Secret Service Under Pitt. Fitzpatrick William John

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СКАЧАТЬ my statements, or if I have given offence. If you approve my present mode of life, and encourage me so to do, with all deference I think Mr. Pitt may let me have a cool five hundred,21 which shall last me for six months to come. To get the information here has cost me three times the sum, and to keep up the acquaintance and connections I have here, so as to get information, I cannot live on less.'22

The betrayer, before his interview with Downshire closed, supplied him with a list of the Executive Committee of United Irishmen. This list, duly given by Mr. Froude, includes —

      Jackson and his son; Oliver Bond; John Chambers; James Dickson; Casey, a red-faced Dublin priest; Thomas Addis Emmet; Dr. McNevin, a physician who had great weight with the papists;23 Braughall, John Keogh and R. McCormick, who belonged to the committee, though they did not attend; Samuel Turner; Lord Edward Fitzgerald; Arthur O'Connor; Alexander Stewart; two Orrs, one an attorney and a dangerous person, the other of Derry, described as a clever, sensible, strong-minded man; B. Teeling; Tenants, of Belfast; Agnew, of Larne; Lawless, Lord Cloncurry's son; Hamill, of Dominick Street24; Inishry,25 a priest, a canting, designing man, who swore in Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Lawless.26

      Lord Downshire, who negotiated in this affair, had weight with Pitt. The husband of an English peeress, and the son of Lord North's Secretary of State, he was a familiar figure at Court. He had sat for two English constituencies; and in the Irish Parliament as senator, borough proprietor, governor of his county, and one of the Privy Council, he wielded potent sway. His later history and fall belong to chapter ix.

CHAPTER II

      ARRESTS MULTIPLY

      It was not easy to separate the threads of the tangled skein which Mr. Froude found hidden away in the dust of the past. But, lest the process of unravelling should tax the reader's patience, I have transferred to an Appendix some points of circumstantial evidence which led me, at first, to suspect, and finally to feel convinced, that 'the person' was no other than Samuel Turner, Esq., LL.D., barrister-at-law, of Turner's Glen, Newry – one of the shrewdest heads of the Northern executive of United Irishmen.27 Pitt made a good stroke by encouraging his overtures, but, like an expert angler, ample line was given ere securing fast the precious prey.

      One can trace, through the public journals of the time, that the betrayer's disclosures to Downshire were followed by a decided activity on the part of the Irish Government. The more important of the marked men were suffered to continue at large, but the names having been noted Lord Camden was able, at the threatened outburst of the rebellion, to seize them at once. Meanwhile an influential London paper, the 'Courier' of November 24, 1797, gave a glimpse of the system that then prevailed by announcing the departure from Dublin for England of Dr. Atkinson, High Constable of Belfast, charged, it is said, with full powers from Government to arrest such persons as have left Ireland, and against whom there are charges of a treasonable or seditious nature.

      The former gentleman is well known, and will be long remembered by the inhabitants of Belfast, for the active part he took in assisting a Northern Marquis,28 and the young apostate of the County Down, to arrest seven of their fellow-citizens on September 16, 1796; since which period these unfortunate men have been closely confined without being allowed to see their friends, and now remain without hope of trial or liberation.

      'The young apostate of Down' – thus indicated for English readers ninety years ago – was Lord Castlereagh, afterwards Minister for Foreign Affairs, and well twitted by Byron for his Toryism; but who, in 1790, had been elected, after a struggle of two months' duration and an outlay of 60,000l., Whig Member for Down. Like Pitt, he began as a reformer; like Disraeli, he avowed himself a Radical; and presided at a banquet where toasts were drunk such as 'Our Sovereign Lord the People.' Ere long his policy changed, and his memory is described as having the faint sickening smell of hot blood about it.

      Mr. Froude's work has been several years before the world; it has passed through various editions. Thousands of readers have been interested by his picture of the muffled figure gliding at dark to breathe in Downshire's ear most startling disclosures, but no attempt to solve the mystery enshrouding it has until now been made.29

      The name of Samuel Turner obtains no place on the list of Secret Service moneys30 expended by the Irish Government in 1798 – thus bearing out the statement of Mr. Froude that the name of the mysterious 'person' was not revealed in the most secret correspondence between the Home Office and Dublin Castle. At the termination of the troubles, however, when the need of secrecy became less urgent, and it was desirable to bestow pensions on 'persons who had rendered important service during the rebellion,' the name of Samuel Turner is found in the Cornwallis Papers as entitled to 300l. a year. But a foot-note from the indefatigable editor – Mr. Ross – who spared no labour to acquire minute information, confesses that it has been found impossible to procure any particulars of Turner.

      For years I have investigated the relations of the informers with the Government, and Samuel Turner is the only large recipient of 'blood-money' whose services remain to be accounted for. Turner's name never appeared in any printed pension list. Mr. Ross found the name at Dublin Castle, with some others, in a 'confidential memorandum,' written for the perusal of the Lord Lieutenant, whose fiat became necessary. The money was 'given by a warrant dated December 20, 1800,' but the names were kept secret – the payments being confidentially made by the Under-Secretary.

      At this distance of time it is not easy to trace a life of which Mr. Ross, thirty years earlier, failed to catch the haziest glimpse; but I hope to make the case clear, and Turner's history readable.

      Previous to 1798 he is found posing in the double rôle of martyr and hero – winning alternately the sympathy and admiration of the people. Mr. Patrick O'Byrne, an aged native of Newry, long connected with an eminent publishing firm in Dublin, has replied to a letter of inquiry by supplying some anecdotes in Turner's life. It is a remarkable proof of the completeness with which Turner's perfidy was cloaked that Mr. O'Byrne never heard his honesty questioned.31

In 1836 there was a tradition current in Newry of a gentleman named Turner, who in the previous generation had resided in a large red brick house situated in the centre of a fine walled-in park called Turner's Glen, on the western side of Newry, in the County Armagh. Mr. Turner had been in 1796 a member of the great confederacy of United Irishmen, one of the leaders who, for self and fellows, 'pledged his life, his fortune, and his honour' to put an end to British supremacy in Ireland. About the date mentioned the notorious Luttrell, Lord Carhampton, who was commander of the forces in Ireland at the time, and was then making a tour of inspection of the army, had to pass through Newry. The chief hotel in Newry at that time adjoined the post-office. The gentry and merchants of Newry generally went to the post-office shortly after the arrival of the mails to get their letters, and while waiting for the mail to be assorted promenaded in front of the hotel, or rested in the coffee-room. Mr. Turner wore the colours he affected – a large green necktie. Lord Carhampton, while his horses were being changed, was looking out of the coffee-room windows of the hotel, and his eye lighted on the rebel 'stock:' here was a fine opportunity to cow a rebel and assert his own courage – a quality for which he was not noted. Accordingly he swaggered up to Mr. Turner and, confronting him, asked 'Whose man are you, who dares to wear that rebellious emblem?' Mr. Turner sternly replied, 'I am my own man. Whose man are you, who dares to speak so insolently to an Irish gentleman?' 'I am one who will make you wear a hempen necktie, instead of your flaunting French silk, if you do not instantly remove it!' retorted Lord Carhampton. 'I wear this colour,' replied Mr. Turner courageously, 'because СКАЧАТЬ