Secret Service Under Pitt

The three objects alluded to are these, the protection of property, preventing the indulgence of revenge, and the strict forbiddal of injuring any person for religious differences.

I know it is said that I call on the people to take vengeance on their oppressors, and enumerate some of their oppressions. But this is the very thing that enables me to point out the difference between private revenge and public vengeance. The former has only a retrospective and malignant propensity, while the latter, though animated by the recollection of the past, has ever only in view the removal of the evil and of the possibility of occurrence. Thus the assassin revenges himself; but the patriot avenges his country of it's enemies, by overthrowing them, and depriving them of all power again to hurt it: In the struggle some of their lives may fall, but these were not the objects of his vengeance. In short, even the Deity is said in this sense to be an avenging Being; but who deems him revengeful? Adieu, my dear sir. Let me entreat you, whenever an opportunity shall occur, that you will justify my principles on these points. Believe me your sincere friend,

John Sheares.

Newgate: 12 o'clock at night, July 13.705

The Proclamation which brought John Sheares to the scaffold (Henry had no part in it, and died, so far, innocent) ended with these words: —

Vengeance, Irishmen, vengeance on your oppressors! Remember that thousands of your dearest friends have perished by their merciless orders! Remember their burnings – their rackings – their torturings – their military massacres, and their legal murders. Remember Orr!

These declamatory words of a young barrister and amateur tragedian, who probably had no serious design of going red-handed into revolution, were by no means confined to his mouth. In the Appendix will be found some account of William Orr. Meanwhile, the late Henry Grattan, son of the greater Grattan, writes: —

'Remember Orr!' were words written everywhere – pronounced everywhere. I recollect, when a child, to have read them on the walls – to have heard them spoken by the people. Fortunately I did not comprehend their meaning. The conduct of the Irish Government was so reprobated, that at a public dinner in London, given in honor of Mr. Fox's birthday, in one of the rooms where the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Oxford, Mr. Erskine, Sir Francis Burdett, and Horne Tooke sat, two of the toasts were, – 'The memory of Orr – basely M – D – D. May the execution of Orr provide places for the Cabinet of St. James's at the Castle!'

The fate of the Sheareses was soon forgotten, but occasionally a pilgrim in thoughtful mood wended his way to their last resting place. William Henry Curran sent to the 'New Monthly Magazine,' in 1822, an account of St. Michan's crypt, Church Street, Dublin. This vault possesses the rare virtue of preserving human remains.706 He was struck on entering to find that decay had been more busy with the tenement than the tenant: —

In some instances the coffins had altogether disappeared; in others the lids or sides had mouldered away, exposing the remains within, still unsubdued by death from their original form… I had been told that they (the Sheares) were here, and the moment the light of the taper fell upon the spot they occupy, I quickly recognised them by one or two circumstances that forcibly recalled the close of their career – the headless trunks and the remains of their coarse, unadorned penal shells. Henry's head was lying beside his brother; John's had not been completely detached by the blow of the executioner – one of the ligaments of the neck still connects it with the body. I knew nothing of these victims of ill-timed enthusiasm except from historical report; but the companion of my visit to their grave had been their cotemporary and friend, and he paid their memories the tribute of some sighs, which, even at this distance of time, it would not be prudent to heave in a less privileged place.

The late Richard Dalton Webb, when a boy, also went to see these reliques. With a penknife he severed the ligament mentioned by Curran, and carried away the head to his own home, where it remained twenty years. He finally regretted having taken it, and offered it to Dr. Madden, at whose door the gruesome relic duly arrived.

The head was finely formed [he writes], but the expression of the face was that of the most frightful agony. The mark of very violent injuries, done during life to the right eye, nose, and mouth, were particularly apparent; the very indentation round the neck, from the pressure of the rope, was visible; and there was no injury to the cervical vertebræ occasioned by any instrument.

These horrible marks were doubtless caused by the brutal and bungling way in which the executioner had done his work. Madden, in good taste, restored to the shrunken trunk its long-lost head. When John Sheares, in his last letter, spoke of 'an affectionate tear shed over his dust,' he little foresaw the grim irony by which the words of the Burial Service – 'Dust to dust, ashes to ashes' – were to be thwarted. He never married. Roche, in his 'Essays of an Octogenarian,' says that, happening to occupy the rooms in Dublin where John Sheares had once lived, he discovered, in a recess, a package of his letters, which, on finding them addressed to a lady, he instantly burned. Rich material for romance was thus, happily, lost.

John Sheares's last letter to his sister makes feeling reference to his natural daughter Louise, then aged seven years. Julia Sheares gave from her pinched resources what served to educate this girl. Louise married a Mr. Coghlan, but, owing to his loose habits, left him. John's dramatic dash descended to his child. She became a popular actress, and was known on the London stage as 'Miss White.' Here the gentle histrion went through many struggles, and was pursued by much adulation. But panting – like Goldsmith's hare – to the spot from whence at first she flew, Louise returned to Ireland, and died there in 1828.

Whilst the parchment features of the Sheareses grinned in agonised expression, and their orphans shivered in the storms of a cold, neglectful world,707 John Warneford Armstrong battened on his blood-money, and posed as a prosperous and popular man. Lord Cork's damaging account of his antecedents in the letter which remained near a century sealed will be remembered. The magisterial bench hailed his adhesion; he took a leading place on the grand jury of his county; Burke's 'Landed Gentry' enrolled him in its ranks.

In 1843 the name of Captain Armstrong again came before the public, in connection with the prosecution of his servant, Egan, for stealing, among other effects, a gold medal in commemoration of his discoveries in 1798. The late F. Thorpe Porter, from whose lips I had the following anecdote, was on the bench with Sir Nicholas FitzSimon as police magistrate, when the latter, recognising through a glass door the well-known figure of Armstrong approaching, said: 'Here is Sheares' Armstrong; I don't care to meet him,' and retired into a private room. FitzSimon, as former member for the King's County in which Armstrong lived, had been in pleasant touch with him, and often chuckled at his quaint conceits. Armstrong with his accustomed swagger took his seat, uninvited, on the bench. Mr. Porter said that he had not the honour of his acquaintance, and requested him to withdraw. 'I always had this privilege from Major Sirr,' replied Armstrong, unabashed; 'and I am a magistrate for the King's County.' 'This not being the King's County,' retorted Porter, 'I must only repeat my request. If you continue to sit here people in court might suppose that you were – what I should much regret – a friend of mine.'

Sir Thomas Redington, the Under-Secretary, informed Mr. Porter that Armstrong had reported to the Government the words of which he complained, but that it was decided to take no action in the matter.

Soon after a case came on for hearing before the judicial Chairman of the King's County, to whom the Clerk of the Peace, speaking in a half-whisper, said: 'Sheares' Armstrong' (a nickname by which he was well known) 'has some testimony to offer which it might be well for you to hear.' This was done, and the chairman, in summing up, said: 'I now come to the evidence of Mr. Sheares Armstrong' – and he then proceeded to observe upon it, innocently using – over and over again – the stigmatising nickname, to the amusement of the audience and the agony of Armstrong. All was not couleur de rose with this prosperous person. 'The Attornies Guide,' a local satire, published at Dublin in 1807, and written by the Rev. Richard Frizell, rector of Ilfracombe, notices as a judgment, a fact which can be regarded merely as a coincidence: 'Shortly after he gave his ever-memorable evidence on the trial of these unfortunate gentlemen – the Sheareses – he was afflicted with a fistula in the face, which rendered him as remarkable an object as Cain is supposed to have been after the murder of his brother.' Frizell finally exclaims (p. 42): —

Unhappy Sheares – an Armstrong thus caressedThy infant, hanging at its mother's breast;Friendship pretending, revelled at thy board,While round your neck he tied the fatal cord!

Stings like these must have severely tried his patience. His temper was of as hair-trigger a character as the pistols which he carried for protection. Robert Maunsell, a leading solicitor, of whom Armstrong was a client, informed me that the captain, on one occasion, when entertained by Mrs. Maunsell in Merrion Square, smashed, by an awkward swinging gesture, the leg of the chair on which he sat, whereupon his exclamation was not a gallant apology, but – 'D – n your chairs, madam!' This, Maunsell said, was intoned with a nasal twang – the penalty paid for the lupus– which ate into his beauty fifty years before.

To earn 500l. a year Armstrong must have done something more than merely to ensnare the Sheareses, although hitherto he has been credited with that exploit alone. William Lawless was Professor of Physiology at the College of Surgeons, Dublin, a man of mark, and very highly connected. Immediately after his interview with Armstrong at Sheares's house we find a warrant issued for his arrest, and it was not Armstrong's fault if he failed to meet the fate of the brothers. A timely hint from Surgeon-general Stewart put Lawless on the alert. By hair-breadth escapes he eluded his pursuers, and at last reached France, where he became a distinguished general under Napoleon.

Armstrong, when stealing on the Sheareses, sought to kill another bird with the same stone. He was clearly making notes for the ruin of Lawless as well, and mentioned on Sheares's trial, among other remarks alleged to have been made by Lawless, that the trees near the Royal camp would come handy in suspending prisoners captured by the rebel force. Lawless had luckily escaped at this time, but at once wrote indignantly denying that he had ever made so horrible a suggestion. Previous to his flight he had resided in French Street, Dublin, whither Major Sirr proceeded with a warrant both for his arrest and that of John Sheares, who had been in daily conference with him. While Sirr was engaged in searching Lawless's house a knock came to the door, Sheares entered, and Sirr at once said, 'You are my prisoner.'

Lawless had seen Lord Edward constantly during the period of his concealment; but Armstrong knew nothing of the chieftain's movements, and, of course, had no hand in his betrayal, though some infer to the contrary from a passing remark made by Mr. Froude.708 But he qualified for his pension by a general vigilance and activity in support of that red system and policy which John Sheares's proclamation brands. Armstrong having been questioned by Curran as to three peasants which he had taken prisoners in '98, he replied: 'We were going up Blackmore Hill, under Sir James Duff; there was a party of rebels there. We met three men with green cockades. One we shot, another we hanged, and the third we flogged and made a guide of.'709

The murder of a little child by a yeoman named Woolagan excited, even in those days, a feeling of abhorrence, and Plowden, in his 'History of Ireland,' notices Woolagan's acquittal by the court-martial which tried him, but does not cite the evidence. This we find in the 'Dublin Magazine' for October 1798. There it will be seen that the murderer threw the onus on the general orders issued by Captain Armstrong. Phillips and Curran, who have written of that man, do not appear to have read this trial. The crime was proved and not denied, yet Woolagan was acquitted. But the Viceroy, Lord Cornwallis, condemned the verdict, and disqualified the president of the court-martial, Lord Enniskillen, from again presiding in that capacity.

Captain Armstrong, though hot-tempered, was capable of generous acts, and his redeeming points must not be ignored. He was a bad hater, a good laugher. Affable to all, he frequently went out of his way to be civil; and with him sweet words had more than their proverbial value. In days when landlordism reigned with iron sceptre, he showed indulgence to his tenantry; but when giving leases, or using his influence with higher lords of the soil for that end, he cunningly got his own life inserted as a beneficial interest to the tenants. Thus in the hot-bed of Ribbonism he gloried to the end in a sort of charmed life. He survived until April 20, 1858, when he died at Clara, in the King's County, after having drawn from Dublin Castle 500l. a year, or about 29,464l. Castlereagh, who had urged him to his work, recommended him for a pension, and predeceased him by nearly forty years, might have deemed this sum excessive had he lived to see it paid.

Seeking to disarm prejudice and cultivate rural friendship, Armstrong maintained cordial relations with the peasantry. He would enter their cabins, sit with rude hosts, and converse with their wives on various domestic points solely of interest to themselves. We must suppose that, consistently with his later utterance, their children attracted from him no moving manifestation of regard. His long life had one decided advantage. It is stated that he lived down every political enemy and contemporary, becoming in the end downright popular. His face, familiar from childhood even to old men, became at last endeared to early memories, and his neighbour, Captain Fuller, who attended his funeral, testifies to the almost incredible fact that he saw some well-known Ribbonmen, who were present, weep, and horny hands upraised which, in the hot blood of youth, had dispensed 'the wild justice of revenge.'710

APPENDIX

LORD DOWNSHIRE'S MYSTERIOUS VISITOR

(Vide p. 8, ante.)

The following is a résumé of some earlier evidence which had convinced me that the informer whose name Mr. Froude says is still wrapped in mystery711 could be only Samuel Turner, LL.D., barrister-at-law.

Speaking of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Mr. Froude says: 'His meeting with Hoche on the Swiss frontier was known only to very few persons. Hoche himself had not revealed it even to Tone.'

But Turner knew a vast deal about the arrangements with Hoche. An intercepted letter addressed by Reinhard, the French Minister at Hamburg, to De la Croix, and written on July 12, 1797, may be found in the 'Correspondence of Lord Castlereagh,' and assigned by mistake to the year 1798. In this letter Reinhard tells De la Croix that he sent Turner to General Hoche. From Hoche712 himself Turner most likely learned of the secret interview between Lord Edward and the French general.

But what proof have we that Lord Downshire's muffled visitor had had himself an interview with Hoche?

Mr. Froude at some pages distant from the part where he refers to Lord Edward's meeting with Hoche, when recurring to Downshire's visitor, whose identity was 'kept a secret even from the Cabinet,' states, from knowledge acquired after reading the spy's secret letters, 'He had actually conferred with Hoche and De la Croix.'

The intercepted letter in the 'Castlereagh Papers' refers at much length to the proceedings of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, MacNevin, and Turner; but Turner in this letter is called Furnes. The general index to that work states713 that Furnes is an alias for Samuel Turner; and further he is described as 'an Irish rebel.' Had the noble editor supposed that Turner was a spy in the pay of the Crown, this letter would doubtless have been suppressed in common with others which Dr. Madden misses. Lord Londonderry brought out his brother's correspondence in 1848, during the 'Young Ireland' agitation, and was careful to let few secrets appear.

'He had accompanied the Northern delegacy to Dublin,' proceeds Mr. Froude, 'and had been present at the discussion of the propriety of an immediate insurrection.'

John Hughes, of Belfast, an officer in the Society of the United Irishmen, was arrested immediately after Turner opened communication with Downshire, and while in gaol turned King's evidence. From the sworn testimony of John Hughes we learn that, in June 1797, he was summoned by Lowry and Teeling to attend a meeting in Dublin of delegates from the different provinces of Ireland, in order to receive a return of the strength of the United Irishmen. Whilst he was in Dublin, in June 1797, Teeling invited him to meet some friends at his lodgings, including Tony McCann of Dundalk, Mr.714 Samuel Turner, John and Patrick Byrne, Lowry, Dr. MacNevin, and others.715 The leaders differed as to the expediency of an immediate rising. 'He met the above mentioned persons at several other times in Dublin, in June 1797.'716

'The Northern delegate had been present at the discussion of the propriety of an immediate insurrection. The cowardice or the prudence of the Dublin faction had disgusted him,' writes Mr. Froude.

The Northern leader who was disgusted with the prudence of the Papist conspirators in Dublin must have been Turner. In the 'Castlereagh Papers' is a letter of Reinhard, the French Minister, stating, on the authority of Turner, 'that it was of dilatoriness and indecision several members of the Committee were accused; that the Northern province, feeling its oppression and its strength, was impatient to break forth.'717

Reinhard adds, what will surprise many regarding Lord Edward: 'Macnevin and Lord Fitzgerald are of the moderate party. Furness [Turner] is for a speedy explosion, and it is some imprudences into which his ardent character hurried him that obliged him to leave the country, whereas the conduct of Macnevin has been circumspect.'718

Among the men whom Hughes swears he met in June 1797, with the Northern delegates in Dublin, were Turner, Teeling, MacCann, John Byrne [Union Lodge, Dundalk], Dr. Macnevin, Colonel Plunket,719 and Andrew Comyn of Galway. These men – Turner excepted – were all Roman Catholics; so were John Keogh, Braughall, MacCormick, and other influential Dublin leaders – whose names do not appear. Tone was abroad. Downshire's visitor speaks of the men he met in Dublin as 'Papists' whose prudence and cowardice disgusted him, and he came to the conclusion that the two parties could not amalgamate.

Mr. Froude, again describing Downshire's visitor, writes: 'He had seen Talleyrand and talked with him at length on the condition of Ireland.'

The 'Castlereagh Papers' contain a remarkable letter, headed 'Secret Intelligence,' and describing very fully an interview with Talleyrand in reference to an invasion of Ireland. On the third page of his letter the spy writes: 'Enclosure containing the cyphers I sent to the Marquis of Downshire.'720

To this letter I must again return.

Mr. Froude states that Downshire's visitor had discovered one of the objects of the Papists to be a seizure of property, and had determined to separate himself from the conspiracy.

Turner belonged to a family of Cromwellian settlers. This we learn from Prendergast's 'Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland,' p. 417. The letter (quoted above), printed in the Castlereagh Papers, and acknowledging to have spied for Lord Downshire, mentions that the writer's 'most particular friends' were men 'who feared in a Revolution the loss of their property, especially such as held their estates by grants of Oliver Cromwell.'721

Mr. Froude says that when the mysterious visitor threw back his disguise Downshire recognised in him the son of a gentleman of good fortune in the North of Ireland. Lord Downshire is part proprietor of Newry, where Turner lived, and Hill Street, Newry, is named after the Downshires, just as Turner's Hill, Newry, is called after the Turners.722

It may be added that Jacob Turner, of Turner Hill, in the county of Armagh, esquire, by his will, dated April 27, 1803, acquits and discharges his son 'Samuel from a judgment debt obtained by me against him for 1,500l.'723

'"The person" had been a member of the Ulster Revolutionary Committee,' writes Mr. Froude. This Turner admittedly was.

'He had fled with others,' he tells Lord Downshire when describing how he came to leave Ireland and settle at Hamburg.

James Hope, in his narrative supplied to Dr. Madden in 1846, when noticing Turner, writes, 'He fled and settled in Hamburg, where he was entrusted by the Directory with carrying on the correspondence between the Irish and French Executives.'724

Mr. Froude says that the mysterious man was intimate with all the United Irish refugees at Hamburg, received instructions from the Home Office to open a correspondence with rebel leaders, and had the entrée to the house of Lady Edward Fitzgerald.

No wonder that Lord Downshire's friend should command these exceptional facilities for spying when we know, on the authority of James Hope, a veteran rebel of Ulster, that Samuel Turner was the accredited agent at Hamburg of the 'United Irishmen.'725

Mr. Froude tells us that he revealed such evidence of his power to be useful – at Hamburg – that Pitt was extremely anxious to secure his help.

As Turner is shown by Hope to have been the authorised agent of the 'United Irishmen' at Hamburg, the reason becomes clear why Pitt was so anxious to secure a man who had access at that place to all the secrets of his party.

'An arrangement was concluded,' writes Mr. Froude. 'He continued at Hamburg, as Lady Edward's guest and most trusted friend, saw every one who came to her house, kept watch over her letter-bag, was admitted to close and secret conversations upon the prospect of French interference in Ireland with Reinhard,726 the Minister of the Directory there, and he regularly kept Lord Downshire informed of everything which would enable Pitt to watch the conspiracy.'

The first volume of Castlereagh should here be opened. At pp. 277-286 will be found three intercepted letters, addressed by Reinhard at Hamburg to De la Croix, revealing minute particulars regarding the United Irish envoys, and bearing testimony to the zealous help rendered to the conspiracy by Turner.

'I showed Reinhard Lowry's letter,' quotes Mr. Froude.

Turner and Lowry were old allies in Ireland, and had no secrets between them. The sworn information of John Hughes mentions that he saw Lowry, Turner, and Teeling engaged on a committee for conducting the defence of United Irishmen at the Antrim and Down Assizes in February, 1797.

Mr. Froude tells us that the spy who hurried to London and sought Lord Downshire was able to describe an important letter which was on the point of going over from Barclay Teeling in France to Arthur O'Connor.727 Great confidence must have been reposed by Teeling in the man who could tell all this; and such confidence could be earned only by old intimacy and association. What proof is there that early intimacy existed in Ireland between Barclay Teeling and Samuel Turner?

The correspondence of Major Sirr, the Fouché of Dublin, with minor spies, is preserved in Trinity College, Dublin. These papers contain an information in which Dr. Conlan of Dundalk denounces, as deep in the conspiracy, Samuel Turner, Barclay Teeling, Lowry, and Byrne. He describes some hair-breadth escapes of Barclay Teeling, Turner, and Lowry, and how they spent one night in a barn near Dundalk. Conlan had been a United Irishman, who finally brought to the gibbet his cousin Hoey and Marmion728 of Dundalk.

After the betrayer had hurried from Hamburg to London to sell his secrets to Pitt, and then as suddenly disappeared, 'he wrote to Lord Downshire,' observes Mr. Froude, 'saying that he had returned to his old quarters, for fear he might be falling into a trap.'