But they pried not upstairs, through the dust and the gloom,
Nor peeped at the door of the wonderful room
That gossips made much of, in accents subdued,
But whose inside no mortal might brag to have viewed.
Full forty years since turned the key in that door:
'Tis a room deaf and dumb 'mid the city's uproar.
The guests, for whose joyance that table was spread,[366]
May now enter as ghosts, for they're every one dead.
On consulting the records of the Probate Court early in this inquiry, I was puzzled to find that the sum which Miss Magan appeared to have died worth was quite nominal. This discovery disturbed, and for some time retarded, the completion of the chain of evidence. On inquiry, however, it was stated that, in order to save the legacy duty, she transferred, when almost in extremis, a considerable sum to the late Very Rev. Dr. Taylor and a respected physician[367] still living; and she made a will ratifying that act. Orally, she expressed a wish as to its bestowal for some useful purpose, but leaving details entirely to their discretion. With the bulk of this money a refuge for penitent females and an asylum for the insane were built.[368] Miss Magan died worth 14,000l., not to speak of a fee-farm property known as Hartstown, held under Lord Carhampton, and not far from the Devil's Mills, near Dublin, which, local tradition states, his lordship built in one night by demoniac aid.[369]
It seems strange that Magan, who was insolvent before the rebellion, could amass so much money. His secret pension was merely for 200l. a year[370] (a sum insufficient to pay the rent of his house), give good donations to the Catholic Board, pay off Fetherston's bond, and support himself, his sisters and his horse—for in early life Mr. Magan did indulge in that luxury. His pension, there is reason to think, from the letter of Sir William Gossett in 1834, ceased to be paid about that time. His fees as a Commissioner for enclosing commons were enjoyed by him for a few years only; and as the 'S.S. Money Book' records but three payments to him—namely, on September 11, 1800, April 2, 1802, and December 15, 1802—it is evident that he must have derived income from other sources. There are payments of secret service money to the informers of '98 and their representatives which obtain no record in the book ostensibly devoted to that purpose. Captain Armstrong, who betrayed the Sheares's, is known to have received, throughout sixty years, about 29,000l. in recognition of that act; and yet no trace of his name appears in the book of Secret Service Money expenditure. Money was also obtainable under a clause in the Act of 39 George III. cap. 65, by which a sum of 2,910l. was allocated to the Under-Secretary in the Civil department (Dublin Castle) for the time being, in trust for payment of secret annuities. A letter from Dr. Ferris suggests another source. He states, on the authority of a clerk in Gleadowe Newcomen's Bank, then dead, that an annuity had been paid from that house to Francis Magan, and that the clerk had seen Magan's receipts. Dr. Ferris suggests that the books of the bank might be still accessible for examination.[371]
An Act of Parliament provided that the Secret Service Money placed at the Viceroy's disposal should pass confidentially through the hands of the Chief Secretary; but this arrangement has not always been adhered to, as is evident from the fact that the 1,000l. reward for the discovery of Emmet was lodged to the credit of the informer in Finlay's bank. The hint of Dr. Ferris is not uninteresting, but the books of Newcomen's bank do not seem to have been preserved. Barrington states that Sir W. Gleadowe Newcomen, who voted for the Union, received a reward of 20,000l. with a peerage, and the patronage of his county. It is a strange irony of fate that Lord Newcomen died poor. For years he lived alone in the bank, gloating, it was wildly whispered, over ingots of treasure, with no lamp to guide him but the luminous diamonds which had been left for safe keeping in his hands. Moore would have compared him to 'the gloomy gnome that dwells in the dark gold mine.' Wrapped in a sullen misanthropy, he was sometimes seen emerging at twilight from his iron clamped abode. La Touche's bank stood on the opposite side of Castle Street, and Dublin wags compared the street to a river because it ran between two banks. Jokes soon gave way to sobs. One day Newcomen's bank broke,[372] and prosperous men perished in the collapse. Lord Newcomen had previously retired to Killester, where he died by his own hand. No claimant appeared for his coronet, and the line became extinct. This was the twenty-seventh Irish peerage which had failed since the Union. Gleadowe had been M.P. for Longford when he voted for the extinction of the Irish Parliament. Richard Lovel Edgeworth, a betrayed constituent, regarded this vote as an act of treason, and in anger shot forth the following bolt:—
With a name that is borrowed—a title that's bought,
Sir William would fain be a gentleman thought;
His wit is but cunning, his courage but vapour,
His pride is but money—his money but paper!
What was a pointless sarcasm in 1800 became a stubborn fact in 1825—Newcomen's notes were waste paper. The Hibernian Banking Company soon after began business within the walls.
FOOTNOTES:
[284] I leave unchanged some of the circumstantial evidence which had convinced me of Magan's guilt, adding in brackets the criminatory letters subsequently found (January 1891).