'This perfectly agrees with Richardson's information, which states that Lord Edward and O'Connor met Hoche, and arranged the invasion. 'R—— states that O'Connor went into France; if he did, it was only a short distance merely to meet Hoche, and, from what O'Connor said, Lord E. seemed to be the principal.'
The above paragraph is one of much importance. Richardson I have discovered to be another alias of the hydra-headed Turner. Distinct proof of this will be found presently. Castlereagh continues:—
'Should I succeed in drawing from him any further information on this point, I shall have great pleasure in transmitting it. He further stated that, when taken in Kent,[128] although he had not authorised any person to hire a vessel direct for France, but rather looked to reach a Dutch port, yet his real object was to pass through Switzerland into France, and fairly confessed that, had he reached Paris, he should not have been idle, as, though not charged with any special commission, he did believe the Directory would have considered him as an accredited agent.'[129]
Ordinary students of history are not free to search the papers of the Home Office, London after the date 1760; and the present writer ventured to ask Mr. Lecky whether he had met the name of Turner in his inquiries. The object of Mr. Lecky's history is distinct from mine, and his researches have taken a different direction; but he could not fail to observe, he said, that the Government correspondence threw not much light on questions of espionage, 'for names of informers,' he adds, 'are nearly always concealed.' However, on referring to his notes, it appeared that 'Richardson' was the pseudonym of Samuel Turner. While thanking my correspondent, I thought it well to remind him that in the 'Castlereagh Papers'[130] 'Furnes' is stated to be the alias for this man. And I added, in order to guard against mistake, that one Thomas Richardson, a Liberal magistrate for Tyrone, was confined, in 1797, with Neilson and Teeling. The historian's reply is very satisfactory:[131] 'Samuel Turner wrote his letters to the British Government under the name of Richardson. This,' adds Mr. Lecky, 'is not a matter of inference, but of distinct proof.'
Once only 'Richardson' is mentioned in 'Castlereagh.' It was the false name by which the Home Office, when obliged to communicate with Dublin Castle, masked Samuel Turner, LL.D., of the Irish Bar. Lord Castlereagh's letter to the Home Office confirms the intimate knowledge possessed by Turner of the doings of O'Connor and Lord Edward Fitzgerald. O'Connor was now—August, 1798—in an Irish dungeon; and Lord Castlereagh having, as he says, pressed him to answer certain questions, adds: 'This perfectly agrees with Richardson's information, which states that Lord Edward and O'Connor met Hoche and arranged the invasion.'
Besides his horror of martyrdom by the knife, Turner had a lively dread of the martyrdom of exposure and social ostracism. Jackson's trial in 1794 had the effect of deterring approvers. Curran's skill in torturing such persons was marvellous; and Mr. Froude declares that he stretched Cockayne as painfully as ever the rack-master of the Tower stretched a Jesuit. 'He made him confess that he had been employed by Pitt, and showed that, if Jackson was a traitor to the State, Cockayne was a far blacker traitor to the friend who trusted him.'[132]
'Richardson' is now shown to be the same man as he who gave his information to Downshire; and that 'Richardson' was an assumed name for Samuel Turner.[133] Thus the question of identity is established without appealing to further evidence. But inasmuch as my efforts to track Turner open up facts long forgotten, and others new to the historian, some readers may not object to follow.
As regards Lord Edward's meeting with Hoche, more than once referred to in Turner's letter to Lord Downshire and in the correspondence of the Home Office, M. Guillon, a recent investigator,[134] could find no trace of it in the French official archives. Special efforts were made at the time to veil this historic interview. No wonder, therefore, that Mr. Froude, in introducing the information furnished by Downshire's mysterious visitor, points specially to the secret meeting with Hoche, and how Hoche himself had not revealed it even to Tone.[135]
Wickham was but carrying out Portland's behest in signifying to Castlereagh that O'Connor, then a prisoner, should be questioned on points of which the Home Office had acquired private knowledge. On August 23, 1798, the same polite pumping of O'Connor is urged—a task fraught with no great labour to a man of Castlereagh's tact and powers of persuasion. 'A private communication,' Wickham writes, 'of the names of the persons with whom Mr. O'Connor corresponded abroad, would answer the particular purpose required by the Duke of Portland.' The 'particular' object is not explained. It was probably that the spy might, as previously suggested, cultivate epistolary relations with the men whom O'Connor[136] would admit to have been his correspondents.[137]