(Vide p. [8], ante.)
The following is a résumé of some earlier evidence which had convinced me that the informer whose name Mr. Froude says is still wrapped in mystery[712] could be only Samuel Turner, LL.D., barrister-at-law.
Speaking of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Mr. Froude says: 'His meeting with Hoche on the Swiss frontier was known only to very few persons. Hoche himself had not revealed it even to Tone.'
But Turner knew a vast deal about the arrangements with Hoche. An intercepted letter addressed by Reinhard, the French Minister at Hamburg, to De la Croix, and written on July 12, 1797, may be found in the 'Correspondence of Lord Castlereagh,' and assigned by mistake to the year 1798. In this letter Reinhard tells De la Croix that he sent Turner to General Hoche. From Hoche[713] himself Turner most likely learned of the secret interview between Lord Edward and the French general.
But what proof have we that Lord Downshire's muffled visitor had had himself an interview with Hoche?
Mr. Froude at some pages distant from the part where he refers to Lord Edward's meeting with Hoche, when recurring to Downshire's visitor, whose identity was 'kept a secret even from the Cabinet,' states, from knowledge acquired after reading the spy's secret letters, 'He had actually conferred with Hoche and De la Croix.'
The intercepted letter in the 'Castlereagh Papers' refers at much length to the proceedings of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, MacNevin, and Turner; but Turner in this letter is called Furnes. The general index to that work states[714] that Furnes is an alias for Samuel Turner; and further he is described as 'an Irish rebel.' Had the noble editor supposed that Turner was a spy in the pay of the Crown, this letter would doubtless have been suppressed in common with others which Dr. Madden misses. Lord Londonderry brought out his brother's correspondence in 1848, during the 'Young Ireland' agitation, and was careful to let few secrets appear.
'He had accompanied the Northern delegacy to Dublin,' proceeds Mr. Froude, 'and had been present at the discussion of the propriety of an immediate insurrection.'
John Hughes, of Belfast, an officer in the Society of the United Irishmen, was arrested immediately after Turner opened communication with Downshire, and while in gaol turned King's evidence. From the sworn testimony of John Hughes we learn that, in June 1797, he was summoned by Lowry and Teeling to attend a meeting in Dublin of delegates from the different provinces of Ireland, in order to receive a return of the strength of the United Irishmen. Whilst he was in Dublin, in June 1797, Teeling invited him to meet some friends at his lodgings, including Tony McCann of Dundalk, Mr.[715] Samuel Turner, John and Patrick Byrne, Lowry, Dr. MacNevin, and others.[716] The leaders differed as to the expediency of an immediate rising. 'He met the above mentioned persons at several other times in Dublin, in June 1797.'[717]
'The Northern delegate had been present at the discussion of the propriety of an immediate insurrection. The cowardice or the prudence of the Dublin faction had disgusted him,' writes Mr. Froude.