'O'
The letters of secret information in the 'Castlereagh Papers,' though assumed by most readers to come from the one source, are divided between two spies. No successful attempt has been hitherto made to identify the writers. The result of Dr. Madden's inquiry went no further than to show that the letters were penned, not by spies of a low type, but by gentlemen of high standing.[742] It was then that I sought to draw aside their masks. 'Downshire's friend' (Turner) was traced more easily than a correspondent of the Home Office, London, whose initial 'O' is dropped once only by Wickham. The spy who contrived to accompany General Tandy's staff in the expedition to Ireland in 1798 has left us a curious account of what passed on board the 'Anacréon'[743] during their brief visit to Ireland. The perilous character of his enterprise was quite as striking as Tandy's descent on Donegal and escape from the English fleet. Wickham confides to Castlereagh merely the initial letter of this spy's name.[744] The written statement from 'O' is a curious document, and one which has been more than once quoted by historians. An old note-book of mine contains the following:—'I have long and vainly tried to discover this man; but to Dr. Madden it will be at least satisfactory to know that "O" can never have taken any prominent part in the councils of the United Irishmen, and his name, even if discovered, would not be a familiar one. He can never have been in the Executive Directory, or on any of the baronial committees. He mentions incidentally that he has been but once in Ireland for eight years.'
Some readers fancied that the spy 'O' who accompanied Tandy was O'Herne,[745] O'Finn,[746] Ormby,[747] O'Mealy,[748] O'Hara,[749] O'Neill,[750]
O'Connor,[751] or O'Keon[752]; my own theory was that 'O' stood for some man whose name would prove to be Orr. At p. [309], vol. i., of the 'Castlereagh Papers,' in a report of the French fleet preparing to invade Ireland, a list is given of the Irish agents at Brest: 'Orr, who accompanied Murphy, was still at Paris.[753] Did not seem to like going.' The letter of 'O,' describing the crew on board the 'Anacréon' in its expedition to Ireland, mentions 'Murphy ... and myself' (p. 407).
'O,' in his secret letter dated 1798, speaks of having been in Trinity College, Dublin, nine years before. An 'Orr' graduated as B.A. in 1789, but this proved not much. His letter shows (pp. 406-10) that he had the confidence both of the French Directory, and of the Irish envoys in France. Another anonymous letter of secret information from Paris (Castlereagh, ii. 2-7) is undoubtedly Turner's. He speaks of Orr and Murphy as together; the first as a 'relation of him that was hanged,' and 'Murphy as having been lately expelled Dublin College,' and both, he adds, were applying for passports at Altona (p. [6]). John Murphy made a deposition[754] at Bow Street, dated November 2, 1798, in which he names George Orr and himself, proceeding to the Hague, thence to Paris, and afterwards joining Tandy's expedition, when Murphy became secretary to the General. It is curious to find Turner[755] and Orr—each ignorant of the treachery of the other—reporting their movements to the Secretary of State.[756]
'By direction of the Duke of Portland,' writes Wickham to Lord Castlereagh, 'I send for the information of the Lord Lieutenant the enclosed extract from some very important communications that have been made to his Grace by a person of the name of O——.'
In this letter, describing Tandy's descent on Ireland, the relations between him and the French Directory are minutely detailed, with an account of the equipment of the expedition, and studies of the officers on board and their antecedents.[757] It is not unlikely that Orr and Murphy, especially the latter, had been at first zealous adherents of the movement headed by Lord Edward and Tone; but that after the death of these leaders and the consignment of the Rebel Directory to dungeons they considered their own position as materially changed.
When Buonaparte broke faith with Addis Emmet, and sent his legions to the Pyramids of Egypt, instead of encamping them among the Round Towers of Ireland, Orr then sought to fill his purse, and console a baulked ambition, by extracting gold from Pitt: 'To show how the finances of France are,' he writes regarding Tandy's expedition, 'and how they meant to make their Irish friends pay their expenses, three generals went out on that little expedition; and all the money they could muster among them was about thirty louis d'or. One of them, to my own certain knowledge, had but five guineas in all.'[758]