The great majority of the original Volunteers have hung up their arms and are retired to cultivate the arts of peace: their place has been assumed by men who disgrace the name. I have seen resolutions inviting the French into this country. On the 26th April, 1784, the Sons of the Shamrock voted Mr. Perrin, a native of France, honorary member of their corps. I have seen publications inviting Catholics, contrary to the laws of the land, to arm themselves to reform the constitution in Church and State. I have seen encomiums on Louis XVI., the friend of mankind and the assertor of American liberty.... They may invite the French to invade our country. I have seen invitations to the dregs of the people to go to drills and form into corps; we should therefore distinguish between the gentlemen—the original Volunteers—and those sons of sedition. I have seen a summons from a Major Canier, ordering his corps to attend with nine rounds of ball cartridge, as there might be occasion for actual service, and at the same time intimating a threat to Government; and will any man tell me, that we should be overawed by such people as these? or that the Commons of Ireland should be afraid to grant a sum of money to array a militia until these people should lay down their arms?[592]
M. Perrin, the native of France, whose name Fitzgibbon mentions in connection with the resolution to invite the French to invade Ireland, was no doubt the father of the subsequently well-known judge of the Queen's Bench, Louis Perrin. Under what circumstances M. Perrin first came to Dublin is not clear. Sometimes he was styled a Professor of French; usually resided in Dublin; but would sojourn, for months at a time, in the houses of such Irish gentry as wished to acquire a knowledge of that tongue. 'Perrin's French Grammar' was at a later date very familiar in Irish circles.[593]
The tinge of disappointment which peeps forth in the later allusion of Secretary Orde to O'Leary may have been influenced by a circumstance casually noticed by his biographer. We have seen from a well-informed local journal of the day, that venal writers had received instructions to endeavour to sow the seeds of dissension. It will be shown that O'Leary was specially intimate with the proprietor of the Castle organ, and O'Leary would be one of the first writers on whom Orde's thoughts could not fail to fall. O'Leary's biographers say, but without giving dates, that he recoiled from the proposal to write in the organ of the Irish Government. Indeed, in a pamphlet, previously published, he records his dislike to anonymous compositions.[594] An eloquent divine, the Rev. Morgan d'Arcy, in preaching the funeral panegyric on Father O'Leary, travelled slightly out of his path to touch on this point. He said:—
The well-timed and effectual exertions of this extraordinary man, could not fail to attract the notice of Government, and, consequently, were not suffered to remain unrewarded by his gracious and beneficent sovereign; but, though he received with all becoming gratitude this unsolicited and well-earned mark of royal remuneration, yet such was his disinterestedness, and the noble independence of his spirit, that when, soon after, a very considerable annuity had been offered him to become the supporter of a periodical publication,[595] which then was, and still continues to be, the foul vehicle of misrepresentation, slander, and calumny on the Irish people; indignant at the insulting proposal, he rejects it with becoming contempt, though by his refusal he was sure to incur the displeasure of a certain description of men, and through their influence might apprehend a discontinuance of his pension; yet, destitute as he was of all earthly property beside, sooner than prostitute his heaven-sent talents, he leaves his native country and repairs to this metropolis, to enjoy the boasted and enviable blessings of British protection and British liberty.
The preacher's reference here would be to the year 1789, when O'Leary removed permanently to London. It was in '89 that the great struggle on the Regency Question, which will be dealt with later on, raged between the camps of Whig and Tory in Ireland.
Higgins, the subsidised owner of the Castle organ, was called 'Shamado' by John Magee, and painted in colours of demoniac hue. According to Dr. Morgan d'Arcy, O'Leary did not yield to the tempter, but rejected the proposal with indignation and contempt, and this would naturally incur displeasure. The statement proves too much, for Higgins, by his will dated 1791, speaks of O'Leary as his 'long and faithful friend,' and leaves him a bequest in proof of affection. Further, his journal devoted part of its very limited space to occasional paragraphs laudatory of O'Leary, and not ill-calculated to strengthen popular confidence in his name. Thus, on May 12, 1785—a few months after Orde says he had consented to work secretly for pay—we read in the subsidised organ of the Irish Government:—
Nothing can more mark the influence of wisdom and superior genius than the mention made of Dr. O'Leary in George Anne Bellamy's 'Apology' where she says the philanthropy and interference of that liberal man put an end to the scandalous conduct of Count Haslang's (the Bavarian ambassador's) chaplain on the death of that old representative of the corps diplomatique.[596]
The organ of the Irish Government does not praise O'Leary for political support. To do so would arouse suspicion whether well founded or not; but Higgins, from friendship or policy, seeks to exalt his prestige and popularity. In the 'Freeman' of November 20, 1784, we have a long account of how he put down Dr. Johnson, who had addressed him with boorishness. 'The literati,' it is added, 'consider themselves as much obliged by Dr. O'Leary's conduct on the occasion, as it has much humbled the imperious and surly behaviour of Johnson.'
The statement of Plowden, that O'Leary was pensioned on condition that he should withhold his pen in support of toleration,[597] will not bear test.[598] In 1784, O'Leary is conclusively shown to be subsidised. His dissuasive address to the common people of Ireland denunciatory of Whiteboyism, a bulky treatise, bears date 1786. It seems more likely that a subsidy would be given for writing in support of the oppressive laws of that day. This letter to the peasantry writes up that grinding impost—Tithes—in reference to which Bishop Doyle afterwards prayed, 'May our hatred of Tithes be as lasting as our love of justice!'