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href="#ulink_1f8450ef-441d-5509-a796-949d7e8373de">[75] Esq., at Mr. Elliot's, Pimlico, London, to be put in the common post-office at Hamburg, and sealed with a particular seal I have for the purpose. As soon as I receive the proper paper or document, in order to save time, I am to get, if possible, into England; if that can't be done with safety, I'm to go to either Bremen or Hamburg, write thence to Ranken, who comes over before him. I attest the business on oath, and he goes instantly for Ireland. Ranken,[76] having been a banker at Belfast, a man of good property, and looked on by Government as a friend, can pass and repass as if to settle accounts at Hamburg.

      'I beg leave once more to inform you that delay will be looked on, I fear, as non-compliance; and, if there's any particular point on which you wish for accurate information, I think I can undertake to obtain it.'

      The spy's letter then proceeds:—

He (Talleyrand) seemed to disapprove of my venturing to Ireland or England; asked me if I knew anything of Fitzgerald.[77]

Waited on him the first of the following decade; he said nothing was resolved on. I asked if the Irish were to wait for their coming or not. He said by all means to wait, and not to risk or expose themselves. 'May I assure them you'll come in the course of three months?' 'No, we cannot fix a time; it may be more, or not so long. I shall depend on you to obtain for me as accurate a statement, with as much information as you can collect.' I desired to know on what particular point, otherwise I should be at a loss; he said he could not mention any particular. I then promised as much as I could collect in general, with a particular and accurate one of Ireland. I then asked if I might venture to assert that the French Government would be content with being paid the expense of their former expedition, and of that which will be sent; that they will leave the Irish to choose a constitution for themselves as soon as English influence is destroyed; guaranteeing to every individual their property, without respect to old Catholic claims and to their political conduct prior to the time of actual invasion. 'You may venture to assure them that the property of no individual will be seized upon, but the reverse. On the other points we cannot give an answer.'—'When shall I see the Directory?'—'On the ninth of this decade I shall speak to the President, and you may bring to me one of your acquaintance that is known to him, who will introduce you;' or that I might go alone, as my name was sufficiently known to him. Between that and the 9th I spoke to Abbé Grégoire[78] to accompany me; but he declined it, as did Stone;[79] upon which I wrote, on the 8th, to the Minister, to say that these two had refused, and that they thought he himself ought to do it, or give me a note of introduction to the President; but that, if it was disagreeable, I would not press the matter further, as I looked on his word as that of the Directory, and that I would call next day at the Directory, when, if I could get an audience, so much the better; if not, I thought it imprudent to wait longer.

Next day I called at the Directory and sent in my name. I there met Duckett,[80] who told me it would be impossible to see any of them that day; for a letter, which he had just brought them, which came from Leonard Bourdon,[81] would give them, he believed, work enough, as he understood it contained some very interesting matter. I was to have seen some of them that day likewise; an answer came to us both that they were too much occupied. I then went to the Minister, and sent in my name, as did, at the same time, Colonel La Harpe and the Swiss Deputies. We were all sent off, as he was very busy. I left a note with his Secretary, saying I would set out next day, which I did, the 20 Floreal, alias Wednesday, the 9th May; arrived at Cuxhaven the Wednesday following; sailed the next day, landed at Lowestoff on Tuesday morning, got to town [London] that night, accompanied by one Jeffrey,[82] who passes himself off for a Scotchman, was coming to Yarmouth as an American, was in Paris last September, speaks French as a Frenchman, looks extremely like one, and lodges at the New Hummums, Covent Garden.

It is quite clear that the above letter was written by the same nameless spy who poses in Froude's book as 'Lord Downshire's friend.' 'One of his letters, dated November 19, 1797, is preserved,' writes Mr. Froude; but, no doubt, a few others are preserved too, and may be found in the correspondence of Lord Castlereagh. How they escaped destruction is a marvel. Wickham, on January 11, 1799, writes, regarding 'United Irishmen' at Hamburg: 'The enclosed very curious papers the Duke of Portland desires may be laid before the Lord Lieutenant, and afterwards destroyed.'

      So careful was the spy of his reputation that he vouchsafes not a signature. Internal evidence, however, shows that he was the man who made his disclosure to Downshire, and was by him put in correspondence with Portland.

From the letter just quoted it appears that, after his efforts to pick news from Talleyrand and fish in Irish channels at Paris, he returned, viâ Cuxhaven, to London, where he arrived on Tuesday night, May 15, 1798. This date is worthy of note. The spy feared to show himself in London and felt that his life was unsafe. What brings him back to London on May 15, 1798? His favourite post was Cuxhaven or Hamburg. O'Coigly, Binns, and Leary, though arrested in March en route to France, were not put on their trial until Monday, May 21, 1798. This case is reported at extraordinary length in Howell's 'State Trials' and would fill a volume. Scott, afterwards Lord Eldon, prosecuted. The mass of secret information which the Crown contrived to acquire strikes very forcibly. Letters written in cipher by O'Coigly to Lord Edward Fitzgerald and others are translated and expounded by Scott. All the parties concerned in the conspiracy had false names. Mrs. Mathiessen[83] is called 'Marks;' 'a man going to William's,' means 'going to France,' etc. It was largely on evidence of this sort that O'Coigly was convicted and hanged.[84]

The betrayer tells Talleyrand that 'the spirit of the North was completely broken.' In point of fact, however, it was in the North that the real martial spirit of the United Irishmen blazed, and there the best battles were afterwards fought under the leadership of Orr and Monroe. Turner was anxious to make the French turn their thoughts of invasion to other points on the Irish coast, and he so far succeeded that in August, 1798, Humbert's expedition, embracing not 1,000 men, landed at Killala, among the starved and unarmed peasantry of Connaught. He calculated on meeting enthusiastic support; but, as Mr. Lecky says, it soon became apparent how fatally he had been deceived. After winning one battle, and losing another, Humbert surrendered to Cornwallis.

'May I assure them that you'll come in three months?' Talleyrand is asked. The object of this and other questions, which, to a casual reader, seem hardly consistent with Turner's treachery to his friends, is now pretty plain. Great doubt prevailed as to whether an invasion of Ireland was really to be attempted. The First Consul blew hot and cold upon it. If the spy, as an envoy of the United Irishmen, could only extort from Talleyrand an explicit reply in writing avowing the intention to invade, and telling the exact time on which the descent on Ireland was to be made, England would thus be well prepared, and her fleet able to destroy the French armament as she had already destroyed that of De Winter. Why Bonaparte, at first so anxious for invasion, should have changed his mind, is explained, in the recently published Memoirs of Gouverneur Morris, as due to the conflicting reports of Irish envoys. At St. Helena he told Las Cases that his mistake in '98 was to have gone to Egypt and not to Ireland.[85]

Mr. Froude states that the betrayer had discovered one of the objects of the Papists to be the seizure of property, and had determined to separate himself from the conspiracy. Attention is requested to that part of the foregoing letter[86] where the writer refers to the Cromwellian holders of estates in Ireland, and asks that every individual be guaranteed his property without respect

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