Secret Service Under Pitt. Fitzpatrick William John

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СКАЧАТЬ 1797. Besides the list of the Executive Directory, there can be no doubt that in the information which followed he named, with others, John Hughes of Belfast, the date and place of whose arrest tally with the presumption that to Turner it was due. The 'History of Belfast' records: 'October 20, 1797 – John Hughes, bookseller, having been apprehended in Newry236 on a charge of high treason, was brought in here escorted by a party of light dragoons.'237 Mr. Froude says that 'Downshire's friend' kept him informed of everything.238

      How well Turner knew Hughes is proved by the sworn testimony of the latter,239 in which he describes a breakfast in June 1797, with Samuel Turner, Teeling, Macnevin, etc., when the fitness of the country for an immediate rising was debated. Hughes had been a great patriot previously, but now to save himself became a mercenary informer, and even sought to criminate Grattan, who thereupon was dismissed from the Privy Council, though, as Stanhope240 admits, without just cause. There had been no more zealous propagandist of the rebellion than Hughes, and he names a long list of men whom he himself had sworn in on a prayer-book. In 1802 John Hughes retired to the United States and became a slave-owner.

      Wickham's letter of June 8, 1798, enumerated, for the information of Lord Castlereagh, a number of men whose arrests in England seem consequent on the information furnished by Downshire's visitor. These names include McGuckin, the attorney, who had been concerned for O'Coigly at Maidstone. The subsequent career of this once determined rebel, but who soon after his arrest in 1798 became a spy for the Crown, enhances the importance of Turner's information at a great crisis. The first recorded payment to McGuckin of secret service money is March 5, 1799.241 His son migrated to France, and was created a baron by Louis Philippe.

      The peril of assassination which shadowed every step made by Turner was not adequately weighed by Pitt when estimating the value of his services. The risk he ran was not confined to Ireland. The life of an English spy abroad was deemed equally unsafe, and there is much reason to fear that more than one met with short shrift. Even a successful diplomat, if his subtlety touched French interests, could not regard his life as safe. The disappearance of Benjamin Bathurst, a kinsman of Earl Bathurst, has never been explained. Bathurst was sent on a secret mission to Vienna, at the time that England before opening the Peninsular campaign sought to persuade Austria to declare, by way of a distraction, war against France. Austria soon after crossed the French frontier, and Bathurst received hints of threatened personal doom. Hoping to avoid assassination, he took a northerly route in returning to England, and on reaching Perleberg in Brandenburg, he visited, in his agitation, the commandant of cuirassiers, requesting that sentries might mount guard at the inn where he stopped. These were supplied, and Bathurst spent the day in writing and destroying letters. Shortly before his carriage came to the door in the dark of a November evening, he told some troopers who escorted him that they might withdraw. While all the household was on the alert to see him off, he walked beyond the circle of the lantern glare, and was lost to sight at the heads of the horses. This occurred on November 25, 1809, and Bathurst was never seen or heard of more, notwithstanding that, as we are reminded by Baring Gould, England offered 2,000l. reward, and Prussia 100 Friedrichs d'or, for the discovery even of his remains.

      To trace the spy with whom these chapters mainly deal seemed, at the outset, almost as hopeless as to find Bathurst's bones. Of all the Government informers not one has been more ingeniously guarded from discovery. Wellington, with all his astuteness, supposed that the fact of a man's name appearing in the Banishment Act was conclusive evidence against him of having been a rebel,242 and therefore disqualified from claiming any favour from the Crown. But had he known the secret history of Turner's case, it would have opened his eyes. A Fugitive Bill was passed in July 1798, enumerating the rebel leaders who had fled from justice. In this bill we find Samuel Turner named. During the following year Parliament was asked to lend itself to the fraud of branding as a traitor the same Samuel Turner, by passing against him an Act of Attainder. From 1797 he lived abroad, posing as an 'exile of Erin.'243

The sealed chest in Dublin Castle which was opened a few years ago contained the only letter I ever saw signed with Turner's name. It related to his pension, and it was necessary to lay the mask aside for once. We have already seen him styled Furnes, Richardson, and especially 'Lord Downshire's friend.'244 A new name is now adopted to puzzle posterity. He directs that 500l. be lodged to the account of 'J. Destinger,' and this sum he was to draw through a third party. Turner's letter is addressed, not to Dublin Castle, but to Cooke in London, that gentleman having been succeeded, as Under-Secretary for Ireland, by Mr. Marsden.

Rt. Hon^ble Mr. Secretary Cooke. 245 Hamburg: May 18, 1802.

      Sir, – In consequence of letters I've had the honour of receiving from Lord Castlereagh and Sir James Craufurd, I take the liberty of intruding relative to a pension of 300l. per annum the Government has thought proper to bestow on me for information on Irish affairs.

      His lordship states that you have been so kind as to offer to pay the pension to any person I would name as agent – or in any way I was to propose. At present there is no person in Ireland I'd like to trust, and till some mode is adopted, I should be extremely obliged if you'd take the trouble of lodging in any bank in London the sum of 500l. (British) on account of J. Destinger – the name I shall draw it under – through Sir Geo. Rumbold.246

      Now that the war is over, and it is supposed all persons in my line are discharged, I make it a point to spend much more money than heretofore in order to do away any idea of my being employed and income diminished, and it is for that reason I request your attention, and beg the honour of a line through Sir George to say where the draft is to be sent.

      Hoping one day or other to merit your good opinion, I remain, most respectfully, &c. &c.

S. Turner.

      Turner spent money freely, and often when he could ill afford it. He had a social status to maintain: he was the son of a county magistrate; had distinguished himself in college; belonged to an honourable profession. He was the trustee of marriage settlements. He was 'Lord Downshire's friend!' If he continued to wear his mask well, why might he not aspire to attain, in America at least, the high official rank of his late colleague and fellow-prisoner, Thomas Addis Emmet, whom she at last honoured by a public funeral and a monument raised by national subscription?

      The 'Dublin Directory' for 1804 describes Samuel Turner's address as 58 St. Stephen's Green, in that city. The volume must have been compiled during the previous year, and it may be that the Irish Government, in 1808, removed him to Dublin, with the object of picking the brains of those who had been concerned in Emmet's rebellion of that year. Until the very night of its outburst, in July 1808, the existence of a slumbering volcano had not been suspected. After the vain attempts to convict and hang Tandy, Turner had returned to his old quarters.247

      The Irish Government were wholly unprepared for Emmet's revolt. No wonder that Wickham, with the experience he had acquired, confessed amazement that the secret should have been kept so well.

      The Secretary of State cried out with astonishment to think that such a preparation for revolution could be carried on in the very bosom of the seat of Government, without discovery, for so long a time, when any of the party could have made their fortunes by a disclosure of the plot; and remarked, at the same time, in presence of Mr. Stafford and the two Mr. Parrots, John and William, that it was because they were mostly all mechanics, or working people, that the thing was kept so profound; and said that if the higher orders of society had been СКАЧАТЬ