Secret Service Under Pitt. Fitzpatrick William John
the Catholic claims. This example probably influenced his protégé. O'Connell, while inculcating moral force in his struggle for civil and religious liberty, was fond of enlisting in his bodyguard men who in more troubled times had staked their lives and fortunes for Ireland. He had himself been a 'United Irishman,' as will be shown. The rebel General Clony presided as chairman at the Catholic Association. Rowan, Teeling and 'Con' McLoughlin sat at the Council board, or stood on the National platform. What confidence must not O'Connell have reposed in the man who, as will appear, avowed himself ready to die for his chief!
An aged gentleman, Patrick O'Byrne, who was born at Newry, almost under the shadow of Turner's patrimonial gable, but who never once doubted his fidelity to the cause in which O'Byrne himself has been no silent ally, supplies a fact of sufficiently curious import: —
When the Orange ascendancy faction resolved to put O'Connell out of the way [he writes], and their champion, the unfortunate D'Esterre, horsewhip in hand, was ostentatiously parading the streets of Dublin, accompanied by leering friends, to compel O'Connell to fight him, Mr. Samuel Turner took up his position in a hotel where it was known D'Esterre would go to seek O'Connell. He had not been there long before D'Esterre and his staff entered and inquired for O'Connell. Immediately Mr. Turner advanced and stated that his friend Mr. O'Connell was not there, but he – Mr. Turner – was there to represent him. No: they did not want Mr. O'Connell's friend; the Liberator himself was the object of their search. Mr. Turner, with the same spirit that he had challenged Lord Carhampton, now declared that he adopted Mr. O'Connell's words, publicly uttered, and made himself responsible for his actions. In vain; none but O'Connell himself would serve their purpose, and Mr. Turner was denied the opportunity of doing battle for his friend.255
All this time it cannot be said that, although undiscovered, Turner was still a happy man. The dread spectre of assassination ceased not to haunt him. 'After long experience of the world,' says Junius, 'I affirm before God I never knew a rogue who was not unhappy.' Nor was Turner's presentiment surprising. McSkimmin's History of Carrickfergus, 103-73, in his 'History of Carrickfergus,' states that the pistol and the dagger were no uncommon means of dealing with informers; and he supplies a list of men who thus suffered.
Books which treat of 'Ninety-eight' often mention Byrne of Dundalk. In 1869 the late Mr. John Mathews of that town gathered from Byrne's representative, Mr. P. J. Byrne, Clerk of the Crown, several facts, and, in enclosing them to me, styled his informant 'the highest authority on the unpublished history of the County.' Two days later Mr. Byrne was no more. The inquiries I then made had no reference to Samuel Turner, but some passing notices of this man which occur in the manuscript are useful in now supplying missing links. Mr. Mathews was an ardent patriot, and he described, not without emotion, how Turner died. Regarding him as a rebel true to the end, he writes: —
Turner went to the Isle of Man, and having quarrelled there with a Mr. Boyce, agreed that the dispute should be settled by an appeal to arms. Both, with their friends, repaired to the field of honour, and as Turner was preparing for the struggle his adversary shot him through the head; and [adds Matthews] thus terminated the career of a man whose only regret was that his life was not lost in the service of his country.256
Was the vengeance wreaked by Boyce meant as a tardy retribution? Was the John Boyce, who with five other prisoners was consigned in 1797 to Carrickfergus Gaol, connected with the Boyce who shot Turner? What Boyce had against Turner was a secret which died with both. No proceedings seem to have been taken against the man by whose hand he fell. And possibly this forbearance was not uninfluenced by the fact that the Crown had need no longer for their informer's services, but, on the contrary, gained by his death. Turner was a clever man, troublesome to deal with, haughty, touchy, and resentful; and, like Maguan,257 Bird and Newell, he might at any moment publicly turn upon his employers and betray them with as little compunction as he had already sold his comrades.
A word as regards Lord Downshire, through whom Turner's disclosures were at first conveyed. This peer, who at one time had wielded potential influence at Whitehall, and had the ear of Pitt, lived to fall into deep disfavour with Government. He steadily opposed the Legislative Union, and helped to form a joint-stock purse with the object of out-bribing Dublin Castle. In chastisement he was dismissed from the Lord Lieutenancy of Down, deprived of his rank as colonel, expelled from the Privy Council, and threatened with a parliamentary inquiry into his conduct. These blows told, and on September 7, 1801, he breathed his last.
CHAPTER X
EFFORTS TO EXCITE MUTINY IN THE ENGLISH FLEET
Of Duckett, an amateur rebel envoy, mentioned in connection with the arrest of Napper Tandy,258 something remains to be said. He was a man of very active habits, and if less impulsive would have had more friends. Tone, already the victim of misplaced confidence, viewed many men with suspicion, and let them see it. In 1796 he was passing as a French officer, and mentions in his diary that, when waiting to see De la Croix, the minister of war at Paris, Duckett, who chanced to be also in the ante-room, sought to enter into conversation with Tone by handing him an English newspaper. Advances of this sort, though natural in an exiled Irishman meeting another, were not without effect in making Tone distrust and avoid him.259 Duckett no doubt had projects connected with the enterprise in hand to which the chivalrous Tone would not stoop; but of these Tone knew little, and his prejudice was formed on quite different grounds. These suspicions were shared by Madgett, an official in the French War Office. Duckett, it appears, told Madgett that two expeditions were to proceed to Ireland. 'Madgett said that he had endeavoured to put Duckett off the scent by saying he did not believe one word of the story, but that Duckett continued positive.' Tone adds that the information was probably true; but that it was terribly provoking it should be known to Duckett, 'to whom, by the by, De la Croix revealed in confidence all that he knew, for which he ought to be damned.' Tone later on admits that he knows nothing against Duckett unless by report.260
Tone's unhealthy impression Dr. Madden caught contagiously. In the first edition of his book, published forty years ago, he conveys that Duckett was a spy subsidised by England.261 Innuendo grew at last into accusation, and a more recent edition records that Duckett, 'there is good reason to believe, was not employed by the Irish Directory, but by the British Minister, Mr. Pitt.'262 Again, we are told that Duckett was 'assuming the character of an agent of the United Irishmen at Paris, and continually dodged Tone in all his movements.'263
I cannot endorse this imputation. In no pension list, or account of secret service money, is the name of Duckett to be traced; nor is there one line to criminate him in the archives of the Home Office. Nay more. Open the 'Castlereagh Papers,' and there Duckett is found denounced as a sworn enemy to England. These valuable State papers were published ten years previous to the issue of Dr. Madden's revised edition; but, uninfluenced by their revelations, he renews the charges against Duckett.
Guillon, who has had access to the Government archives in France, says that Truguet, Minister of Marine, had thrown himself heart and soul into the projected invasion, and proposed to land 30,000 men in Ireland, under Hoche; and 60,000 later on in England; but the Directory deemed the plan too daring, and threw it aside; until Tone's memorials made their thoughts recur to invasion, and they then adopted a portion of the rejected scheme of Truguet.264 An interesting letter from Duckett to Truguet, Minister of Marine, turns up among the intercepted despatches. This functionary had just been succeeded by a new hand.
Is the Government still resolved to prosecute the same plans and the same projects [Duckett asks]. Can my country rely on its promises? Let me know, I beseech you in the name of Liberty, what is to be done? Shall I go home to accelerate the period for the arrival of which we are all solicitous? Consider that it is only patriots and enemies of England who risk anything – it is their blood that will flow.
The
Letter of Mr. Patrick O'Byrne to W. J. F., Dublin, September 6, 1880. D'Esterre was a practised duellist. He and O'Connell at last met in a field near Naas, and D'Esterre fell January 31, 1815. Lord Whitworth, the famous diplomat, was then Lord Lieutenant. The
Turner was very treacherously served by his impulsive foe. Perhaps Boyce thought that had O'Connell accepted Turner's services in that lonely field in Kildare, he might have been tempted, like Iago, to deal a stealthy stab.
Maguan of Saintfield is not to be confounded with Magan.
Many men recoil from affable persons who seem over-anxious to know them. Sir Gavan Duffy in
Tone's