'"The person" had been a member of the Ulster Revolutionary Committee,' writes Mr. Froude. This Turner admittedly was.
'He had fled with others,' he tells Lord Downshire when describing how he came to leave Ireland and settle at Hamburg.
James Hope, in his narrative supplied to Dr. Madden in 1846, when noticing Turner, writes, 'He fled and settled in Hamburg, where he was entrusted by the Directory with carrying on the correspondence between the Irish and French Executives.'[725]
Mr. Froude says that the mysterious man was intimate with all the United Irish refugees at Hamburg, received instructions from the Home Office to open a correspondence with rebel leaders, and had the entrée to the house of Lady Edward Fitzgerald.
No wonder that Lord Downshire's friend should command these exceptional facilities for spying when we know, on the authority of James Hope, a veteran rebel of Ulster, that Samuel Turner was the accredited agent at Hamburg of the 'United Irishmen.'[726]
Mr. Froude tells us that he revealed such evidence of his power to be useful—at Hamburg—that Pitt was extremely anxious to secure his help.
As Turner is shown by Hope to have been the authorised agent of the 'United Irishmen' at Hamburg, the reason becomes clear why Pitt was so anxious to secure a man who had access at that place to all the secrets of his party.
'An arrangement was concluded,' writes Mr. Froude. 'He continued at Hamburg, as Lady Edward's guest and most trusted friend, saw every one who came to her house, kept watch over her letter-bag, was admitted to close and secret conversations upon the prospect of French interference in Ireland with Reinhard,[727] the Minister of the Directory there, and he regularly kept Lord Downshire informed of everything which would enable Pitt to watch the conspiracy.'
The first volume of Castlereagh should here be opened. At pp. [277]-286 will be found three intercepted letters, addressed by Reinhard at Hamburg to De la Croix, revealing minute particulars regarding the United Irish envoys, and bearing testimony to the zealous help rendered to the conspiracy by Turner.
'I showed Reinhard Lowry's letter,' quotes Mr. Froude.