William Fitzpatrick - Secret Service Under Pitt

After the arrest and death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and the collapse of the rebellion, the State prisoners consented to give some general information which would not compromise men by name.

Wickham's correspondence illustrative of his secret mission to Switzerland, when he debauched the French minister, Barthélemy, with 'saint-seducing gold,' was published by Bentley in 1870.

Castlereagh Papers , i. 259-60.

'Everything was planned,' are the words in the betrayer's letter to Lord Downshire.

In this suspicion, Lord Edward and O'Connor were not far astray. The Confidential Letters of the Right Hon. William Wickham reveal that Pichegru and other French generals were paid by Pitt to allow themselves to be beaten in battle.

At Margate with Father O'Coigly.

Castlereagh Papers , i. 309-10.

General index to the Correspondence of Lord Castlereagh . 'Furness' is the name under which Reinhard, the French minister, refers to him when writing to his Government.

Letter of W. E. H. Lecky, Esq., to W. J. F., Athenæum Club, London, July 5, 1888. Richardson, the popular author of 'Pamela,' was then a specially familiar name, and one which would readily occur to a well-read man who divulged the secrets of a real Pamela. The plot in the stories of Samuel Richardson is developed by letters, a branch of composition in which Samuel Turner was au fait . There seems a strange irony in this spy describing, under the nom de plume of Richardson, a new 'History of Pamela' and her struggles. Dr. Madden says that, after the death of her husband, Pamela returned in painfully straitened circumstances to Hamburg, the only place to which she could with prudence go. Madden little dreamt that the fugitive's retreat was the serpent's lair.

The Rev. William Jackson, an Anglican clergyman, came to Dublin on a treasonable mission, accompanied, as his friend and legal adviser, by Cockayne, a London attorney. The latter was deputed by Pitt to entrap the National leaders. Cockayne prosecuted Jackson to conviction. In Ireland, unlike England, one witness then sufficed to convict for high treason.

In a letter dated June 8, 1798, Wickham speaks of the source from which 'R' procured 'all the information that he has communicated to us' – meaning what concerned Lady Edward Fitzgerald, Valence, Mrs. Matthiessen, Reinhard, and other ingenuous friends at Hamburg, who told Turner all they knew. Dr. Madden and others mistook this 'R' for the incorruptible Reinhard, as M. Mignet styles him. See folio 102, infra .

France et Irlande (Paris, 1888).

Vide Appendix for some revelations of fratricidal betrayal by O'Connor's brother.

One letter only, from Richardson (Turner) to Lord Downshire, I have found in the Pelham MSS.; it bears date 'Hamburg, December 1, 1797': —

'My Lord, – I cannot contrive any mode of seeing Mr. Fraser without running a very considerable risque of a discovery. For this reason I now intrude to request you'll be so kind as to favour me with a few lines. I wrote to you on November 17, by post. Since that I have sent you two letters by Captain Gunter, of the Nautilus: the first contains seven and a half pages of letter paper; the second, a single letter with such information as I could collect, which I hope will be material. Gunter promised to put them in the Yarmouth office himself.

'It will be requisite for your lordship to lay aside every emblem of noblesse, and adopt the style of an Irish sans-culotte, for fear of accidents. If I appear worthy the further notice of your lordship, no pains on my part shall be spared to merit the honour of being ranked among your lordship's most sincere,

'December 1, 1797, Hamburg (under cover to the master of the post-office, Yarmouth).' – Pelham MSS.

Placed far apart from Richardson's letter is found the despatch of Cooke, wherein it had been enclosed. 'The letters by the "Nautilus" have not been received,' he writes, 'and we know not how to direct to him.' The Pelham MSS. are pyramids in bulk, but no other letter from Richardson, alias Turner, is entombed within them.

Neilson, Russell, Teeling, and Turner belonged to the Ulster branch of the organisation. Russell, who had been a captain in the 64th Regiment, and a J. P. for co. Tyrone, remained a prisoner until 1802, and, on connecting himself with Emmet's scheme, was beheaded October 30, 1803. Samuel Neilson, son of a Presbyterian minister, died, after many exciting vicissitudes, on August 29 in the same year.

Personal Narrative , by Charles Hamilton Teeling. His daughter became the first wife of Lord O'Hagan.

Castlereagh , i. 282-292.

Ibid. , General Index, iv. 504.

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.

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.

English in Ireland , iii. 278.

Ibid. iii. 284.

Irish Record Office.

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

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.

This is quite Turner's style.

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

Ante , p. 25.

The Rev. Arthur McCartney, vicar of Belfast, stated that he had never heard of a Committee of Assassination existing in Belfast with the cognizance or sanction of the leaders of the United Irishmen.

Froude's English in Ireland , iii. 175.

The following memorandum, though of no political import, is useful as an authentic record of facts: —

'1791, February 13. Samuel Turner and Jacob Turner his father, both of Turner's Hill, co. Armagh, Esquires, to John McVeagh of Lurgan. Conveyance of Premises in Lurgan.