great Convention held in Dublin had been previously placed before him for his opinion as to their prudence and utility. On that memorable day, when the delegates of a hundred thousand men met in the Rotunda, with all the pomp and power that an armed nation could concentrate for a great national purpose, it was gratifying to the assembled masses of spectators to behold Father O'Leary, as he entered the building, received at the door by the entire guard of volunteers with a full salute of rested arms. He marched up the hall amidst the deafening cheers of the surrounding delegates, and, in the debate which followed, his name was frequently mentioned with honour and applause.[558]
'Plowden's remarks, which you enclose, do not meet the specific statements of Froude, that O'Leary was employed as an informer at the period of the Volunteer Convention,' writes Mr. Morgan McMahon, my Australian correspondent.[559] Mr. Froude's words certainly tend to convey that the Convention took place at the time of Orde's application for a spy. The date of the Convention was November 1783: Orde's letter was written in September 1784. Again, it is suggested that O'Leary was despatched in reply to a request for a trained informer. But it does not appear that though he may have been useful as a diplomatist he was already a spy. On the contrary, Sydney writes (Sept. 4): 'O'Leary has been talked to and he is willing to do what is wished for 100l. a year.' Orde replies (Sept. 8), 'I am very glad that you have settled matters with O'Leary, who can get to the bottom of all secrets in which the Catholics are concerned.' O'Leary had already a pension, ostensibly for his writings; but the pension for espionage must not be confounded with it.
It is certainly admitted by even O'Leary's panegyrists that at the period of the Convention of 1783 delicate overtures, which they assume he rejected, were made to him; but the magnanimous words supposed to have been used by O'Leary when parleying with his tempter rest on no authority whatever, and some will be disposed to suspect that a colour is imparted to the overtures more presentable to general readers than the naked truth, whatever it was. The pension, I repeat, which O'Leary already enjoyed, was, I think, merely for his writings; though, prior to September 1784, he may have accepted douceurs for distinct acts of diplomacy. At all events it is due to O'Leary to give him the full benefit of the exculpatory words of his brother priest. Describing the Volunteer Convention, Father Buckley writes, eighty years later:—
During Father O'Leary's visit to Dublin on this occasion, he was waited on by a gentleman who was well known to be on very close and friendly relations with the Government of the day.[560] The visit appeared, for some time, to be merely one of ceremony, and the visitor paid many handsome compliments to the Father on the style of his writings and their good effect on the public mind. Soon, however, it was easy to see that diplomacy had more to do with the visit than etiquette, for the gentleman, in courteous language, intimated that if Father O'Leary would use his pen in extolling certain measures just then brought forward by the Administration, his services would be handsomely requited. O'Leary was displeased and indignant at the proposal to barter his patriotism for a bribe, and conveyed his feelings in no measured phrase. The request was therefore softened down into an entreaty that he would at least abstain from writing on those measures in terms of condemnation. But the minion of the Government knew not with what manner of man he had to deal. 'I will never be silent,' warmly exclaimed O'Leary, 'whilst my exertions can be of the least service to my religion or my country.'[561]
Thus far Buckley, the biographer of 1867. England, O'Leary's biographer of 1822, finishes the interview in less florid words: 'He was then told that a pension of 150l. per annum was to be offered for his acceptance, and that no condition repugnant to his feelings as an Irishman or Catholic was to be annexed to it. A change in the Administration[562] took place shortly afterwards, and the promise remained unfulfilled.'[563]
Father England assumes that O'Leary spurned the overtures at the time of the Convention, though later on his acceptance of a pension is admitted. While guiltless, no doubt, of direct betrayal, he may have been led to connive at a trick by which the Irish Government succeeded in breaking up the Convention.[564]
O'Leary, towards the close of his life, had made copious notes illustrative of the history of Ireland—notes handed by him to Plowden, who was glad to interweave them with his own when compiling 'The Historical Review.' Plowden dismisses with the following note the great incident of the Convention:—