Miss Moore—afterwards Mrs. Macready—died in 1844. To her son, she said:—'The Government got timely information that we were going to Usher's Island. Now this intention was known only to Magan and me; even Lord Edward did not know our destination until just before starting. If Magan is innocent, then I am the informer.'
On the day after Magan's apparently humane arrangement with Miss Moore he called at her house, anxiously inquiring if aught had happened, as he had waited up until the small hours, and yet Lord Edward did not come! Miss Moore, not suspecting Magan, replied: 'We were stopped in Watling Street; we hurried back to Thomas Street, where we providentially succeeded in getting Lord Edward a room at Murphy's.' Mr. Magan, satisfied by the explanation, leisurely withdrew, but, no doubt, quickened his gait on reaching the street. That evening, at four o'clock, Murphy's house was surrounded by soldiers, and Lord Edward, after a desperate resistance, was secured, and conveyed in a sedan-chair to the Castle.
Higgins claimed, and received, 1,000l. as the price. How much was given by him to the 'setter,' or what precise agreement subsisted between them, I have no document to show. A pension was bestowed upon Magan, and I find in the Secret Service account the following entry: 'September 11, 1800—Magan, per Mr. Higgins, 300l.'
The name of Thomas Magan, the father of the betrayer, disappears from the Directory in 1797—from which I, at first, inferred that his death occurred about that time. But it now appears that he subsided into bankruptcy. On May 2, 1798, the assignees of Thomas Magan, woollen-draper, a bankrupt, grant to John Corballis, for the consideration of 690l., some house property belonging to Magan.[301] This date is worthy of attention; it is one fortnight before the arrest of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. The difficulties of the Magan family had been gathering for some years. They commenced in 1793, when Higgins lent Thomas Magan 1,000l.; and three years later, as will be seen, another thousand. 'The borrower is servant to the lender,' saith the proverb. Further search in the Registry of Deeds Office, Dublin, discloses two additional mortgages from Thomas Magan, senior, to Francis Higgins—one for 2,341l., another for 1,000l. The 'witness is Francis Magan.'[302] Their date is July 7, 1796, when very serious embarrassments threatened the family. How closely Shamado's toils[303] grasped father and son is now clear; and let us hope that when Francis Magan was persuaded by his tempter to sell Lord Edward's blood, he muttered, not without emotion, 'My poverty, and not my will, consents.'[304]
The name 'James Dixon' appears in the private list, supplied by Mr. Froude, of those who constituted the executive Committee of the United Irishmen in 1795, and 'by whom the whole organisation was managed.' Dr. Madden does not seem to know this, and says merely[305] that 'James Dickson hospitably treated and succoured on all occasions the families of the State prisoners.' The late Mathias O'Kelly told me that one of the few persons with whom Magan lived, in early life, on terms of intimacy was 'James Dickson, of Kilmainham,' and that he had repeatedly met Magan at Dixon's house. 'Dixon was deeper in the confidence of the rebel party than many more prominent leaders,' adds O'Kelly. 'He took the chair at the meeting of United Irishmen which had been convened to thank Napper Tandy for challenging Attorney-General Toler, afterwards Lord Norbury; and he was twice imprisoned for alleged complicity in the rebellion.' But the Government treated him with a consideration extended to few others; and, on the grounds of ill-health, he was permitted to leave Kilmainham Gaol daily on short riding excursions.[306]
Undemonstrative in his habits, it is not easy to trace him in the scanty reports of contemporary newspapers. On May 17, 1797, a meeting of barristers was held urging the Government to 'yield to the moderate wishes of the people, and thereby defeat the designs of any party dangerous to the country;' and amongst the seventy-three signatories, with Francis Magan, were T. A. Emmet, H. Sheares (afterwards hanged), Robert Orr, B. B. Harvey (commander at Vinegar Hill in '98, and also hanged), W. Sampson, Robert Holmes, J. Philpot Curran, L. McNally, and many other popular men, some recognised as members of the United Irish Society, such as Joseph Huband, and W. Newton Bennett, afterwards a chief justice.[307] The subsequent Baron, Smith, is there too with Robert Johnson, dismissed from the bench in 1806, and George Ponsonby, afterwards Lord Chancellor. In 1797 they stood upon a pitfall, but by a miracle escaped.
Francis Magan posed through life as the pink of propriety. Before the last century closed he had strong claims for secret service; but I cannot doubt, knowing his quiet and somewhat nervous nature, that whatever information he gave must have been communicated through Higgins. The latter owned a newspaper, which was the openly subsidised organ of the Government. He constantly assailed the popular party with invective; so that, unless through Magan, he could have had no opportunity of approaching the patriots, much less sucking their brains.
My contention as regards Magan was first expressed in a 'Note on the Cornwallis Papers' printed thirty years ago,[308] and it is with no small interest that I now find all my suspicions confirmed by Magan's own letters. The letters of Higgins to Cooke claiming blood-money for Magan form the crowning proof of that which at first was mere theory. Magan was an informer of the most mercenary type—constantly tendering his services, and withholding information when coin ceased to clink.
The earliest mention of Magan by name is in 1797; the reports of Higgins are specially full at that date, no doubt the fruit of intercourse with Magan, who was completely his creature. One, undated, says: 'On Wednesday last, Jackson, Dixon, Magan, and a large party dined at McKinley's, opposite Kilmainham Gaol. The two first went into the prison, and distributed money which the prisoners had wrote for.'
Many letters follow. Higgins told enough to show how important a spy Magan could become if betrayal were made worth his while. On December 29, 1797, he writes: 'You have not, dear Sir, determined as to M. At such a momentous and critical period ... every intelligence should be obtained for Government.'[309]