The Belfast men, Neilson, Orr, the two Simms, the party who had taken the oath with Wolfe Tone on Cave Hill,[148] he described 'as wealthy, wily, avaricious, tenacious of their property, distrustful of one another, and if afraid of nothing else, desperately afraid of the Orangemen, who were five times stronger than people in general believed.[149] They had authentic news that Hoche might be expected in the fall of the year, and then undoubtedly an effort would be made. If Hoche came, they were perfectly confident that Ireland would be a republic before Christmas. The instant that the signal was given the whole Orange party were to be assassinated....
The Informer concludes with these words:—
Be assured that what I have told you is true. The original agitators have been kept concealed even from the knowledge of the common people. The medium of dissemination has been the priests, and they have concealed from their congregations, on whom they have so effectively wrought, the names of those who have set them on, merely saying that there were men of influence, fortune, and power ready to come forward. The motive of the original agitators—and I mean by them the members of the Catholic Committee that sat in Dublin, and many of the Convention that were not on the Committee—was to carry the Catholic Bill through Parliament by the influence of terrorism.[150]
So much for the informer who sought the ear of the Irish Secretary in 1796. His close connection with the Northern leaders, his air of mystery, his hatred of the priests and the Catholic Committee, even his style and tone, the reference to Hoche, the prediction that the Protestants would suffer if the rebels won—all point to him as the same person who made overtures to Pitt, through Downshire, in October 1797. The alleged disaffection of the militia and the danger which menaced the estates of the aristocracy again crop up in Turner's letter to Talleyrand.[151] In both cases the same stipulation is made that he should not be called upon to give evidence publicly—the same nervous temperament is revealed. Downshire's visitor expressed mortal terror lest his life should pay the forfeit of his startling whisper. The same fear—and I believe I may add, presentiment—pervades the letter to Pelham in 1796. 'Don't name it,' he writes; 'if it get out they will know whence it came, and my life will be the certain forfeit.'[152] The 'secret' which the informer of '96 told Pelham was what Mr. Fronde describes as 'a curious story.' 'To show you that they tell me their secrets,' writes the informer to Pelham, 'here is the account told me of the death of Mr. McMurdoch of Lurgan.'[153] From searches made in the Registry of Deeds Office, Dublin, I find that Samuel Turner was closely connected with Lurgan, and in a way which gave double facilities for acquiring its secrets.[154]
The reader might glance once more at Mr. Froude's account of the visit to Lord Downshire on that dark October night in 1797. The betrayer's disguise and stealthy nervous gait as though some avenging power were on his track, are things worth noting. Why was he in such dread of assassination before he unfolded his story to Downshire? Surely he must have been conscious of having earned, for a long time before, the penalty of 'Ormond steel.'[155] This, according to Dr. Conlan's sworn testimony, was a specially familiar dogma with Teeling and Turner when organising treason in Ulster. The visit to Downshire was clearly prompted by greed. This peer had got the name of having secret service money at his disposal. 'Bank notes were offered to me,' observes James Hope, the working weaver of Belfast, 'if I would implicate Will Tennant, Robert Simms and others, and it was admitted that the money came from Lord Downshire.' This was probably among the efforts which were made to induce minor conspirators to give evidence publicly against their leaders, of whose treason the Crown had private knowledge through Turner.[156] McDougall's 'Sketches of Irish Political Characters,' published in 1799, says of Lord Downshire (p. [20]): 'His political conduct agrees very well with his motto, Ne tentes, aut perfice; he supports administration with all his might.' Downshire's visitor knew, therefore, that this peer, if he liked, could make good terms with Pitt. Much of the melodramatic character of the scene appears to have been designed to move Downshire. 'He saw Mr. Pitt' says Froude, 'who consented that "the person's" services should be accepted.'
The Cabinet, we are told, was kept in ignorance of his name. But Pelham, the Irish Secretary previous to Castlereagh, seems to have known something of him already, for, as we learn, 'Pelham, when in London, made large offers to Lord Downshire's friend.'[157] That information had been given by Downshire's visitor prior to the interview of October 1797, I cannot doubt.[158] Mr. Froude, describing Lord Edward's visit to Hoche on the Swiss frontier,[159] writes: 'Hoche himself had not revealed it even to Tone, but Lord Edward was known to be intimate with Macnevin. He had been watched in London, and traced to the lodgings of a suspected agent of the French Directory.' Downshire's visitor, it will be remembered, had interviews with Lord Edward in London.
When the betrayer threw back his disguise, Downshire, we are told, recognised him at once. This, I suspect, was not the first time that a communication reached Downshire from the same source. Dr. Madden quotes from the 'Northern Star' of September 16, 1796, a sensational account of the arrest at Belfast of Russell, Neilson, Sampson, and many others, and how the whole garrison, with its artillery, took part in the stirring scene, and it appears that Downshire helped to direct the proceedings. That day Neilson and Russell surrendered to his lordship, and Tone in his 'Diary' deplores the arrest as the heaviest blow which could fall on their cause.[160]
The name of the French agent in London is not mentioned by Mr. Froude. It is M. Jägerhorn, described by Reinhard, the French Minister at Hamburg, as 'that estimable Swede;' and concerning whom there is a mass of matter, often purposely misleading, in the Castlereagh Correspondence. Macnevin's memorial to the French Directory was betrayed to England in the summer of 1797. M. Jägerhorn was sent by France to treat with the Irish Directory. His mission, however, transpired, and means were taken to prevent him going farther than London, whereupon Lord Edward Fitzgerald was deputed to cross to England, and there confer with Jägerhorn.
Turner's fracas with the terrorist commander-in-chief, Carhampton, was supposed to have caused his retirement to Hamburg. But that scene, with its dialogue, may have been purely theatrical.[161]
In June 1797 Turner attends several meetings of the Ulster delegates in Dublin.[162] There it was that the 'prudence or the cowardice' of the Papist leaders in Dublin, as he says, disgusted him.[163] Why should the notorious Turner be allowed to go on to Dublin, and Jägerhorn be refused?