In 1807 Sir Arthur Wellesley, afterwards Duke of Wellington, entered on his duties as Irish Secretary. A letter, dated Dublin Castle, December 5, 1807, and addressed to the Admiralty, recommends a midshipman in the navy, Francis Turner, for promotion. 'He is the son of a Mr. Turner in this country, who has strong claims to the favour of the Government for the loyalty and zeal with which he conducted himself during the rebellion in Ireland.'[254] Doubtless the new hand merely wrote in this letter what the permanent officials prompted.[255]
Downshire, although a staunch Tory of the old school, uniformly supported the Catholic claims. This example probably influenced his protégé. O'Connell, while inculcating moral force in his struggle for civil and religious liberty, was fond of enlisting in his bodyguard men who in more troubled times had staked their lives and fortunes for Ireland. He had himself been a 'United Irishman,' as will be shown. The rebel General Clony presided as chairman at the Catholic Association. Rowan, Teeling and 'Con' McLoughlin sat at the Council board, or stood on the National platform. What confidence must not O'Connell have reposed in the man who, as will appear, avowed himself ready to die for his chief!
An aged gentleman, Patrick O'Byrne, who was born at Newry, almost under the shadow of Turner's patrimonial gable, but who never once doubted his fidelity to the cause in which O'Byrne himself has been no silent ally, supplies a fact of sufficiently curious import:—
When the Orange ascendancy faction resolved to put O'Connell out of the way [he writes], and their champion, the unfortunate D'Esterre, horsewhip in hand, was ostentatiously parading the streets of Dublin, accompanied by leering friends, to compel O'Connell to fight him, Mr. Samuel Turner took up his position in a hotel where it was known D'Esterre would go to seek O'Connell. He had not been there long before D'Esterre and his staff entered and inquired for O'Connell. Immediately Mr. Turner advanced and stated that his friend Mr. O'Connell was not there, but he—Mr. Turner—was there to represent him. No: they did not want Mr. O'Connell's friend; the Liberator himself was the object of their search. Mr. Turner, with the same spirit that he had challenged Lord Carhampton, now declared that he adopted Mr. O'Connell's words, publicly uttered, and made himself responsible for his actions. In vain; none but O'Connell himself would serve their purpose, and Mr. Turner was denied the opportunity of doing battle for his friend.[256]
All this time it cannot be said that, although undiscovered, Turner was still a happy man. The dread spectre of assassination ceased not to haunt him. 'After long experience of the world,' says Junius, 'I affirm before God I never knew a rogue who was not unhappy.' Nor was Turner's presentiment surprising. McSkimmin's History of Carrickfergus, 103-73, in his 'History of Carrickfergus,' states that the pistol and the dagger were no uncommon means of dealing with informers; and he supplies a list of men who thus suffered.
Books which treat of 'Ninety-eight' often mention Byrne of Dundalk. In 1869 the late Mr. John Mathews of that town gathered from Byrne's representative, Mr. P. J. Byrne, Clerk of the Crown, several facts, and, in enclosing them to me, styled his informant 'the highest authority on the unpublished history of the County.' Two days later Mr. Byrne was no more. The inquiries I then made had no reference to Samuel Turner, but some passing notices of this man which occur in the manuscript are useful in now supplying missing links. Mr. Mathews was an ardent patriot, and he described, not without emotion, how Turner died. Regarding him as a rebel true to the end, he writes:—
Turner went to the Isle of Man, and having quarrelled there with a Mr. Boyce, agreed that the dispute should be settled by an appeal to arms. Both, with their friends, repaired to the field of honour, and as Turner was preparing for the struggle his adversary shot him through the head; and [adds Matthews] thus terminated the career of a man whose only regret was that his life was not lost in the service of his country.[257]
Was the vengeance wreaked by Boyce meant as a tardy retribution? Was the John Boyce, who with five other prisoners was consigned in 1797 to Carrickfergus Gaol, connected with the Boyce who shot Turner? What Boyce had against Turner was a secret which died with both. No proceedings seem to have been taken against the man by whose hand he fell. And possibly this forbearance was not uninfluenced by the fact that the Crown had need no longer for their informer's services, but, on the contrary, gained by his death. Turner was a clever man, troublesome to deal with, haughty, touchy, and resentful; and, like Maguan,[258] Bird and Newell, he might at any moment publicly turn upon his employers and betray them with as little compunction as he had already sold his comrades.
A word as regards Lord Downshire, through whom Turner's disclosures were at first conveyed. This peer, who at one time had wielded potential influence at Whitehall, and had the ear of Pitt, lived to fall into deep disfavour with Government. He steadily opposed the Legislative Union, and helped to form a joint-stock purse with the object of out-bribing Dublin Castle. In chastisement he was dismissed from the Lord Lieutenancy of Down, deprived of his rank as colonel, expelled from the Privy Council, and threatened with a parliamentary inquiry into his conduct. These blows told, and on September 7, 1801, he breathed his last.