Secret Service Under Pitt. Fitzpatrick William John

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ executive committee. It results from the answers of Mr. Macnevin, conjointly with those of Mr. Furnes, that it was of dilatoriness and indecision that several members of the committee were accused; that the northern province, feeling its oppression and its strength, was impatient to break forth,166 while the committee strove to defer any explosion till the arrival of the French, and declined giving a full explanation of its relations with France; that, nevertheless, after the change of the committee, meetings were held in Dublin and in the North, at which it was resolved to wait; that the clandestine visitation of several depôts of arms, where the powder was found damp and the muskets rusty, contributed a good deal to that resolution; and that the desire for the assistance of the French had in consequence become more general than ever. It was, however, decided that a rising should take place when the prisoners were set at liberty. Macnevin and Lord Fitzgerald are of the moderate party. Furnes is for a speedy explosion; and it is some imprudences into which his ardent character has hurried him, that have obliged him to leave the country167; whereas, the conduct of Mr. Macnevin has been so circumspect,168 that there is nothing to oppose his return.

      Reinhard's despatch is continued at very great length, and those who care to read it should consult the 'Castlereagh Papers' (i. 282-6). He thus ends: 'I have just received a memorial in which M. Jägerhorn gives me an account of his journey. I will send it to you by the next courier. That estimable Swede has again manifested great devotedness to the cause of liberty.'

      By some marvellous sleight-of-hand Jägerhorn's secret report found its way to Whitehall, instead of to Paris, and may be read in the memoirs of Lord Castlereagh.169 Two years later, the Swede will again be found tracked from Hamburg to London, and arrested on Portland's warrant.

      Mr. Froude's allusion to the facilities of command exercised by 'the person' over Lady Fitzgerald's letter-bag, the hints he gave Downshire how secret letters from Hamburg were sealed and addressed, and how they might be intercepted, read, and then passed on,170 are only those gleams of light that shine dimly in dark places, but enough, with present knowledge, to discern a good deal.

      It will be remembered that Downshire's visitor, in his list of men marked out for doom, gave prominence to Dr. Macnevin, 'a Physician who had great weight with the Papists.' 'He (the betrayer) had discovered,' writes Froude, 'that the object of the Papists was the ruin and destruction of the country, and the establishment of a tyranny worse than that which was complained of.'

The famous memorial of Dr. Macnevin, embracing a full report on the state of Ireland, and appealing to France for help, was written at this time.171 On arrival at Hamburg he entrusted it to Reinhard, the French minister there, by whom – as we learn from the 'Cornwallis Papers' – it was translated and forwarded to Paris. Mr. Froude thinks its betrayal to the English Cabinet a very remarkable circumstance, and the more strange because 'no suspicion has been suggested of Macnevin's treachery.' A hidden hand contrived to pass on to Pitt this document destined to become historic.172

      Wickham, writing to Castlereagh on August 15, 1798, states that the rebel executive committee directed Dr. Macnevin to proceed to Paris by the way of Hamburg; that the principal objects of his journey were to give additional weight and credit to the mission of Lewins, and to confirm the information that had already been transmitted.173 Again the reader may be reminded that Lewins and Turner were rival envoys. Each is found constantly trying to circumvent the other. Turner, therefore, had a special object in foiling and intercepting Macnevin's memorial.

      Reinhard, in the betrayed despatch of July 12, 1797, tells De la Croix, at Paris, that every confidence might be reposed in Lewins. Lewins' usual post was at Paris, just as Turner's was at Hamburg, but both passed to and fro. Of Lewins, Reinhard takes care to say that Macnevin

      not only attested that he possesses, and deserves, the utmost confidence, but that he is designated a minister at Paris in case of success. Mr. Macnevin wished much that his memorial should be communicated to him.174

      If it was Turner's interest to intercept Reinhard's letter establishing confidence in Lewins, it was still more his interest to keep back from Lewins a document which, while vindicating his name, would protect it from further attack; and this the 'Memorial' of Macnevin was designed to do.

      Camden had now ceased to be Viceroy and was succeeded by Cornwallis.175 The latter co-operates with the Home Secretary in screening from publicity the name of their informer. The report of the Secret Committee was now in progress. Cornwallis, writing to Portland, says: —

      The same reason may not operate against the production of Dr. Macnevin's memoir, which might be supposed to have fallen into our hands by various other means, and which, from its being produced, without connection with the other papers, might not create any alarm in the quarter where it is so necessary that the most implicit confidence in our prudence and secrecy should be preserved.

      Your Grace will of course be aware that no account will be given, even to the Secret Committee, of the means by which these papers came into the hands of Government.176

      Portland duly acknowledged Lord Cornwallis's despatch,

      in which you represent the advantages which might result from laying before the Committees of Secrecy of the two Houses of Parliament in Ireland the whole, or at least a part, of the very secret and authentic documents relating to the conspiracy in that kingdom, which I had the King's permission from time to time to transmit to the late Lord-Lieutenant [Lord Camden]. I lost no time in acquainting his Majesty's confidential servants with your Excellency's sentiments upon this very important and delicate question; and I am now to inform you that, after its having repeatedly undergone the most serious investigation and discussion, the result of our unanimous opinion is, that the communication of the whole of those papers cannot on any account, or in any situation of the country, be suffered to be made to a parliamentary committee, under whatever qualification or conditions it may be appointed, consistently with that secrecy which in certain cases the honour and safety of the State require to be observed.

      We agree, however, for the reasons you have stated, that the same objection does not exist to the production of the greater part of Dr. Macnevin's memoir, and I have therefore had an extract made of such parts of it as it appears to us may be laid before the public without inconvenience…

      To prevent as much as possible any occasion being given which can tend to a discovery of the channels by which this intelligence has been obtained, I most earnestly recommend to your Excellency to do your utmost in procuring that the facts which are stated from it may not stand in the report of the committees in the exact order in which they are given here, but that they may be mixed with other information which has been derived from other sources.177

      The precautions taken to screen the betrayer were certainly very complete. Castlereagh tells Wickham (July 30, 1798): —

      His Excellency authorised me to read the correspondence and memorial once over to the committee of the Commons, with a strict injunction that no person should note a single fact; and I can truly state that the individuals on that committee are altogether in the dark as to the manner in which that intelligence was obtained, and, from the mode in which it was gone through, can only have a very general impression of its contents. The same precaution was used in the Lords; and, I trust, although the Duke of Portland's despatch to his Excellency does not altogether sanction what has been done, yet that his Grace and СКАЧАТЬ