[580] Besides the journals of the day, I have searched the litter of pamphlets to which that pregnant year gave birth; but, the names 'O'Leary' and 'Parker' never appear. Their mission, clearly, was a secret one. Sheahan's Articles of Irish Manufacture (Cork, 1833) certainly speaks of Mr. Parker, 'who fell in with a Doctor O'Leary' (p. [112]); but, on hunting up the pamphlet from which he quotes, Plea for the Poor (p. [15]), it appears that the date is 1819, and the Dr. O'Leary was a physician in Kanturk.
[581] Diplomatic letters, but fulsomely servile, are addressed by Orde to Grattan (vide Life, by his Son, iii. 209-11). Orde must have known that Grattan was jealous—first, of Flood, with whom he constantly quarrelled, and, secondly, of a new, bold, and thoroughly honest Protestant leader, who had just made his début, and worked hard to make the Congress a success. This was James Napper Tandy, commander of the Dublin Volunteer Artillery, and afterwards a general of division in the service of France.
[582] Dublin Evening Post, September 18, 1784.
[583] The Freeman's Journal, September 28, 1784. This journal, once the organ of Grattan, Flood, and Lucas, fell into the hands of an unprincipled adventurer, named Francis Higgins, who prostituted the once virtuous print to a venal executive.
[585] Dublin Evening Post, October 23, 1784.
[586] The policy of creating a schism has often since been acted upon. We have already seen Lord Northington's approval of such a scheme. The Viceroy, Cornwallis, addressing Portland, June 22, 1799, writes in reference to a public question: 'Dublin is not without material for a counter party, which I should have sanguine hope of collecting if my endeavours to produce a schism in the corporation should prove successful.'—Cornwallis Correspondence, i. 339.
[587] The Freeman's Journal, December 24, 1784.
[588] Life of O'Leary, by Rev. M. B. Buckley, p. [385]. See also England's O'Leary, p. [289]. (London, 1822.)
[589] The 'White Boys' were perpetually denounced by O'Leary.