As George, Prince of Wales, held Whig views at this time, Mr. Pitt's great career ran some risk of being cut short. The Prince gathered round him the leading Whig lights, including O'Leary, as we learn from Croly's 'Life of George IV.'[610] A good picture of life in the Pavilion at Brighton is given, and of the brilliant jokes which capped the hits of Sheridan and Curran. But O'Leary's presence had, I think, a deeper significance. With graver men his intercourse was frequent. 'Edmund Burke was very marked in the regard which he manifested to O'Leary,' writes England. 'Fox was not only Pitt's rival, but the leader of a powerful party constantly on the watch to oust Pitt from office.' It may be presumed that the men of power in London to whom O'Leary, on leaving Ireland, had letters from Dublin Castle, occupied a camp hostile to the Whig garrison of the Pavilion.
One proof that O'Leary wished to regain favour with Pitt is afforded by the casual remark of his biographer. 'When O'Leary learned that his friend (Plowden) was engaged at the desire of Pitt in writing the 'Historical Review,' he sent him his invaluable collections, as affording the best and most authentic materials for the recent history of Ireland.'[611]
I do not like that phrase of Plowden in which he says—when speaking of O'Leary's pension—that it was only after giving repeated proofs that the secret condition had been complied with, he received a large arrear.[612] Plowden no doubt thinks that the pension was meant as 'hush money;' but it is a question whether O'Leary was quite frank with him as to its character.
'An oak of the forest is too old to be transplanted at fifty,' said Grattan, regarding Flood's removal to London in 1784. 'Disgusted with the condition of his country,' writes O'Leary's later biographer, Buckley, 'and hopeless of doing anything by which it could be improved, he resolved on quitting it altogether and living in the free atmosphere of England, so congenial to a bounding and manly temperament like his.... In the year 1789 Arthur O'Leary left Ireland for ever, and took up his residence in London as one of the chaplains to the Spanish Embassy.'[613] It appears, however, from the testimony of Plowden, the attached friend of O'Leary, that it was a condition expressly made by the Crown that O'Leary was 'to reside no more in Ireland.'[614] I suspect that the appointment just described was brought about by Court intrigue. From the time of the Armada the movements of the Spanish minister were viewed with jealousy, often with alarm. In 1779, when the combined fleets of Spain and France rode menacingly in the Channel, O'Leary, as we have seen, denounced them to the Irish people, and his appointment to the Spanish embassy must have been the work of England rather than of Spain. In 1789 strained relations had again arisen between Spain and England; and a few years later war was actually declared by Spain.[615] Sydney states that O'Leary had already consented to furnish secret information.[616] His present position would enable him to acquire knowledge of, not only the designs of Spain, but of Dr. Hussey too; and without saying that O'Leary could be capable of downright treachery, it is probable that Pitt believed he would. It will be remembered that, in 1780, Dr. Hussey, chief chaplain to the Spanish embassy in London, had been sent with Richard Cumberland to effect a treaty with the Court of Spain, a negotiation not entirely successful. What was the precise nature of the hold which Hussey, originally a Carthusian monk, acquired over the Court of England is destined to remain shrouded. Buckley says it was at the special request of George III. that Dr. Hussey accompanied Mr. Cumberland on a secret mission to Madrid.[617]
What Cumberland himself thought of his colleague is curious to see. We are told that 'the high-sounding titles and dignities showered upon Dr. Hussey by the Court of Spain outweighed in his balance English guineas;' that 'in his heart he was as high a priest as à Becket, and as stiff a Catholic as ever kissed the cross;' but yet 'had left behind him in his coffin at La Trappe no one passion native or ingrafted that belonged to him when he entered it.' So clear-sighted a man as Hussey could not fail to see the secret thoughts of Cumberland, or to have diagnosed, in his turn, the jaundiced retina through which he was viewed; for Cumberland complains of 'his singular, sudden, and capricious conduct to the author and his family, of which he was an inmate.'[618] Hussey had demanded his passports to return to England; but on Cumberland's remonstrance paused, and cancelled a letter he had addressed to the English Secretary of State asking leave to return. Mystery covers much of this mission to Spain, for Cumberland says, 'I will reveal no more than I am in honour and strict conscience warranted to make public. For twenty years I have been silent, making no appeals at any time but to my official employers, who were pledged to do me justice.'[619]
Mr. Froude tells us that Dr. Hussey[620] was in the confidence of Dundas and Portland, and had received favours from them. Both were prominent statesmen in the Cabinet of Pitt, and both eventually turned against Hussey. Dr. Hussey is described as Chaplain to his Catholic Majesty of Spain, and Rector of the Church of the Spanish Embassy in London. He evidently knew something of O'Leary not revealed to the world.
At this point it may be well to open once more the pamphlet privately printed—'A Narrative of the Misunderstanding between the Rev. Arthur O'Leary and the Rev. Mr. Hussey.' Its purport, O'Leary says, is to remove the bad impressions which a late report, one which impugned his morality, might have made on some Catholic families, and the reader is requested either to burn the brochure, or erase altogether the name of Mr. Hussey. The latter is just the man to have muttered 'qui s'excuse s'accuse' as he read the following; and O'Leary's remark serves to show that Hussey suspected he had deeper motives.
The desire of co-operating in the work of the ministry [writes O'Leary] was my only inducement for associating with Mr. [Hussey] in the Spanish Ambassador's Chapel. He soon began to throw some obstacles in my way—but in the most insulting and contemptuous manner. The old clerk of his vestry, who retails among the common people all the stories he hears from his employer, was commissioned by him to direct me in the choice of my theme [in the pulpit].[621]
In 1780, the Spanish ambassador to London was, we learn, 'Count Fernan Nunez, who had committed himself to a conversation from which Mr. Hussey drew very promising expectations.'[622] But in 1789 we find him succeeded by no less a person than the Marquis del Campo, whose previous attitude, as sub-Premier of Spain, had filled the British Cabinet with alarm.[623] Orde, writing to Nepean, of the Home Office, five years before, tells him to be very watchful over this minister; and O'Leary's friend, Plowden, whatever he means by it, says that it was only after giving repeated proofs that the secret conditions had been complied with, that O'Leary received a large arrear of his pension.
'A Narrative of the Misunderstanding' between O'Leary and Hussey shows that the appointment of the former as Hussey's colleague was forced upon the latter, and that Hussey distrusted and despised him, confirming the old adage, two of a trade never agree. O'Leary complains that on Good Friday, in presence of a crowded congregation numbering many Protestants, Hussey sent