The Northern leader who was disgusted with the prudence of the Papist conspirators in Dublin must have been Turner. In the 'Castlereagh Papers' is a letter of Reinhard, the French Minister, stating, on the authority of Turner, 'that it was of dilatoriness and indecision several members of the Committee were accused; that the Northern province, feeling its oppression and its strength, was impatient to break forth.'[718]
Reinhard adds, what will surprise many regarding Lord Edward: 'Macnevin and Lord Fitzgerald are of the moderate party. Furness [Turner] is for a speedy explosion, and it is some imprudences into which his ardent character hurried him that obliged him to leave the country, whereas the conduct of Macnevin has been circumspect.'[719]
Among the men whom Hughes swears he met in June 1797, with the Northern delegates in Dublin, were Turner, Teeling, MacCann, John Byrne [Union Lodge, Dundalk], Dr. Macnevin, Colonel Plunket,[720] and Andrew Comyn of Galway. These men—Turner excepted—were all Roman Catholics; so were John Keogh, Braughall, MacCormick, and other influential Dublin leaders—whose names do not appear. Tone was abroad. Downshire's visitor speaks of the men he met in Dublin as 'Papists' whose prudence and cowardice disgusted him, and he came to the conclusion that the two parties could not amalgamate.
Mr. Froude, again describing Downshire's visitor, writes: 'He had seen Talleyrand and talked with him at length on the condition of Ireland.'
The 'Castlereagh Papers' contain a remarkable letter, headed 'Secret Intelligence,' and describing very fully an interview with Talleyrand in reference to an invasion of Ireland. On the third page of his letter the spy writes: 'Enclosure containing the cyphers I sent to the Marquis of Downshire.'[721]
To this letter I must again return.
Mr. Froude states that Downshire's visitor had discovered one of the objects of the Papists to be a seizure of property, and had determined to separate himself from the conspiracy.
Turner belonged to a family of Cromwellian settlers. This we learn from Prendergast's 'Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland,' p. 417. The letter (quoted above), printed in the Castlereagh Papers, and acknowledging to have spied for Lord Downshire, mentions that the writer's 'most particular friends' were men 'who feared in a Revolution the loss of their property, especially such as held their estates by grants of Oliver Cromwell.'[722]
Mr. Froude says that when the mysterious visitor threw back his disguise Downshire recognised in him the son of a gentleman of good fortune in the North of Ireland. Lord Downshire is part proprietor of Newry, where Turner lived, and Hill Street, Newry, is named after the Downshires, just as Turner's Hill, Newry, is called after the Turners.[723]
It may be added that Jacob Turner, of Turner Hill, in the county of Armagh, esquire, by his will, dated April 27, 1803, acquits and discharges his son 'Samuel from a judgment debt obtained by me against him for 1,500l.'[724]