[260] Many men recoil from affable persons who seem over-anxious to know them. Sir Gavan Duffy in Young Ireland states that Davis had been prejudiced against the subsequently most distinguished Darcy Magee, because he had 'obviously determined to transact an acquaintance with him.'
[261] Tone's Journals, ii. 141. (Washington, 1847.)
[262] United Irishmen, their Lives and Times, 1st ed. i. 40-75.
[263] Ibid. 2nd ed. ii. 37.
[264] Ibid. iv. 603.
[265] La France et l'Irlande. (Paris, 1888.)
[266] Castlereagh Papers, i. 294-5.
[267] The puzzle is increased by the noble editor's arrangement of the letters—made without regard to chronological order.
[268] Stone is the man who had been tried in 1795 for high treason, and found guilty. But Duckett, though a staunch rebel, may have had good reason for denouncing Stone three years later. Madame de Genlis, in her Mémoires, upbraids Stone with having treacherously retained some money which had been entrusted to him for Pamela. See tome iv. 130-1.
[269] Clarke, when giving Tone his commission in the French army, asks him (Journals, i. 151) if he knew one Duckett: 'I answered I did not, nor did I desire to know him.' Clarke replied that Duckett was 'clever.' Clarke, afterwards Duke de Feltre, stooped to ignoble tactics from which Tone recoiled. Clarke was a strong advocate for chouannerie (see Tone, ii. 96-9), and probably encouraged Duckett in his scheme for destroying the English dockyards and exciting mutiny in the fleet.