Secret Service Under Pitt. Fitzpatrick William John
of him already, for, as we learn, 'Pelham, when in London, made large offers to Lord Downshire's friend.'156 That information had been given by Downshire's visitor prior to the interview of October 1797, I cannot doubt.157 Mr. Froude, describing Lord Edward's visit to Hoche on the Swiss frontier,158 writes: 'Hoche himself had not revealed it even to Tone, but Lord Edward was known to be intimate with Macnevin. He had been watched in London, and traced to the lodgings of a suspected agent of the French Directory.' Downshire's visitor, it will be remembered, had interviews with Lord Edward in London.
When the betrayer threw back his disguise, Downshire, we are told, recognised him at once. This, I suspect, was not the first time that a communication reached Downshire from the same source. Dr. Madden quotes from the 'Northern Star' of September 16, 1796, a sensational account of the arrest at Belfast of Russell, Neilson, Sampson, and many others, and how the whole garrison, with its artillery, took part in the stirring scene, and it appears that Downshire helped to direct the proceedings. That day Neilson and Russell surrendered to his lordship, and Tone in his 'Diary' deplores the arrest as the heaviest blow which could fall on their cause.159
The name of the French agent in London is not mentioned by Mr. Froude. It is M. Jägerhorn, described by Reinhard, the French Minister at Hamburg, as 'that estimable Swede;' and concerning whom there is a mass of matter, often purposely misleading, in the Castlereagh Correspondence. Macnevin's memorial to the French Directory was betrayed to England in the summer of 1797. M. Jägerhorn was sent by France to treat with the Irish Directory. His mission, however, transpired, and means were taken to prevent him going farther than London, whereupon Lord Edward Fitzgerald was deputed to cross to England, and there confer with Jägerhorn.
Turner's fracas with the terrorist commander-in-chief, Carhampton, was supposed to have caused his retirement to Hamburg. But that scene, with its dialogue, may have been purely theatrical.160
In June 1797 Turner attends several meetings of the Ulster delegates in Dublin.161 There it was that the 'prudence or the cowardice' of the Papist leaders in Dublin, as he says, disgusted him.162 Why should the notorious Turner be allowed to go on to Dublin, and Jägerhorn be refused?
Samuel Turner saw a good deal of Lord Edward and Jägerhorn in London. We find traces of this knowledge in Mr. Froude's notes of 'the person's' interview with Downshire – how he called Lord Edward 'Fitz' and had confidential talk with him in Harley Street. The spy tells Downshire soon after that Reinhard begged him to stay at Hamburg, 'as the only mode in which I could serve my country and the republic. I instantly acquiesced, and told him I had arranged matters with Lord Edward Fitzgerald in London for that purpose.'
Turner played his cards so well, and personated an ardent patriot so completely, that the suspicions of his fidelity which Reinhard163 expressed on May 31 are found removed soon after. Dr. Macnevin, of Dublin, a chief in the Executive Directory, was now coming to Paris to ask French aid. Reinhard reports progress to De la Croix: —
While Mr. Lewins has suffered me to lose all traces of his journey, and Mr. Furnes164 is gone to write to him, M. Jägerhorn has returned from London, and a new Irish deputation has called upon me. All the efforts of M. Jägerhorn having failed against the obstinacy with which the Duke of Portland refused him a passport for proceeding to Dublin, he determined to call Lord Fitzgerald to London. The latter came upon pretext of accommodating his sister. The authenticity of the mission of Mr. Lewins was verified; important details respecting the state of Ireland were given; it was ascertained that there was no derangement in the plan, and in the resources of the united patriots. It is unnecessary for me to give you a circumstantial account of the information brought by Mr. F., since he enters fully into that which Mr. Macnevin has just given. The latter came surrounded by all the motives for confidence, and he did not leave Dublin till the 27th of June: his intelligence is of the latest date, and from the very source. The reports of Mr. Macnevin, who goes here by the name of Williams, and who would wish to appear always under that name, as Mr. Lewins under that of Thompson, appear to me to throw great light upon all that the Government can have an interest to know. Mr. Macnevin has been secretary of the executive committee, and all that he says proves him to be a man thoroughly acquainted with the ensemble of facts and combinations. In annexing to this despatch the Memorial165 which he delivered to me, I shall add what I have reason to think of importance in his conference.
My first care was to clear up what the papers seized at Belfast said concerning a change made by the provincial committee in the organisation of the 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,
Froude's
There were informers from the first, but not to the extent suggested; nor can it be fairly said that they were men 'deepest in the secret.' 'This and similar information,' writes Mr. Froude, 'came in to them (the Government) from a hundred quarters' (p. 177). 'They had an army of informers' (p. 174). The historian here writes of the year '96, and rather overrates the extent of the treachery. Dr. Macnevin, writing in 1807, says that the secrets of the United Irishmen were kept with wonderful fidelity. Their society existed from 1791; it was not until 1798, when ropes were round their necks, that Reynolds and McGuckin proved false; and the same remark applies to most of the others.
As regards Pelham's correspondent in 1796, and Downshire's in 1797, does Mr. Froude mistake, for two distinct betrayers, the one Informer? His striking scenes, his dramatic situations, his fine painting and accessories, remind me of a stage where the movements of a few men convey the idea of an advancing 'army.' That 'Downshire's friend' had been previously known as an informer is proved by a letter from the Viceroy Camden to Portland, dated December 9, 1797.
Appendix No. 1 to Report of the Secret Committee of the House of Commons, 1798.
See
The French minister at Hamburg.
The noble editor of the
Mr. Froude errs in stating (iii. 260) that Macnevin himself carried the Memorial to Paris.
All this is exactly what Downshire's visitor told him (see chap. i.).
His challenge to the commander-in-chief, Lord Carhampton, was among the 'imprudences.'
Instead of the words 'circumspect' and 'moderate,' 'prudence' and 'cowardice' are applied to Macnevin's party by Turner (
Among the letters headed 'Secret Information from Hamburg,' in the
Mr. Lecky says, what previous writers do not, that Macnevin wrote the memorial
Other intercepted letters addressed to the French Minister of War will appear later on. These unanswered appeals were well calculated to damp the ardour of the Irish refugees; but they tried to keep the machine of conspiracy moving – despite the subtle insertion of so many hidden obstacles tending to clog and destroy it.