Secret Service Under Pitt

More than twenty years have now passed away. Many of my political opinions are softened – my predilections for some men weakened, my prejudices against others removed; but my approbation of Lord Edward Fitzgerald's actions remains unaltered and unshaken. His country was bleeding under one of the hardest tyrannies that our times have witnessed.321

If he had personal ambition to gratify, the powerful influence of his family could easily have fed it to repletion. His life was one of sacrifice and attests the sincerity of his soul.

Higgins thought that Cooke was not sufficiently alive to the importance of Magan's hints. He now tells Cooke that an attack on Dublin Castle had been proposed and adopted, but this information may have been embellished to rouse the Irish Government. 'M. thinks it is on the ensuing Tuesday or Wednesday, but will be certain for your information,' he writes. 'He says the 300l. promised should have been given at once… However, I have given him leave to draw upon me, and fully satisfied him of the honourable intentions of Government where service was actually performed, and of your kind attention if he would go forward among the meetings, communicate what is transacting, and, if found necessary, point out the spot where they may be seized, etc. This he has at length agreed to do.'322

The reader will remember Magan's arrangement with Miss Moore that, for Lord Edward's greater safety, the noble fugitive was to shift his quarters from James Moore's house to Magan's. The latter, to screen himself from suspicion, felt anxious that Lord Edward's capture should be made in the street.

… I also mentioned your kind promise of obtaining 1000l. for him (without the mention of his name or enrolment of it in any book) on having the business done, which he pointed out before the issuing of the proclamation. He, therefore, puts himself on your honour not to admit of any person to come and search his house (which I ventured to promise you would have observed), but to place watches after dusk, this night near the end of Watling Street or two houses up in that street from Usher's Island … [here the pith of Mr. Cooke's letter, see p. 122 ante, is given], and at one of these places they will find Lord Edward disguised. He wears a wig and may have been otherwise metamorphosed, attended by one or two, but followed by several armed banditti with new daggers. He intends to give battle if not suddenly seized.323

The 'armed banditti' consisted merely of Mrs. and Miss Moore, Gallagher, a clerk in Moore's employ, and a man named Palmer.324 This is the account furnished to me in a most circumstantial statement by the late Mr. Macready, the son of Miss Moore. She had been educated in Tours; Lord Edward always conversed with her in French, and he usually passed as her French tutor. The hour was 8.30 in a lovely May evening. Palmer and Gallagher walked some yards in advance, and were the first to come in contact with Sirr's party at the corner of Island Street. Sirr gave Gallagher an ugly wound which afterwards favoured identification. The latter, a powerful man, made two or three stabs at Sirr, who fell in the struggle, but, as he wore a coat of mail, he was able, after a few moments, to regain his feet. Lord Edward was also in handigrips with one of Sirr's guard; both came to the ground, but with no more ill result to his lordship than some unsightly daubs of mud on his coat. In the confusion the ladies hurried back with their noble charge to Thomas Street, leaving Palmer and Gallagher to hold Sirr at bay. The party abandoned their design of going to Magan's, though not from any distrust of his fidelity, and obtained shelter for Lord Edward in the house of a faithful adherent named Murphy with whom he had previously stayed. Miss Moore told Magan next day the whole adventure, and how the retreat had been safely effected. Lord Edward was lying on his bed in Murphy's attic, after having drunk some whey to relieve a bad cold, when Major Swan and Captain Ryan peeped in at the door, exclaiming that resistance would be vain. At once Fitzgerald started up like a lion from his lair and rushed at Swan. Revolvers were as yet unknown and his pistol missed fire; he then drew a dagger. The account furnished by Swan to a Government print states: —

His lordship then closed upon Mr. Swan, shortened the dagger, and gave him a stab in the side, under the left arm and breast, having first changed it from one hand to the other over his shoulder (as Mr. Swan thinks). Finding the blood running from him, and the impossibility to restrain him, he was compelled, in defence of his life, to discharge a double-barrelled pistol at his lordship, which wounded him in the shoulder: he fell on the bed, but, recovering himself, ran at him with the dagger, which Mr. Swan caught by the blade with one hand, and endeavoured to trip him up.325

Captain Ryan then came upon the scene, but his flint lock missed fire; and thereupon he lurched at Lord Edward with a sword-cane, which bent on his ribs. Sirr had been engaged in placing pickets round the house, when the report of Swan's pistol brought him upstairs.

On my arrival in view of Lord Edward, Ryan, and Swan [writes Major Sirr, in a letter addressed to Ryan's son], I beheld his lordship standing with a dagger in his hand as if ready to plunge it into my friends, while dear Ryan, seated on the bottom step of the flight of the upper stairs, had Lord Edward grasped with both his arms by the legs or thighs, and Swan in a somewhat similar situation, both labouring under the torment of their wounds, when, without hesitation, I fired at Lord Edward's dagger arm, and the instrument of death fell to the ground. Having secured the titled prisoner, my first concern was for your dear father's safety. I viewed his intestines with grief and sorrow.

Lord Edward, in fact, had completely ripped him open. Although Sirr had lodged several slugs in his lordship's right shoulder, he continued to fight furiously until the soldiers, of whom more than 200 were present, overwhelmed him by pressing their heavy firelocks across his person. They had brought him as far as the hall, when he made another desperate effort to escape, and a drummer from behind stabbed him in the neck.326 Previous to this scene Higgins plied Cooke with gossip from Magan, as the case about to be cited will show.

The nickname applied to Pamela in the following extract was due to a popular rumour that her parents were Madame de Genlis and Philippe Egalité, Duke of Orleans: 'Lady Egality complains dreadfully about Lord Castlereagh ordering a short passport. She will have letters sewed or quilted in her clothes, and goes to Hamburg. I shall send you particulars.'327

Lady Fitzgerald was at this time at Moira House, within a few doors of Magan; and the concluding words go to show that he had access to the house, and was entirely conversant with its domestic doings; the status, politics and attainments of so near a neighbour would facilitate access to its gilded salons.328 Lord Edward probably sent, through Magan, messages to Pamela. Magan acted his part so plausibly that on the very night Lord Edward lay a bleeding captive in Newgate, he was raised by the votes of United Irishmen to a still higher post in the organisation.

Lord Edward had been arrested in Murphy's house; and Mr. Lecky remarks329 that there is no mention of the place in the letters of Higgins. The latter, to save time, may have given the hint orally. Higgins resided within twelve minutes' walk of Cooke's office. Mr. Lecky states:330 'He [Higgins] was accustomed to go openly and frequently to the Castle.' Cooke told Sirr that if he would go on the following day, between five and six P.M., to the house of Murphy in Thomas Street, he would find Lord Edward there.331

On May 20, when Lord Edward was dying of his wounds in Newgate, Magan furnishes through Higgins fresh hints, and promises further information 'to-morrow.' 'He was elected last night of the committee,' adds Higgins. 'I had a great deal of exertion to go through to keep him steady, and was obliged last week to advance him money.' On June 8 Higgins writes: 'I cannot get from M. a single sentence of who assumes a Directory. I have so frequently put him off about the payment of the 1,000l. that he thinks I am humbugging him.'332

It will be remembered that, according to a secret entry of Cooke's, 1,000l. was paid on June 20 to 'F. H.' for the discovery of 'L. E. F.,' and he observed the compact that Magan's name should not appear. Magan thought that there was an effort to 'humbug' him as regards the blood-money which he earned, but he knew how to 'humbug' a little himself. Higgins, setting forth his own claims, tells Cooke, later on: 'By your interference Mr. M. obtained 300l. for expenses; give me leave solemnly to assure you that I paid every possible expense he was at, and more than I can mention.'333

Magan was one of the first Catholic barristers called after the Relief Bill of 1793, and wore an aspect highly demure and proper. He was a trump card in the hands of Higgins, which, if adroitly played, could not fail to clear the board. But with what a small share of the winnings Magan was content is consistent with all we know of his crawling career.334 Arthur O'Connor, writing to Dr. Madden in 1842, says: 'So far as I could learn, no one betrayed Lord Edward' – a striking testimony to the secrecy with which the thing was done.335

Magan, the better to cloak his treachery, and to command that confidence the fruit of which was distilled into dainty drops for Cooke's ear, continued to manifest popular sympathies. He went further, and on December 9, 1798, is found taking part against the Government in a debate and division, where his feeble voice could carry no influence, unless to deceive democratic friends. It was on the occasion of the bar meeting, in Dublin, convened to discuss and oppose the Legislative Union. Francis Magan's name may be found on the patriotic side, in company with Bushe, Burton, Barrington, Burrowes, Curran, Fletcher, Plunket, Ponsonby, and Leonard McNally.

Passing on to 1802, we find a round sum of 500l. slipped into the hands of Francis Magan on December 15 in that year, as appears by 'an account of Secret Service money applied in the detection of treasonable conspiracies.' This is the same amount which was given in 1848 for the discovery of Smith O'Brien, and again in September 1865 for Stephens, the Fenian head centre; while in 1798 only 300l. was offered for Neilson and General Lawless. The discovery which earned the reward of 500l. in December 1803 must have been esteemed of importance. What that discovery was has been hitherto involved in mystery; but the succeeding chapter, devoted to William Todd Jones, may help to make it clear. The 500l. is given to Magan direct, nearly eleven months after the death of Higgins, through whom Magan's information had been previously conveyed to Dublin Castle. He was now thrown on his own resources, and seems to have been less squeamish than of yore. Were Higgins then living the refresher might have been less, for 'Shamado' had no objection to a lion's share. And one is not surprised to read in Plowden that Higgins, originally a pauper, died worth 40,000l.336

Magan continued successfully to preserve his mask. A great aggregate meeting was held on December 18, 1812, to protest against acts of the Irish Government, and among the signatures convening it are those of Daniel O'Connell and Francis Magan. This fact is brought out in a memoir of the Liberator by his son, who, however, does not suspect Magan.

It was a national crisis. Meetings in aid of Catholic Emancipation had just been forcibly dispersed. Lords Fingall, Netterville, and Ffrench were dragged from the seats in which, as chairmen, they presided. Other signatories who, with Magan, convened this meeting, were the three Catholic peers just mentioned, Dr. T. Dromgoole, Bernard Coyle, Sylvester Costigan, Con McLoughlin, and Fitzgerald of Geraldine – the latter five having been, as well as O'Connell, United Irishmen.

I was not surprised to hear from Mathias O'Kelly,337 an old member of the Catholic Board and at one time secretary to the Catholic Association, that Magan possessed the respect and confidence of those bodies. He seemed to prove the sincerity of his sympathy in the most practical way, and rarely gave less than ten pounds as a subscription to their funds. It is, no doubt, to Magan that Wellington refers in his letter to Dublin Castle, dated London, November 17, 1808: 'I think that, as there are some interesting Catholic questions afloat now, you might feed – with another 100l.'338

Dr. Dirham, who from his boyhood had resided on Usher's Island, heard it rumoured, he told me, that Magan during the troubled times kept frequently open the door of his stable in Island Street to facilitate espionage.339 Moira House, now the 'Mendicity Institution,' is situated within a few doors of No. 20, Usher's Island, the residence for half a century of Francis Magan. As already mentioned, Pamela, the beautiful wife of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, received in the stormy period of '98 hospitable shelter from Lady Moira. To my surprise I find, in a manuscript life of Dwyer the outlaw, by the late Luke Cullen, a Carmelite friar, that two of Emmet's most active emissaries, Wylde and Mahon, lay concealed in Moira House while a proclamation offering 500l.340 for their capture was being widely circulated. Before this curious fact came to my knowledge, it will be seen, from a former work of mine dealing with informers, that on utterly distinct circumstantial evidence I sought to trace Magan as on the track of Wylde and Mahon at Philipstown during the same eventful year.

Major Sirr made a private note, which remains duly on record341 that the retreat of Wylde and Mahon 'is sometimes at the gaoler's in Philipstown, who is married to Wylde's sister.' The following entry appears in the 'account of secret service money employed in detecting treasonable conspiracies per affidavit of Mr. Cooke': 'April 2, 1803. Francis Magan, by post to Philipstown – 100l.'342

In the State Papers of the time I can find no letters bearing on this transaction, and therefore I must seek to trace it on circumstantial evidence.

Who can doubt that Magan, when a refresher reached him at Philipstown, was in hot scent after Wylde and Mahon? Later on, during the same year, we find Captain Caulfield and a party of military laying siege to the house at Philipstown in which Wylde and Mahon were suspected to be concealed. An account of a skirmish is supplied by Captain Caulfield in a letter, dated December 17, 1803, also preserved in the Sirr papers: 'Captain Dodgson was killed, and,' adds Caulfield, 'we were obliged to retire, while the villains made their escape.'343

Luke Cullen, the Carmelite already referred to, spent his later life gathering from the peasantry their recollections of the troubled times. His manuscript life of Dwyer has been placed in my hands by the superior of Clondalkin monastery. Folios 595 to 597 describe Wylde and Mahon's refuge at Philipstown, the abortive efforts to catch them there, and afterwards their concealment at Moira House, Dublin. The governor of Philipstown Gaol, we learn, was a near connection of both. They are stated by Cullen to have at last effected their escape from Moira House, Usher's Island, in a boat which rapidly passed out of the bay. Having reached the United States, Wylde and Mahon joined the army, and found speedy promotion. The statement that two proscribed men, most active propagandists of Emmet's plans, lay under Lord Moira's ægis seems startling; but this statesman and his countess had very popular sympathies, and liked to succour rebels. The late Mr. Thomas Geoghegan, solicitor, informed me that two uncles of his named Clements, who were United Irishmen, obtained refuge at Moira House while warrants were out for their arrest, and finally succeeded in escaping all pains and penalties owing to the precautions taken by Lady Moira.

It is not a little singular that General Lord Moira, who, later on, was offered the Viceroyalties of Ireland and of India, and who in 1812, on the death of Percival, sought to form an administration, should have performed the perilous task of harbouring men who loved Ireland 'not wisely, but too well.' Portland, in a letter to Camden, dated 11 March, 1798, classes with 'the disaffected,' 'Lord Moira and his adherents.' This impression was partly due to his indignant protest in Parliament against that policy of torture by which the people had been daily goaded to rebel.

Magan's life involved some strange contradictions. Proud, and even haughty, he yet hesitated not to commit base acts; with the wages of dishonour he paid his just debts. An interesting letter, in reply to a query, was addressed to the present writer by the late John Fetherstonhaugh, of Griffinstown, Kinnegad. His grandfather, Thomas Fetherston, of Bracket Castle, was, he states, in the habit for years of lodging in High Street, Dublin, at the house of Thomas Magan, a draper, 'and departed this life in his house.'344 Fetherston's son, on inspecting his papers, found a joint bond from the draper and his son, Francis Magan, for 1,000l., and on speaking to the former respecting its payment, he declared that he was insolvent.

So my father [adds Mr. Fetherston] put it into his desk, counting it waste paper. Some years elapsed and the son came to Bracket Castle, my father's residence, and asked for the bond. 'For what?' said my father. To his astonishment, he said it was to pay it. I was then but a boy, but I can now almost see the strange scene – it made so great an impression on me. Often my father told me Magan paid the 1,000l., and he could not conceive where he got it, as he never held a brief in court; and he was always puzzled why the Crown gave him place and pension.345

James Dickson of Kilmainham has been more than once mentioned in these pages. As soon as he had been discharged from gaol, in the absence of evidence to convict him in a court of law, he opened his house for the entertainment and solace of the families of the State prisoners. But his guests were not confined wholly to the United Brotherhood. My informant, the late Mathias O'Kelly, often met there William Todd Jones, of whose arrest in 1803, on suspicion of complicity in Emmet's treason, volumes were published; Lord Kingsland, famous for a career of marvellous vicissitude; Mrs. Neilson, wife of the rebel leader, then imprisoned at Fort George; and Plowden, the popular historian, who gathered at Dickson's table much valuable information. The house was quite a centre of liberal opinion in Dublin, and no man shared Dickson's confidence more fully than Magan. Mathias O'Kelly greatly respected Magan, and thirty years ago, when I first started my suspicion, he laboured hard to convince me that I was entirely wrong. Magan told O'Kelly that he had been a member of the Society of United Irishmen, but withdrew from it when he saw it drifting into dangerous courses. The reverse is the fact. He played his part so well that at the time of his betrayals he was promoted to a high post in the rebel executive.346

In 1832 a brochure was 'printed for the author by William Shaw, Dublin,' which must have quickened the sluggish pulse of Mr. and Miss Magan. It was 'An Impartial Enquiry respecting the Betrayal of Lord Edward Fitzgerald,' by Joseph Hamilton. No charge was preferred against the Magans in this pamphlet. But conscience makes cowards; the probing given to a sore spot, and Hamilton's mention of 'Mr. Magan and his sister,' with others who knew of Lord Edward's movements previous to the arrest, proved distasteful at 20 Usher's Island.

Hamilton's labour was undertaken with the avowed object of clearing Neilson from a suspicion which Moore, in his Memoir of Lord Edward, ventured to start. Whether Moore, in gathering facts for his book, had been referred to the Magans, I know not, but he certainly returned to England strongly prejudiced against the incorruptible Neilson, and straightway framed an indictment bristling with innuendos.347 Hamilton prints, with other vindicatory papers, letters from Hamilton Rowan and Dr. McNevin, also a touching protest from the daughter of Neilson. Hamilton knew Lord Edward well.

Dearer to me was Edward's life than Neilson's memory [he writes]. Dearer to me is Ireland than are Neilson's children and his friends. If I thought he was the man who could betray his generous friend and noble chieftain, I would leave his memory and his bones to rot together. I took up his vindication, not as a partial advocate; and in thus conducting his defence I will not endeavour to suppress a single fact which might go to justify the accusing passage in Lord Edward's 'Life.'

Mr. Hamilton proved Neilson guiltless, but he fell into the error, which a man blindfolded at play commits, in very often making a grasp in the wrong quarter. He suspects Reynolds; Captain Armstrong, who betrayed Sheares; 'a Mr. Hatton, one of the rebel Executive, who unaccountably escaped.'348 Even Sir Jonah Barrington; nay, the estimable philanthropist, Mathias O'Kelly, who lived with his father at Galway's Walk, near the scene of Lord Edward's tussle with Sirr, was also mentioned in a suggestive way. 'On the 17th May,' writes Hamilton, 'Armstrong met both the Sheares, and on that evening Major Sirr was seen looking towards the rear of Miss Magan's house from Mr. O'Kelly's stable door in Galway's Walk. I know five different places where Lord Edward was concealed,' he adds. The secret which, like the sword of Damocles, had long hung over the heads of Francis Magan and his sister, now seemed on the point of falling; but their names were not used in this pamphlet more freely than those of Miss Moore, Murphy, and a few other persons amongst whose haunts the Geraldine flitted during his last days in this world. Hamilton thus closes the first stage of his inquiry: —

My documents and anecdotes are every hour increasing. I have received communications from the wife and son of him with whom the Major had the struggle near the house of Miss Magan. I call on Mrs. Moore, Mrs. Dixon,349 Mrs. Rowe, and Miss Magan; I call on Mr. Magan, Mr. Murphy, their families, and all those individuals who either visited or served them or their noble guest, to tell all Ireland all they are acquainted with respecting the last week Lord Edward had his freedom. I know what some of them can say; I know what more of them might say; and I pause for their full and faithful declarations.

A promised second part never appeared; but it were almost better for the feelings of Magan and his sister had the dreaded charge been boldly fulminated, than the agony of suspense to which they were doomed. I had not seen this scarce pamphlet when I first expressed my suspicions of Magan.

When the present century was in its teens, the aristocratic section of Irish Catholics sought to give the Crown a 'veto' in the appointment of their bishops, and started in opposition to O'Connell, who had been demanding unfettered emancipation. In the ranks of this troublesome schism, the records of which would fill a library, I find Francis Magan, Lords Fingall,350 Trimleston, Kenmare, Gormanstown, and Southwell, Wolfe,351 Shiel,352 Bellew, Lynch, Donellan,353 Wyse,354 Ball355 and others anxious to reach by a short cut the good things of the State.

The gentleman into whose hands Magan's papers passed tells me that he found a letter addressed to him in 1834 by Sir W. Gossett, Assistant Secretary of State at Dublin Castle, asking under what circumstances he claimed a pension from the Crown, and requesting information as to a small office he held. A copy of Magan's reply was appended, saying that the Viceroy of the day had promised him a county chairmanship – or, as it would now be called, a county court judgeship; but, owing to the disabilities then affecting Catholics, he was found to be not eligible for appointment, and the emoluments in question were given as compensation.356 Gossett had succeeded Gregory in 1831, and having come in with the Whigs sought to administer a more liberal form of government. Cornwallis, Castlereagh, Cooke and Marsden had been long gone to their account, and dead men tell no tales. Whether Gossett viewed Magan's reply as quite satisfactory does not appear. In 1835 Earl Mulgrave deprived Watty Cox of his pension, but I cannot say whether the same high-handed course was extended to Magan.

Magan was said to have filled some small legal office long since abolished, though of its precise character even his relatives could afford no information. A gossiping missive is subjoined, the less reluctantly because Magan, having often stood in misanthropic isolation, it is pleasant to find any person who came in frequent contact with him. Moreover it is one of the last letters of a not undistinguished man. Sir W. Gossett, who wrote to Magan for information as regards the sinecure he held, might have been glad of the dates which are now supplied. The late Huband Smith, M.R.I.A., served with Magan as a Commissioner for Enclosing Commons. This was rather an unpopular appointment. The disturbances of 1766, ending in the execution of Father Sheehy, all originated in the resistance offered to a similar measure. From 1821 to 1827 Mr. Goulburn filled the office of Chief Secretary for Ireland, and he was a very likely man to have recognised the claims of any person who had rendered secret service in '98. The same remark applies to the Premier, Lord Liverpool, who provided so munificently for the family of Reynolds the informer. On the death of that peer in 1827 his successor, Mr. Canning, earned popularity by refusing to employ in his departments any of the spies of '98, or even to ratify the appointments of Lord Castlereagh or Lord Liverpool.