I fain would banish far from hence
The 'Rights of Man' and common sense;
Confusion to his odious reign,
That foe to princes, Thomas Paine!
Defeat and ruin seize the cause
Of France, its liberties, and laws!

LADY MOIRA AND TODD JONES

(Vide chap. xii. p. [156].)

An unpublished letter, addressed to John Philpot Curran, though anonymous, bears internal evidence to show that the writer was Lady Moira, whose daughter, Selina, had married Lord Granard. In those days it was not unusual to intercept and read letters at the post-office, and to this circumstance is doubtless due the great caution with which the noble writer describes her relations with Todd Jones. He was then in custody, and Lady Moira's great object was to exculpate him as well as herself, for 'Cæsar's wife should be above suspicion.' Enough has been already said to indicate the spy[764] who kept his eye on Moira House and the movements of Todd Jones.

To John Philpot Curran, K.C.

'Castle Forbes: August 13, 1803.

'Read, reflect, and do not answer. Time will unfold the intentions. But it is common prudence to watch knaves, who are playing the fool, and who may not chance to consider that others, from having hearkened to the precept to be, although "innocent as doves," induced to adopt somewhat of the "wisdom of the serpent," will scrutinise their measures. To state the case, Mr. Todd Jones is the son of a physician, who in the year 1752 I formed the acquaintance of, and attendant on the family into which I entered by marriage; he was a sensible well-informed man, and having studied abroad his profession at the same college with Doctor Aberside, a person known to Lord Huntingdon and me; as a friend to that medical poet, he became an intimate acquaintance of mine; and having for thirty years and upwards exercised his Æsculapian skill with such success as to have recovered me from dangerous fevers, and also never letting a single patient die in his hands beneath my roof, he became the intimate friend of the family, and his son was the companion of my sons in his early youth, and an inmate like to a relation till my sons went into the world, and since then he has regarded me with a sort of filial respect and attention, and I have shown to him the return of maternal kindness and goodwill. However, his residence for many years past being in England and Wales, has confined our intercourse to correspondence; now and then a letter from me in answer to many of his, which, as he excels in letter-writing, I always received his letters as real sources of amusement, and of information on the subject they transmitted, which usually had reference to antiquities.[765] I had not seen him for several years when he came over a twelvemonth ago, to settle some pecuniary affairs with Lord Downshire's executors or agents, having sold his estates as an annuity during his life; and a sum of money, which money was to be kept for a space of time in his lordship's hands, lest any claim should be made on the estate. I saw him frequently whilst he was in Dublin, which was during that space of time that Sir Richard Musgrave and he quarrelled and at length fought. He left Dublin before I quitted it, and came here in the first week of last October. He wrote to me lately from the Lake of Killarney giving me a description of the lake and its odd traditions, mentioning his return to Dublin in a month, and from whence he was to return to Wales. I then heard from general report that he was arrested and in Cork jail, which I imputed to Sir Richard Musgrave's malice.[766] For as to any treasonable practices, Jones's indolence as well as his turn of thinking and whimsical pursuits were a conviction to me that he was neither inclined to be, or capable of being, a conspirator. However, in the course of last week I was informed from Moira House that a person, by warrant from the Castle, had come to search for a trunk in consequence of their having received intelligence that Mr. Todd Jones had sent off a trunk directed to me at Moira House. My servants were examined, my house and storerooms explored, but not any such trunk had arrived nor been heard of, and orders were left that when it did, where it was to be sent to. Some English letters that were directed to him at my house were conveyed to Mr. Marsden.[767] They were opened to show their contents. One was from a Mr. Maddox, who, I think, is married to Lord Craven's sister[768] (better known by being the daughter of the Margravine); another from a young man going to India, and not conveying a trace of injury to him. I wrote to a person who was employed to execute the warrant that I could not be blind to the affront intended to be cast upon me; that, if such intimation had been given of a trunk then sent, the person that communicated the intelligence was able and would certainly inform by what coach it went, and consequently they might have had it seized when Mr. Jones was arrested. That time had now sufficiently elapsed to have had another key made for the trunk and to place in it whatever papers, &c., might be reckoned convenient. That if any trunk did come, the lock and the hinges should be well examined, before credible witnesses, before it went out of my house; and that I neither was awed, nor capable of being frightened, by so mean and paltry a contrivance. Thus they had taken up McCan,[769] but, I find, have liberated him, and given out that, as he was connected with Mr. Grattan, it was to get papers of Mr. Grattan's into their hands that he was arrested for that purpose; now, whether this report is to blacken the character of the famous ex-senator, or with further views, I do not decide. In respect to the insult I have met with, it is aimed against Lord Moira through me. It is, however, to me a much blacker and more artful attempt against him, in which high and mighty ones were blended when too many cooks spoiled the broth. The former plot, however, has made me alert, and awakened all my expectations respecting possible malevolence. But my spirit, like the palm-tree, rises by the pressure of oppressive indignity. My eyes are so weak that I fear you will not be able to decipher this hasty scrawl. How absurdly are they acting! Lady G——[770] does not know that I write this. It is not in my nature to worry people with disagreeable humours, nor to humiliate myself by complaints, though I like to guard against probable evils, in which case I shall, sir, depend upon your aid if it comes to publicity.'

JAMES TANDY AND McNALLY

Any person who has read the secret reports furnished by McNally to Dublin Castle must see that the source from which he drew his more important knowledge was James Tandy, son of the arch-rebel Napper Tandy. This information, however, may have been gathered partly during the unguarded intimacy of friendship. Its accuracy, not less than the promptitude and opportuneness of each disclosure, led a very shrewd man to suspect that James Tandy was betraying his party, and not McNally who picked his brains. In the 'Cornwallis Papers' (iii. 85) is one of the many secret reports sent by J. W. to Dublin Castle. He probably chuckled when penning the following allusion to the source from which he himself mainly derived his knowledge.