Secret Service Under Pitt

In conclusion, the old charge of venality and perfidy is brought against the incorruptible Tandy. 'Napper,' we are told, 'betrayed them.' But Barrington, and all other historians, admit that Tandy was sound to the core.

Grattan, in the Life of his father, notices as strange that the Bishop of Derry, who the previous year was so active at the Convention, absented himself from the Congress. The explanation probably is that his lordship had heard something of the detectives with a warrant for his arrest in their pocket. How the Congress crumbled, and the organisation melted away, a glimpse is obtained from Plowden, who embodied in his 'Historical Review' a mass of notes made by O'Leary. 'It is well posterity should know,' writes his biographer, 'how much Plowden was indebted to his co-operation.'587

Plowden had never been to Ireland until about the year 1800. The following words seem those of a man who knew the inner workings of the governmental policy in 1784.

The link of unanimity having been once severed [we read in Plowden], the fall of the armed associations into difference and contention was much more rapid than had been their progress to union. The divisions of the volunteers were encouraged by Government; and for that purpose discord and turbulence were rather countenanced than checked in many counties, particularly upon the delicate and important expedient of admitting the Catholics to the elective franchise, a question which it was artfully attempted to connect with the now declining cause of Parliamentary Reform. Through a long series of years Government had never wanted force to quell internal commotions; and it seemed to be now dreaded lest an union of Irishmen should extinguish the old means of creating dissension. The desire of disuniting the volunteers begat inattention to the grievances of the discontented and distressed peasantry of the South: that wretched and lawless rabble once more assumed the style of White Boys,588 and for some time committed their depredations with impunity, particularly against Kilkenny.589

The Volunteer army became gradually disorganised and disbanded; and the cannon, on which the words 'Free Trade or This' were inscribed, went back to the foundry.

In 1785 things looked a little dark in Dublin, which must have given O'Leary something to do to see through. A storm signal was raised by a few alarmists, and the Attorney-General, Fitzgibbon, though he sought to make light of the outlook, admitted enough to show that the country ought to be prepared for foul weather. Mr. Lecky, in rejecting as without foundation590 the report confided by Rutland to Sydney in 1784, that a French agent was then in Dublin, makes no reference to a man named Perrin, mentioned in a remarkable speech of the Attorney-General, Fitzgibbon, better known as Lord Clare. On February 14, 1785, he announced in the Irish Parliament that

The great majority of the original Volunteers have hung up their arms and are retired to cultivate the arts of peace: their place has been assumed by men who disgrace the name. I have seen resolutions inviting the French into this country. On the 26th April, 1784, the Sons of the Shamrock voted Mr. Perrin, a native of France, honorary member of their corps. I have seen publications inviting Catholics, contrary to the laws of the land, to arm themselves to reform the constitution in Church and State. I have seen encomiums on Louis XVI., the friend of mankind and the assertor of American liberty… They may invite the French to invade our country. I have seen invitations to the dregs of the people to go to drills and form into corps; we should therefore distinguish between the gentlemen – the original Volunteers – and those sons of sedition. I have seen a summons from a Major Canier, ordering his corps to attend with nine rounds of ball cartridge, as there might be occasion for actual service, and at the same time intimating a threat to Government; and will any man tell me, that we should be overawed by such people as these? or that the Commons of Ireland should be afraid to grant a sum of money to array a militia until these people should lay down their arms?591

M. Perrin, the native of France, whose name Fitzgibbon mentions in connection with the resolution to invite the French to invade Ireland, was no doubt the father of the subsequently well-known judge of the Queen's Bench, Louis Perrin. Under what circumstances M. Perrin first came to Dublin is not clear. Sometimes he was styled a Professor of French; usually resided in Dublin; but would sojourn, for months at a time, in the houses of such Irish gentry as wished to acquire a knowledge of that tongue. 'Perrin's French Grammar' was at a later date very familiar in Irish circles.592

The tinge of disappointment which peeps forth in the later allusion of Secretary Orde to O'Leary may have been influenced by a circumstance casually noticed by his biographer. We have seen from a well-informed local journal of the day, that venal writers had received instructions to endeavour to sow the seeds of dissension. It will be shown that O'Leary was specially intimate with the proprietor of the Castle organ, and O'Leary would be one of the first writers on whom Orde's thoughts could not fail to fall. O'Leary's biographers say, but without giving dates, that he recoiled from the proposal to write in the organ of the Irish Government. Indeed, in a pamphlet, previously published, he records his dislike to anonymous compositions.593 An eloquent divine, the Rev. Morgan d'Arcy, in preaching the funeral panegyric on Father O'Leary, travelled slightly out of his path to touch on this point. He said: —

The well-timed and effectual exertions of this extraordinary man, could not fail to attract the notice of Government, and, consequently, were not suffered to remain unrewarded by his gracious and beneficent sovereign; but, though he received with all becoming gratitude this unsolicited and well-earned mark of royal remuneration, yet such was his disinterestedness, and the noble independence of his spirit, that when, soon after, a very considerable annuity had been offered him to become the supporter of a periodical publication,594 which then was, and still continues to be, the foul vehicle of misrepresentation, slander, and calumny on the Irish people; indignant at the insulting proposal, he rejects it with becoming contempt, though by his refusal he was sure to incur the displeasure of a certain description of men, and through their influence might apprehend a discontinuance of his pension; yet, destitute as he was of all earthly property beside, sooner than prostitute his heaven-sent talents, he leaves his native country and repairs to this metropolis, to enjoy the boasted and enviable blessings of British protection and British liberty.

The preacher's reference here would be to the year 1789, when O'Leary removed permanently to London. It was in '89 that the great struggle on the Regency Question, which will be dealt with later on, raged between the camps of Whig and Tory in Ireland.

Higgins, the subsidised owner of the Castle organ, was called 'Shamado' by John Magee, and painted in colours of demoniac hue. According to Dr. Morgan d'Arcy, O'Leary did not yield to the tempter, but rejected the proposal with indignation and contempt, and this would naturally incur displeasure. The statement proves too much, for Higgins, by his will dated 1791, speaks of O'Leary as his 'long and faithful friend,' and leaves him a bequest in proof of affection. Further, his journal devoted part of its very limited space to occasional paragraphs laudatory of O'Leary, and not ill-calculated to strengthen popular confidence in his name. Thus, on May 12, 1785 – a few months after Orde says he had consented to work secretly for pay – we read in the subsidised organ of the Irish Government: —

Nothing can more mark the influence of wisdom and superior genius than the mention made of Dr. O'Leary in George Anne Bellamy's 'Apology' where she says the philanthropy and interference of that liberal man put an end to the scandalous conduct of Count Haslang's (the Bavarian ambassador's) chaplain on the death of that old representative of the corps diplomatique.595

The organ of the Irish Government does not praise O'Leary for political support. To do so would arouse suspicion whether well founded or not; but Higgins, from friendship or policy, seeks to exalt his prestige and popularity. In the 'Freeman' of November 20, 1784, we have a long account of how he put down Dr. Johnson, who had addressed him with boorishness. 'The literati,' it is added, 'consider themselves as much obliged by Dr. O'Leary's conduct on the occasion, as it has much humbled the imperious and surly behaviour of Johnson.'

The statement of Plowden, that O'Leary was pensioned on condition that he should withhold his pen in support of toleration,596 will not bear test.597 In 1784, O'Leary is conclusively shown to be subsidised. His dissuasive address to the common people of Ireland denunciatory of Whiteboyism, a bulky treatise, bears date 1786. It seems more likely that a subsidy would be given for writing in support of the oppressive laws of that day. This letter to the peasantry writes up that grinding impost – Tithes – in reference to which Bishop Doyle afterwards prayed, 'May our hatred of Tithes be as lasting as our love of justice!'

Pray, my brethren, what right have you to curtail, to your own authority, the income of the Protestant clergy? [O'Leary writes]. If the tithes became the property of the laity, they would raise their rents in proportion. Or is it because that, from the earliest ages of the world, those who believed in the true God have consecrated to Him a part of the fruits of the earth, you will think it an heavier burthen to pay the same thing because it was in conformity to the law of God that the laws of Christian states have appointed it? You know that the rules of justice extend to all without exception, and that, to use the familiar phrase, everyone should have his own, whether he be Protestant or Catholic, Turk or Christian. It is more your interest than you imagine, that the Protestant clergy of this country should be maintained in their rights. For many ages you have been defenceless, destitute of any protection against the power of your landlords, your clergy liable to transportation or death. The mild and tolerating spirit of the clergy of the established religion has been the only substitute for all other resources. They trained up from their early days the Protestant nobility and gentry in the principles of morality and virtue. If they preached against Purgatory, they enforced charity… If they denied that the Pope is head of the Church, they taught their congregation that no man is to be injured on account of his religion, and that Christianity knows no enemy. As by nature we are prone to vice of every kind, and that the earliest impressions are the strongest, had it not been for those principles which they instilled into the minds of their hearers, long before now your landed men in this country would have treated you as Turks, who think it no scruple to violate the beds of the Jew, and warn the husbands that if they come into their houses whilst they are doing them this injustice they will cut off their heads.

Is it then to gentlemen of this description, the children of the first families in the kingdom, the instructors of the most powerful part of the community, the most moral and edifying amongst them, the most charitable and humane, that a handful of poor men are to prescribe laws tending to diminish the support of their offspring, destined to fill one day the most important offices in the State? What! a Rev. Archdeacon Corker, a Rev. Archdeacon Tisdal, a Rev. Mr. Chetwood, a Rev. Mr. Weekes, a Rev. Mr. Meade, a Rev. Mr. Kenny, who spent his time and fortune amongst you, relieving your wants, and changing part of his house into an apothecary's shop to supply you with medicines, which yourselves could not purchase, must from an apprehension of violence quit his house.598

In this strain O'Leary argued at much length; but the impartial historian of this very time describes 'the system of Tithes as the greatest practical grievance, both of the poorer Catholics and of the Presbyterians.'599

Most people have heard of O'Leary's controversy with the Bishop of Cloyne, in which, when the prelate disputed Purgatory, O'Leary retorted that he might 'go farther and fare worse.' The 'Critical Review' examined the controversy with a shrewdly penetrative eye. Lord Kenmare, in a letter dated October 2, 1787, writes: 'I read with the greatest pleasure the 'Critical Review' on the Cloyne controversy. It is the best performance that has yet appeared on the subject. Grattan is violent against the Bishop of Cloyne for his publication, and thinks, with the reviewer, that Government is at the bottom of it.'600 O'Leary's reply, which runs to 175 pages, contains many excellent truths worthy of commendation; but it is a question whether this elaborate controversy may not have been inspired and encouraged from Dublin Castle. Law and order are, very properly, inculcated throughout by O'Leary, and powerful dissuasives addressed to the 'Whiteboys' are printed at the end.601 As regards the Bishop of Cloyne, O'Leary assures him, in words somewhat supererogatory:

'I was not sent here to sow sedition (p. 119). I returned here, not as a felon from transportation, but as an honourable exile, who returns to his native land after having preferred a voluntary banishment to ignorance and the abjuration of the creed of his fathers.' Some years later, i. e. in 1789, he was falsely reported to have taken the latter step, and, like Drs. Butler and Kirwan, to meditate matrimony. 'Having from my early days,' he wrote, 'accustomed myself to get the mastery over ambition and love, the two passions which in every age have enslaved the greatest heroes, your correspondent may rest assured that I am not of the trio.'

O'Leary was a Franciscan friar who had made vows of voluntary poverty. The fact that he had long been accustomed to rest content with a little may help to explain the modest sum he was satisfied to accept for services which, if cordially rendered, were worth the amount twenty times told. And in judging the man for accepting this money it must be remembered that the bulk of it was spent in alms deeds. Bishop Murphy told Father England that when a youth he was frequently O'Leary's almoner, and that a number of reduced persons were weekly relieved in Cork to the average extent of two or three pounds. 'Charity,' we are told, 'covers a multitude of sins.'

CHAPTER XVII

THE REGENCY – STRUGGLE BETWEEN WHIG AND TORY CAMPS – O'LEARY AND THE PRINCE OF WALES

The State Papers throw no light on what Plowden styles 'the arbitrary withdrawal of O'Leary's pension.' The following historic incident, now forgotten, and curious in its detail, may have led to that act.

In 1789, a great struggle raged between the Parliaments of England and Ireland on the question of creating the Prince of Wales Regent during the insanity of George the Third. The Prince at this time had been bound up, politically and socially, with the Whigs. Pitt, fearing that the Regency might prove fatal to his ambition and his Cabinet, resisted the heir-apparent's right to the prerogative of his father, and declared that 'the Prince had no better right to administer the government during his father's incapacity than any other subject of the realm.' An address to the Prince from the Irish Parliament requested that he would 'take upon himself the government of Ireland during the continuation of the King's indisposition, and no longer; and under the title of Prince Regent of Ireland, in the name, and on behalf of his Majesty, to exercise, according to the laws and constitution of that kingdom, all regal powers, jurisdiction, and prerogatives to the crown and government thereof belonging.'

Pelham, speaking of 'the tricks and intrigues of Mr. Pitt's faction,' adds, 'I have not time to express how strongly the Prince is affected by the confidence and attachment of the Irish Parliament.' Portland takes the same tone. The Buckingham Papers afford rich material for a history of this struggle. The noble editor admits that 'the Parliament of Ireland preserved the unquestionable right of deciding the Regency in their own way. The position of Lord Buckingham602 had become peculiarly embarrassing. What course should be taken in the event of such an address being carried? The predicament was so strange, and involved constitutional considerations of such importance, as to give the most serious disquietude to the Administration.'603

Hopes were felt that the King might recover. The Viceroy receives instructions to use obstructive tactics, 'to use every possible endeavour, by all means in your power, debating every question, dividing upon every question, moving adjournment upon adjournment, and every other mode that can be suggested, to gain time!'604 But the Viceroy did more. He openly threatened to make each opponent 'the victim of his vote.' Fitzgibbon was promised the seals and a peerage if he succeeded for Pitt. Lures and threats were alternately held out. The peerages of Kilmaine, Glentworth, and Cloncurry were sold for hard cash, and the proceeds laid out in the purchase of members. Meanwhile the King got well. Thereupon the Master of the Rolls, the Treasurer, the Clerk of Permits, the Postmaster-general, the Secretary of War, the Comptroller of Stamps, and other public servants, were dismissed. The Duke of Leinster, Lord Shannon, the Ponsonbys were cashiered. Employments that had long remained dormant were revived, sinecures created, salaries increased; while such offices as the Board of Stamps and Accounts, hitherto filled by one, became a joint concern. The weigh-mastership of Cork was divided into three parts, the duties of which were discharged by deputies, while the principals, who pocketed the profits, held seats in Parliament. In 1790, one hundred and ten placemen were members of the House. The Viceroy, Buckingham, during his short régime, added 13,040l. a year to the pension list; the names of the recipients are already on record. On the other hand, some men who had taken the Prince's side in the contest lost their pensions. O'Leary may have been in this batch.605 Croly, in his 'Life of George IV,' dilates on the intimate relations which subsisted between the Prince and the priest, and adds that O'Leary was no unskilful medium of intercourse between his Church and the Whigs, and contributed in no slight degree to the popularity of the Prince in Ireland. According to Buckley, the Prince patronised O'Leary to such an extent that rumour whispered it was by him the marriage ceremony with Mrs. Fitzherbert had been performed.

Barrington, describing the chastisement applied to those who, in Ireland, favoured the appointment of the Prince as Regent, says: 'Lord Buckingham vented his wrath on the country;' but what proof have we that the alleged agent of the Castle, O'Leary, incurred that Viceroy's displeasure?

In 1789, the year O'Leary removed permanently to London, he settled down, at the Spanish Ambassador's Chapel in London, as an assistant priest to Dr. Hussey, and, apparently, a most unwelcome one. An extraordinary pamphlet, not known to his biographers, was privately issued by O'Leary referring to a feud between himself and Dr. Hussey. At page 11 O'Leary writes: —

The old clerk told me in the vestry, 'that I might now return to Ireland, as my enemy, the Marquis of Buckingham, had returned to England.' Surprised how or where the clerk of a vestry could get such an insulting information, I recollected that his master [Dr. Hussey] had told me some time before that he had seen a letter from the Marquis of Buckingham, when Viceroy of Ireland, to some nobleman or gentleman of the English Catholic Committee, wherein he depicted the Catholics of that kingdom in very unfavourable if not odious colours, and painted me as one of the ringleaders.606

This serves to explain Dr. England's remark in 1822, when accounting for O'Leary's permanent removal to London, that 'his residence in Ireland had become painful;'607 but elsewhere in his book he assigns a different reason for the change.

It has been stated [he writes] that a secret condition was annexed to this grant, binding O'Leary to reside in England,608 and preventing him from further interference in the political concerns of the empire. The fact, however, is that O'Leary had made previous arrangements for a permanent residence in London – not only as being more favourable to his health, which generally suffered by his visits to Dublin, but from a rational conviction that the great seat of influence and power was the proper sphere of his benevolent exertions.

This biographer did not know O'Leary personally; his conjecture, or explanation, is plausible. But few men would remove for their health to the purlieus of St. Giles and Soho, the mission with which O'Leary had most to do. Its fearful squalor at the period described is curiously shown in Clinch's recently published 'Bloomsbury and St. Giles.' It will be remembered that the preacher of his funeral sermon conveys that the migration in 1789 was caused by O'Leary's refusal to write in a venal Dublin print against the party with whom he had long been associated. Snubbed by the Viceroy, Buckingham, his usefulness at Dublin Castle was now a thing of the past; but yet, as he could not afford to give up all State endowment, I suspect that he settled down in London in some undefined diplomatic rôle, where his tact and influence would find a field for exercise. A most careful memoir of O'Leary, ending with the words 'Requiescat in pace' – written probably by his friend and co-religionist Plowden – appears in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' for February 1802. It contains some facts not noticed by his more diffuse biographers. 'This laudable conduct,' we are told, 'did not escape the attention of the Irish Government, and induced them, when he quitted Ireland, to recommend him to men of power in this country.' I believe that O'Leary's removal to London was made under Government auspices, extended in the hope that, by his diplomatic power, it might lead to useful knowledge and results.

As George, Prince of Wales, held Whig views at this time, Mr. Pitt's great career ran some risk of being cut short. The Prince gathered round him the leading Whig lights, including O'Leary, as we learn from Croly's 'Life of George IV.'609 A good picture of life in the Pavilion at Brighton is given, and of the brilliant jokes which capped the hits of Sheridan and Curran. But O'Leary's presence had, I think, a deeper significance. With graver men his intercourse was frequent. 'Edmund Burke was very marked in the regard which he manifested to O'Leary,' writes England. 'Fox was not only Pitt's rival, but the leader of a powerful party constantly on the watch to oust Pitt from office.' It may be presumed that the men of power in London to whom O'Leary, on leaving Ireland, had letters from Dublin Castle, occupied a camp hostile to the Whig garrison of the Pavilion.

One proof that O'Leary wished to regain favour with Pitt is afforded by the casual remark of his biographer. 'When O'Leary learned that his friend (Plowden) was engaged at the desire of Pitt in writing the 'Historical Review,' he sent him his invaluable collections, as affording the best and most authentic materials for the recent history of Ireland.'610

I do not like that phrase of Plowden in which he says – when speaking of O'Leary's pension – that it was only after giving repeated proofs that the secret condition had been complied with, he received a large arrear.611 Plowden no doubt thinks that the pension was meant as 'hush money;' but it is a question whether O'Leary was quite frank with him as to its character.

'An oak of the forest is too old to be transplanted at fifty,' said Grattan, regarding Flood's removal to London in 1784. 'Disgusted with the condition of his country,' writes O'Leary's later biographer, Buckley, 'and hopeless of doing anything by which it could be improved, he resolved on quitting it altogether and living in the free atmosphere of England, so congenial to a bounding and manly temperament like his… In the year 1789 Arthur O'Leary left Ireland for ever, and took up his residence in London as one of the chaplains to the Spanish Embassy.'612 It appears, however, from the testimony of Plowden, the attached friend of O'Leary, that it was a condition expressly made by the Crown that O'Leary was 'to reside no more in Ireland.'613 I suspect that the appointment just described was brought about by Court intrigue. From the time of the Armada the movements of the Spanish minister were viewed with jealousy, often with alarm. In 1779, when the combined fleets of Spain and France rode menacingly in the Channel, O'Leary, as we have seen, denounced them to the Irish people, and his appointment to the Spanish embassy must have been the work of England rather than of Spain. In 1789 strained relations had again arisen between Spain and England; and a few years later war was actually declared by Spain.614 Sydney states that O'Leary had already consented to furnish secret information.615 His present position would enable him to acquire knowledge of, not only the designs of Spain, but of Dr. Hussey too; and without saying that O'Leary could be capable of downright treachery, it is probable that Pitt believed he would. It will be remembered that, in 1780, Dr. Hussey, chief chaplain to the Spanish embassy in London, had been sent with Richard Cumberland to effect a treaty with the Court of Spain, a negotiation not entirely successful. What was the precise nature of the hold which Hussey, originally a Carthusian monk, acquired over the Court of England is destined to remain shrouded. Buckley says it was at the special request of George III. that Dr. Hussey accompanied Mr. Cumberland on a secret mission to Madrid.616