[570] See letter to Mr. Kirwan in Appendix. After 1783, no such bold tone is traceable in O'Leary's expressions.
[571] See Appendix. Their intercourse may have been strengthened by clannish claims. O'Leary was a Cork man, and Roche is described as 'a branch of the ancient baronial family of Roche, Viscount Fermoy.' See obituary in Gentleman's Magazine for 1807, p. 506. His wages comprised the baronetcy bestowed in 1782; a pension of 300l. a year, with a separate annuity of 200l. for his wife; and, later on, the miserable post of Gentleman Usher, or Master of Ceremonies, at Dublin Castle. It is remarkable that in all the contemporary reports of the discreditable transaction, as regards Lord Kenmare, the name of Sir Boyle Roche is suppressed, and George Ogle, afterwards a P.C., put in his place. Ogle and O'Leary were both 'Monks of the Screw.'
[572] The Rev. Dr. Wills, when writing his Lives of Distinguished Irishmen (v. 243), gathered curious facts from survivors of those times. Of Sir Boyle Roche we learn that 'it was usual for the members of the Irish Cabinet to write speeches for him, which he committed to memory, and, while mastering the substance, generally contrived to travesty into language, and ornament with peculiar graces, of his own. On many of these occasions he was primed and loaded for action by the industry of Mr. Edward Cooke, who acted during several administrations as muster-master to the wisdom of the Castle.' Sir Boyle felt that he had specially earned the gratitude of the Crown; and I find, by the Précis book of Lord Fitzwilliam, he had even applied for a peerage. In the Pelham MSS. he is constantly found worrying for honours and reward.
[573] See England's Life of O'Leary, p. [109].
[574] Lord Kenmare died September 9, 1795. For a careful study of his temporising character see Wyse's Catholic Association. He had enjoyed his title merely by courtesy. In 1798 his son was advanced to a Viscounty, and the next year to an Earldom.
[575] Mr. Lecky says that 'it is a strange illustration of the standard of honour prevailing in Ireland, that a man who, by his own confession, had acted in this manner continued to be connected with the Government and a popular speaker in the House of Commons' (vi. 368). But, in point of fact, Dublin Castle could not get on without him.
[576] See Froude, ii. 415.
[578] The Convention had greatly alarmed the Government. In 1793, Lord Clare introduced the Convention Act, making all such assemblages henceforth illegal; but a popular leader remarked that it was the wisdom of Xerxes attempting with iron fetters to chain the sea. In 1811, Lord Fingall, Mr. Kirwan, and other Catholic delegates were arrested under the Act. It never became law in England, and about the year 1878 Mr. P. J. Smyth, M.P., succeeded in freeing Ireland from its pressure.
[579] The Letters of Orellana, an Irish Helot, to the Seven Northern Counties not represented in the National Assembly of Delegates held at Dublin in October 1784, for obtaining a more equal representation of the people. Halliday Pamphlets, Royal Irish Academy, vol. 482, p. [29].