This letter—possibly written at Lady Edward Fitzgerald's house at Hamburg, and put into her post-bag—was treacherously betrayed to Pitt. When De la Croix remained ominously silent in response to the above appeal, is it surprising that Reinhard should have made difficulties and delays in giving Macnevin a passport?[184]
Macnevin's groundless distrust of Reinhard naturally influenced the views of a most painstaking investigator. Dr. Madden, who, when he at last saw, in the 'Castlereagh Papers,' Reinhard's letters to De la Croix, regarded the circumstance as damning proof of his treachery.[185] Subsequently Mignet, the great French historian and keeper of the ministerial archives at Paris, who had ample official means of knowing the character and acts of both Reinhard and De la Croix, assured Madden in writing that both men were incorruptible. This may be taken as conclusive, for, unlike Turner, there is not a line in any English State Paper tending to compromise Reinhard or De la Croix.[186]
For the act of betrayal we must therefore look to Samuel Turner, agent at Hamburg of the United Irish Brotherhood; the man who had access to the most secret papers in Lady Fitzgerald's house, and who, we learn, 'was admitted to close and secret conversations upon the prospect of French interference in Ireland with Reinhard.' This, in fact, was the grand proof submitted by Downshire's visitor to show that he was in a position to spy to advantage—a fact sufficient in itself to demonstrate that Reinhard was himself no spy.
Dr. Madden's suspicion of Reinhard was doubtless strengthened by a passage which for a long time puzzled myself, and occurs in Wickham's letter to Castlereagh of June 8, 1798. Wickham speaks of 'information confirmed by a person at Hamburg, who must necessarily have derived his intelligence from a very different source, and who could not but be ignorant of that from which R. had procured all that he has communicated to us.' The name thus masked is not Reinhard, but Richardson—an alias for Turner, as proved at p. [48] ante.
One thing greatly complicated this puzzle as regards 'R.' Wickham, in a subsequent letter, dated July 25, 1798, speaks of 'R.'—meaning not Richardson, but Reinhard, as the context shows.[187] But these blanks are due to the noble editor of the 'Castlereagh Papers,' the late Lord Londonderry; and in cloaking the name Richardson—it inadvertently peeps out in one place, like 'Capel' instead of 'Catesby' in 'Lothair'—he doubtless thought that it was a real name.
On February 18, 1798, Lord Moira addressed the House of Lords in favour of Catholic Emancipation, which, he declared, must be granted, as well as Parliamentary Reform. 'The greatest evil to be feared from it sinks to nothing compared to the mischief which is raging at present. The expression of a conciliatory desire on your part would suspend immediately the agitation of the public mind.'
Mr. Froude says that the members of Council knew more than Lord Moira—'if he really believed his words;' and he adds that they must have found it hard 'to sit patient under his flatulent declamation.' How much Turner's tattle had excited the Cabinet, and aroused lasting prejudice against a statesman not less able than estimable, appears from the historian's words: 'At that moment the Council were weighing intelligence from the friend at Hamburg, so serious that they had all but resolved on an immediate arrest of the entire Revolutionary Committee.'
Reinhard tells De la Croix, on July 12, 1797, that while 'Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Macnevin[188] were of the moderate party, Turner was for a speedy explosion.'[189] Turner was co-operating in a very base policy, one which unscrupulous statesmen are said to have planned. During the examination of Macnevin before the Secret Committee, Lord Castlereagh confessed that 'means were taken to make the United Irish system explode.' The policy of exciting a premature explosion before Ireland had been organised peeps forth in the Report of the Secret Committee of the Irish Parliament: 'The rebellion [we are told] would not have broken out so soon as it did, had it not been for the well-timed measures adopted by Government.'
Turner's policy changed according as the policy of his employers changed. In March 1798 the rebel Directory at Dublin were seized as they sat in council at Oliver Bond's. Soon after, three out of thirty-two counties rose; and to crush that partial revolt cost England twenty-two millions of pounds and twenty thousand men.