CHAPTER IX
ARREST OF JÄGERHORN IN LONDON—THE PLOT THICKENS—TURNER SHOT THROUGH THE HEAD
In 1799, Turner's stealthy steps can be traced once more in London. It will be remembered that Lord Edward Fitzgerald had met, by appointment near Whitechapel, M. Jägerhorn, a secret envoy of France, and gave him, in full detail, information regarding every point on which that agent had been charged to inquire. Jägerhorn was 'the estimable Swede' named by Reinhard, the French minister at Hamburg, when writing the intercepted letter. This document, dated July 12, the editor of the 'Castlereagh Papers' assigns to the year 1798;[231] but as Lord Edward was dead at that time,[232] it must belong to the previous year. Other secret missives were sent to Dublin at the same time by the Home Office, in order to guide the course of the Irish Government. These papers, filling forty pages of the book,[233] were the result of a successful stroke of espionage at Hamburg.
M. Jägerhorn is of course the person alluded to by Mr. Froude when describing the nocturnal visit to Lord Downshire. 'He [Lord Edward] had been watched in London, and had been traced to the lodgings of a suspected agent of the French Directory, and among other papers which had been forwarded by spies to the Government, there was one in French containing an allusion to some female friend of Lady Edward, through whom a correspondence was maintained between Ireland and Paris.'
Hamburg was Turner's usual residence, and Jägerhorn had an estate near that place.[234]
Although the case of M. Jägerhorn is opened in the first volume of the 'Castlereagh Papers,' and misplaced among the incidents of another year, we do not find until far in the second the letters addressed to him in 1797 by General Valence and Lord Edward. In 1799 Jägerhorn had sought to renew his perilous enterprise. The same keen scent which traced Lord Edward, in 1797, to the lodgings of the confidential envoy in London, was once more on his track. Wickham, writing from the Home Office on March 28, 1799, has news for Castlereagh in Dublin: 'I have the satisfaction to inform your lordship that we have secured M. Jägerhorn, who was coming over here on a mission similar to that which he undertook some two years since, when he met Lord Edward Fitzgerald in London.'
A full report is given of Jägerhorn's examination, in which he is asked: 'Were you not charged to deliver to Lord Edward Fitzgerald a letter from somebody?' and he replied, 'Madame Matthiessen.' This was the lady, nearly connected with Lady Edward, and alluded to by Mr. Froude as a name found in secret papers. He is further questioned about Lord Edward, Lady Lucy, General Valence, and a number of other persons whose names had cropped up in the interview between Turner and Downshire; but, though the queries were searching, and Jägerhorn now seemed completely in Pitt's power, nothing material was wrung from him. England and Russia were at this time allied, and Jägerhorn, pretending that he had a pension of 2,000 roubles as a spy of Russia, rather dumb-foundered his examiners, and he at last regained his liberty. All this is to be found, with full details, in the 'Correspondence of Lord Castlereagh.'
The paltry sum which Turner received for his services now comes to be considered. This man, who had every facility of access to Lady Edward's house at Hamburg and its rebel entourage, held the key of a position so incalculably important that he never himself discerned its marketable value. Thousands would doubtless just as readily have been paid to him as 'the cool 500l.' that he modestly asked. 'To get the information had cost him,' he said, 'three times that sum, and to keep up the acquaintances and connections he had at Hamburg he could not live on less.' 'Small profits and quick returns' seems to have been his motto.
'Fresh evidence of the person's power to be useful,' writes Froude, 'made Pitt extremely anxious to secure his permanent help.' The Cornwallis papers record, but without any attempt to identify him, that the pension Samuel Turner received—dating from 1800—was but 300l. a year. Wellington when Irish Secretary addressed to Portland a letter in which a present payment of 5,000l., and 'not more than 20,000l. within the year,' appears guaranteed to one nameless informer.[235]