[195] See letter to Talleyrand, ante, p. [27]. Some persons supposed that because Duckett lived at Hamburg like Turner, he used that great gangway to France for espionage. In the Castlereagh Papers (ii. 6) Duckett is described as 'Secretary to Léonard Bourdon.' Bourdon is noticed in the Nouvelle Biog. Génèrale, was 'l'agent du Directoire à Hambourg, d'où il fit partir les émigrés.'
[196] Sir James Crawford, British minister at Hamburg from 1798 to 1803. Crawford afterwards filled a similar post at Copenhagen, where Reynolds, the Kildare informer, is also found acting as British consul. Reynolds's betrayals were long subsequent to those of Turner, and of a wholly different sort. His evidence was given in court publicly. The editor of the Cornwallis Papers states that Crawford died on July 9, 1839; but Mr. Ross confounds him with an utterly different man. The Black Book, published in 1820, records (p. [31]) a pension of 1000l. 'continued to the family of Sir James Crawford, late minister at Copenhagen, dead.' The 'most exhaustive' works of biographical reference omit Sir James Crawford, a remarkable man, and one who played an important part in European history; and a letter of mine in Notes and Queries, asking for facts about him, failed to elicit a reply.
[198] Castlereagh Papers, i. 306-9.
[199] Why Tone's Diary, as published, does not once name Turner, may be due to the uncertainty as to whether Turner was alive in 1826, and perhaps Tone's son, from motives of prudence, cut out some allusions to him. Tone died in a Dublin prison on November 19, 1798, three days before the arrest of Tandy. Tone and Turner were closely associated in their studies, distinctions, and political pursuits. Turner entered Trinity College, Dublin, on July 2, 1780; Tone entered on February 19, 1780. Turner was called to the Bar in 1788; Tone in 1789.
[200] Muir's trial took place on August 30, 1793. He was transported to New South Wales, from which he escaped by American agency. After a series of great sufferings he arrived at Paris in February 1798, but died on September 27 that year from the effect of the hardships he had endured. The papers of the Home Office show that in 1793 Muir came to Dublin to confer with the United Irishmen, and on January 11 in that year was elected one of the brotherhood. Vide also Life of Thomas Muir, Advocate, by P. Mackenzie (Simpkin, 1831).
[202] A man whom he found in consultation with Joubert, planning the invasion of Ireland with a map of it before them, he describes in this and subsequent letters as O'Herne. Students of the Castlereagh Papers have been unable to identify this man; but it is clear that the O'Herne who figures in them was no other than Ahearne, so often mentioned by Tone in his Diary. The letter to Wickham mentions General Daendels as a co-conspirator with O'Herne. In Tone's Diary we read (p. 460): 'Received a letter from General Daendels, desiring me to send on Aherne to him, without loss of time, to be employed on a secret mission.'
[203] The writer mentions his election in Tandy's place as proof of his unsleeping vigilance and increased power to betray. Portland, instead of seeing that the man thus ready to take a false oath would not scruple to say anything, was so struck by the importance of the letter that he sent a copy of it to Dublin for the guidance of Lord Castlereagh. Here was a man, as Curran once said of an approver, 'willing to steep the Evangelists in blood.' Turner, in a previous letter (ante, p. [28]), glibly writes: 'I attest the business on oath.'