[550] Vide Correspondence of Sir John Sinclair, ii. 385-6. Del Campo's letters are written in excellent English; it appears that, though born in Spain, he had come from an English Catholic family named Field.
[551] Vide Annals of the English Catholic Hierarchy, by W. Maziere Brady, pp. [170]-4. (Rome, 1883.) 'Sketch of a Conference with Earl Shelbourne,' The Dublin Review, vols. xx.-xxi. Trials of the rioters, The Rockingham Correspondence, ii. 419. This remarkable incident has been all but overlooked by historians. Dickens was greatly struck by its features.
[552] We have no proof that Parker was an Irishman.
[553] Orde to Evan Nepean, September 8, 1784 (see English in Ireland, ii. 413).
[554] In the postscript to O'Leary's letter (see Appendix) we catch a glimpse of some of the Catholic leaders in Dublin at this time, into whose secrets Orde assumes he could easily dive. They include Thomas Braughall, so often mentioned in Wolfe Tone's Diary as a Catholic organiser and United Irishman; Charles Ryan, a very important Catholic leader (fully described in Wyse's History of the Catholic Association, i. 138-9); and Mr. Kirwan, noticed at p. [177] of the same book. Sutton, 'the Brigadier,' also mentioned in O'Leary's letter, was, with Braughall, one of the thirty-three Catholic delegates who, in 1793, represented the City of Dublin (see Vindication of the Catholics of Ireland, p. [90].) (London: Debrett, 1793.) Edward Lewins, the two Sweetmans, Thomas Reynolds, and other afterwards very prominent rebels, figure in the said list of the Dublin delegates.
[555] Mr. Orde to Mr. Evan Nepean, October 17, 1784. See Froude's English in Ireland, iii. 414. But Mr. Froude will excuse me for adding that the chief passage he quotes is from a letter dated September 8, 1784.
[556] Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation, Paris ed. p. [319].
[557] My Australian correspondent, Mr. Morgan McMahon, was puzzled to determine how O'Leary, the scene of whose labours was Ireland, could be summoned from London in 1784, inasmuch as his biographer states that it was not until 1789 O'Leary took up his residence in that city (Buckley, p. [304]). The accuracy of Mr. Froude's date is, however, confirmed by a letter in the Life of George Anne Bellamy, iii. 120 (Dublin ed. 1785). On August 16, 1784, Mr. W. T. Hervey writes to that celebrated actress, then living at 10, Charles Street, St. James', and expressing the 'infinite satisfaction' he felt at meeting O'Leary at dinner.
[558] Life of Father O'Leary, by the Rev. M. B. Buckley, p. [203].