Secret Service Under Pitt. Fitzpatrick William John
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Название: Secret Service Under Pitt

Автор: Fitzpatrick William John

Издательство: Public Domain

Жанр: Зарубежная классика

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      Although the spy did not confide to Lord Downshire until October 1797 his name and secrets, there is reason to believe that he had furnished information previously. To enhance his importance he probably said nothing of this. As Mr. Froude observes, he painted his own conduct in the colours he thought best. This man had long played fast and loose. So early as May 1797 Turner was viewed with suspicion. The Castlereagh Papers contain a bundle of intercepted letters addressed by Reinhard, the French Minister at Hamburg, to De la Croix, head of the Foreign Office, Paris, of whom Tone often speaks with affection.139 These letters, as already stated, mention Turner under the name of Furnes, which we learn from the Castlereagh Papers was an alias of Turner.140 He is praised for his zeal and patriotism; but in one letter Reinhard is found struggling with a painful misgiving. The suspicion is so dark that he does not like to write even the name of Furnes, but makes dots to tally with the letters composing it, and no name was better known to De la Croix. At last Reinhard tries to banish the thought as an unworthy suspicion; and a subsequent letter of his reinstates Turner in full prestige.

      The letter which expresses suspicion bears date May 31, but is confusingly assigned, in the Castlereagh Papers, to the year 1798. Its reference to Hoche, however, shows that it was written during the previous year – his death having occurred on September 15, 1797.

      You must have heard [writes Reinhard to De la Croix] of the apprehension of two committees of United Irishmen at Belfast, and the publication of the papers seized, made by the secret committee of the Parliament of Ireland.141 Among these papers is a letter from the provincial committee, informing those of Belfast that the executive committee having conducted itself in an improper manner, the provincial committee thought fit to dissolve it, retaining however, two-thirds of the former members. This letter has been printed in London in the True Briton, a ministerial paper. It is very remarkable that … should never have mentioned that circumstance to me. Supposing, which is very probable, that this reorganisation of the executive took place before the departure of … [from Ireland], it is natural enough to suppose that … should find himself among the excluded members. The opinion that I have formed of him … [adds Reinhard in words worthy of a true diplomat] is, that he is a man of haughty and violent character, without, on that account, stooping to dissimulation and deceit; so, in order to revenge himself on his countrymen, he may have betrayed his cause to Mr. Pitt. [Reinhard goes on to say that] It was letters of Lord Edward Fitzgerald which certified that this man who called upon me was the person sent to me by Lady Fitzgerald on his arrival.142

      It seems needless to point out that this must be the 'person' whom Mr. Froude describes as being introduced by Lady Edward Fitzgerald, and having the ear of Reinhard at Hamburg; and there is hardly less doubt that the man thus noticed was the same who, having got into debt with his friends, addressed himself to Pelham as early as 1796. His secret letter to Pelham will be seen presently. Meanwhile the same sensitive pride and the same revengeful spirit when that pride was once wounded is also traceable in the details revealed to Lord Downshire next year. Judging from the slippery and impulsive character of the man, I cannot doubt that previous to his mission to London in October 1797, for the purpose of making a final bargain with Pitt, he had coquetted with Dublin Castle.

      Lewins and Turner were rival envoys – Lewins represented the Leinster Directory; Turner claimed to speak for Ulster. Of Lewins, who stands above all suspicion, Reinhard writes to De la Croix in 1797: – 'I think L… incapable of treachery, but capable of imprudence. I should not answer thus concerning the other. What seems further to concur in the support of my hypothesis is, that Mr. L. before his departure made it a point of great importance to ascertain whether there was any other envoy from Ireland, who addressed himself to me, and that he begged me not to give my confidence to any other than to him alone. I refrained from giving these tidings to General Hoche, not only because my means of corresponding with him are uncertain, but because all the letters from Frankfort announce his departure for Paris.'

      It may not have struck Mr. Froude, as it certainly strikes me, that the man he describes143 as visiting Lord Downshire, and at the last moment offering to betray, was the same person whom the historian, one hundred pages previously, notices as an informer, 'in the closest confidence of the Northern Leaders, but whose name is still a mystery.'

      It will be seen that Pelham's correspondent of 1796 had fallen into debt and difficulties. This at first seems not consistent with the statement of Mr. Froude that Downshire's visitor was the son of a gentleman of good fortune in the North. But it is easy to see that the son himself had got into pecuniary straits. He tells Downshire of the expenses he is under, and asks Pitt for a 'cool 500l.'144 to begin with.

      In addition to a judgment debt of 1,500l. which Jacob Turner in his will forgives his son Samuel,145 I find, on examining the records of the three Law Courts, that another judgment debt of 800l. was marked against Samuel Turner on January 26, 1793.146

      Speaking of informers, Mr. Froude writes under date 1796: —

      One of these especially, whose name is still a mystery, was in the closest confidence of the Belfast leaders. He had been among the most enthusiastic of the original members of Tone's society, but he had fallen into debt to others of the confederates and had been expelled. In revenge he sold himself to the Government, satisfied his creditors with money which he received from Pelham, and was at once taken back into confidence. Among others, he became an intimate associate of William Orr, a Belfast tradesman, afterwards executed for treason, who at this time was a member of the Head Northern Committee.

      Orr told him that everything was ready. Dublin, Cork, Limerick, were waiting only for orders to rise, and when the word was given the movement was to be universal and simultaneous. They had 200,000 men already officered in regiments; they had pikes and muskets for 150,000, and more were on the way.

      The militia were almost to a man United Irishmen, and in fact, according to Orr, they would have risen in the autumn but for some differences among themselves. For himself, the informer thought that nothing would be attempted till the arrival of the French.

      The Belfast men, Neilson, Orr, the two Simms, the party who had taken the oath with Wolfe Tone on Cave Hill,147 he described 'as wealthy, wily, avaricious, tenacious of their property, distrustful of one another, and if afraid of nothing else, desperately afraid of the Orangemen, who were five times stronger than people in general believed.148 They had authentic news that Hoche might be expected in the fall of the year, and then undoubtedly an effort would be made. If Hoche came, they were perfectly confident that Ireland would be a republic before Christmas. The instant that the signal was given the whole Orange party were to be assassinated…

      The Informer concludes with these words: —

      Be assured that what I have told you is true. The original agitators have been kept concealed even from the knowledge of the common people. The medium of dissemination has been the priests, and they have concealed from their congregations, on whom they have so effectively wrought, the names of those who have set them on, merely saying that there were men of influence, fortune, and power ready to come forward. The motive of the original agitators – and I mean by them the members of the Catholic Committee that sat in Dublin, and many of the Convention that were not on the Committee – was to carry the Catholic Bill through Parliament by the influence of terrorism.149

      So much for the informer who sought the ear of СКАЧАТЬ

<p>139</p>

Castlereagh, i. 282-292.

<p>140</p>

Ibid., General Index, iv. 504.

<p>141</p>

Further on will be seen Portland's caution to Castlereagh as to the means to be taken by the Secret Committee of the Irish Parliament in order to divert suspicion from their spy.

<p>142</p>

The letter, of which this is an extract, appears in the Castlereagh Papers (i. 275-6). It was the interest of the spy that this letter should not be seen at the Foreign Office, Paris. It could do him no harm in the eyes of Pitt. A second intercepted letter from Reinhard states that consistently with his duties he sent Samuel Turner [of Hamburg] to General Hoche (see Castlereagh, i. 285). Tone mentions in his diary that Hoche one day 'seemed struck when I mentioned Hamburg, and asked me again was I going hither. "Well then," said he, "perhaps we may find something for you to do there. There is a person there whom perhaps you may see."' Tone muses, 'Who is my lover that I am to see at Hamburg, in God's name?' (Diary, ii. 341.) His diary is relinquished, however, just as he gets there, and his death in an Irish prison occurred soon after.

<p>143</p>

English in Ireland, iii. 278.

<p>144</p>

Ibid. iii. 284.

<p>145</p>

Irish Record Office.

<p>146</p>

Judgment Registry, Four Courts, Dublin, No. 302.

<p>147</p>

Tone's Life (i. 128) describes how, before leaving for America in 1795, he swore to his friends who surrounded him on Cave Hill never to desist from his efforts until Ireland was free.

<p>148</p>

This is quite Turner's style.

<p>149</p>

Froude, iii. 176. The original objects of the Society of United Irishmen were parliamentary reform and Roman Catholic emancipation.