It was a national crisis. Meetings in aid of Catholic Emancipation had just been forcibly dispersed. Lords Fingall, Netterville, and Ffrench were dragged from the seats in which, as chairmen, they presided. Other signatories who, with Magan, convened this meeting, were the three Catholic peers just mentioned, Dr. T. Dromgoole, Bernard Coyle, Sylvester Costigan, Con McLoughlin, and Fitzgerald of Geraldine—the latter five having been, as well as O'Connell, United Irishmen.
I was not surprised to hear from Mathias O'Kelly,[338] an old member of the Catholic Board and at one time secretary to the Catholic Association, that Magan possessed the respect and confidence of those bodies. He seemed to prove the sincerity of his sympathy in the most practical way, and rarely gave less than ten pounds as a subscription to their funds. It is, no doubt, to Magan that Wellington refers in his letter to Dublin Castle, dated London, November 17, 1808: 'I think that, as there are some interesting Catholic questions afloat now, you might feed —— with another 100l.'[339]
Dr. Dirham, who from his boyhood had resided on Usher's Island, heard it rumoured, he told me, that Magan during the troubled times kept frequently open the door of his stable in Island Street to facilitate espionage.[340] Moira House, now the 'Mendicity Institution,' is situated within a few doors of No. 20, Usher's Island, the residence for half a century of Francis Magan. As already mentioned, Pamela, the beautiful wife of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, received in the stormy period of '98 hospitable shelter from Lady Moira. To my surprise I find, in a manuscript life of Dwyer the outlaw, by the late Luke Cullen, a Carmelite friar, that two of Emmet's most active emissaries, Wylde and Mahon, lay concealed in Moira House while a proclamation offering 500l.[341] for their capture was being widely circulated. Before this curious fact came to my knowledge, it will be seen, from a former work of mine dealing with informers, that on utterly distinct circumstantial evidence I sought to trace Magan as on the track of Wylde and Mahon at Philipstown during the same eventful year.
Major Sirr made a private note, which remains duly on record[342] that the retreat of Wylde and Mahon 'is sometimes at the gaoler's in Philipstown, who is married to Wylde's sister.' The following entry appears in the 'account of secret service money employed in detecting treasonable conspiracies per affidavit of Mr. Cooke': 'April 2, 1803. Francis Magan, by post to Philipstown—100l.'[343]
In the State Papers of the time I can find no letters bearing on this transaction, and therefore I must seek to trace it on circumstantial evidence.
Who can doubt that Magan, when a refresher reached him at Philipstown, was in hot scent after Wylde and Mahon? Later on, during the same year, we find Captain Caulfield and a party of military laying siege to the house at Philipstown in which Wylde and Mahon were suspected to be concealed. An account of a skirmish is supplied by Captain Caulfield in a letter, dated December 17, 1803, also preserved in the Sirr papers: 'Captain Dodgson was killed, and,' adds Caulfield, 'we were obliged to retire, while the villains made their escape.'[344]
Luke Cullen, the Carmelite already referred to, spent his later life gathering from the peasantry their recollections of the troubled times. His manuscript life of Dwyer has been placed in my hands by the superior of Clondalkin monastery. Folios 595 to 597 describe Wylde and Mahon's refuge at Philipstown, the abortive efforts to catch them there, and afterwards their concealment at Moira House, Dublin. The governor of Philipstown Gaol, we learn, was a near connection of both. They are stated by Cullen to have at last effected their escape from Moira House, Usher's Island, in a boat which rapidly passed out of the bay. Having reached the United States, Wylde and Mahon joined the army, and found speedy promotion. The statement that two proscribed men, most active propagandists of Emmet's plans, lay under Lord Moira's ægis seems startling; but this statesman and his countess had very popular sympathies, and liked to succour rebels. The late Mr. Thomas Geoghegan, solicitor, informed me that two uncles of his named Clements, who were United Irishmen, obtained refuge at Moira House while warrants were out for their arrest, and finally succeeded in escaping all pains and penalties owing to the precautions taken by Lady Moira.
It is not a little singular that General Lord Moira, who, later on, was offered the Viceroyalties of Ireland and of India, and who in 1812, on the death of Percival, sought to form an administration, should have performed the perilous task of harbouring men who loved Ireland 'not wisely, but too well.' Portland, in a letter to Camden, dated 11 March, 1798, classes with 'the disaffected,' 'Lord Moira and his adherents.' This impression was partly due to his indignant protest in Parliament against that policy of torture by which the people had been daily goaded to rebel.
Magan's life involved some strange contradictions. Proud, and even haughty, he yet hesitated not to commit base acts; with the wages of dishonour he paid his just debts. An interesting letter, in reply to a query, was addressed to the present writer by the late John Fetherstonhaugh, of Griffinstown, Kinnegad. His grandfather, Thomas Fetherston, of Bracket Castle, was, he states, in the habit for years of lodging in High Street, Dublin, at the house of Thomas Magan, a draper, 'and departed this life in his house.'[345] Fetherston's son, on inspecting his papers, found a joint bond from the draper and his son, Francis Magan, for 1,000l., and on speaking to the former respecting its payment, he declared that he was insolvent.
So my father [adds Mr. Fetherston] put it into his desk, counting it waste paper. Some years elapsed and the son came to Bracket Castle, my father's residence, and asked for the bond. 'For what?' said my father. To his astonishment, he said it was to pay it. I was then but a boy, but I can now almost see the strange scene—it made so great an impression on me. Often my father told me Magan paid the 1,000l., and he could not conceive where he got it, as he never held a brief in court; and he was always puzzled why the Crown gave him place and pension.[346]