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Secret Service Under Pitt. William J. Fitz-Patrick
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isbn 4064066153380
Автор произведения William J. Fitz-Patrick
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Talleyrand's caution in talking with Turner contrasts with the freedom with which he opened his mind on the same subject to his confrères. A very important book was published in 1890 at Paris by M. Pallain, 'Talleyrand sous le Directoire.' It depicts his diplomatic life, and gives the pith of his despatches. From Turner and Duckett he probably derived some impressions regarding Great Britain and Ireland. He augurs well from the Irish rebellion, which has been 'cemented,' adds Talleyrand, 'by the blood of celebrated victims.' The first victim was the Rev. William Jackson, in 1794. Talleyrand urges the invasion of Ireland and the establishment of an Irish Republic 'for the instruction or chastisement of England.' 'Nelson's fleet,' he says, 'is manned almost exclusively by Irishmen,' and that their patriotism 'will teach them to see in the English their oppressors and enemies.' Talleyrand's sketch of 'Irish Landed Proprietors' is full and curious.
Another man who, besides Talleyrand and Grégoire, dealt cautiously with Turner was Stone, as Turner in his secret letter to the Home Office admits. Stone had been tried in England for high treason and sent into exile.[88] At Hamburg and at Paris he belonged to the set mentioned by Mr. Froude's cloaked spy[89] as including Lady Edward Fitzgerald (Pamela), Lady Lucy Fitzgerald, Mrs. Matthiessen, and General Count Valence. Madame de Genlis in her 'Memoirs' mentions Stone conjointly with her daughter Madame de Valence and her 'niece' Pamela.[90]
FOOTNOTES:
[65] See Castlereagh Papers, i. 251. See also chapter vii. of the present volume.
[66] Froude, iii. 301.
[67] See M. de Talleyrand, par M. de Villemarest, ch. viii.; Hist. du Directoire, par M. de Barante, liv. iv.
[68] Of infidelity to the rebel cause.
[69] Mr. Froude, speaking of 'the second arrest of two of the leading committees of Belfast,' says (iii. 237) that 'Lake seized papers which revealed the correspondence with France, the extent of the revolutionary armament, and the measures taken for the seduction of the army and militia. The papers were sent to Dublin and were laid before a secret committee.' See also correspondence in re McNevin's Memorial, ch. vii. infra.
[70] The spy sought to deceive the French Government in this report. The Cromwellian Settlers never thought of joining the United Irishmen. One of Turner's objects seems to have been to get a written undertaking from Talleyrand that the estates of these Settlers should be left intact, and money sent to promote an alleged treasonable conspiracy of Cromwellian Settlers against England, but which, in point of fact, did not exist. The Ulster Presbyterians were, no doubt, rebels; but these men were the descendants, not of the Cromwellian adventurers, but of King James's Planters.
[71] This phrase is assigned to Talleyrand by Harel in the Nain Jaune; but the thought had been previously expressed by another bishop, i.e. Jeremy Taylor.
[72] The contractions 'he'd' and 'sha'n't' are entirely consistent with Turner's 'you'll' in the letter to Downshire, transcribed by me from the Pelham MSS. See p. 50, infra; also Turner's acknowledged letter to Cooke, p. 97.
[73] This alternate blowing of hot and cold worked its end. A long letter from the Home Office furnishing secret items to Dublin Castle goes on to say (Castlereagh, ii. 361): 'Lewins had often complained that the conduct of the French Government had been hitherto so indecisive with respect to Ireland that all their projects had naturally failed.' However, it was admitted by Talleyrand that 'Ireland was the only vulnerable part of the British Empire.'
[74] The Cabinet, Mr. Froude says, was kept in utter ignorance of his name, and in the most secret despatches of the Home Office he is known only as 'Lord Downshire's friend.' These precautions will remind us of the cipher of the Louvais despatches, which has hitherto baffled all efforts to identify the Man in the Iron Mask.
[75] The narrative of Edward J. Newell—the spy who turned against his employers—states (London, 1798, p. 59) that he was asked to give information 'against Charles Rankin and others for high treason.'
[76] Our spy often refers to Rankin and others of Belfast: 'He [the betrayer] had fled with others from Belfast at the general dispersion of the leaders,' writes Mr. Froude, iii. 280.
[77] Whatever he knew of Lord Edward Fitzgerald is told in the first letter. See pp. 5, 6, ante.
[78] This was Henri Grégoire, the celebrated Bishop of Blois—a most influential member of the National Convention, and afterwards of the Council of Five Hundred. The aplomb of our spy in hailing such men as friends will be appreciated. Grégoire was a cautious man, who voted against the divorce of Napoleon and Joséphine, and opposed the Emperor's marriage with Marie-Thérèse. During the 'Reign of Terror,' when urged to follow the Archbishop of Paris and abjure his priestly duties, he refused. B. 1750, d. 1831.
[80] Duckett, an Irish rebel agent, falsely suspected by Tone of being a spy, will figure in chapter x.
[81] See p. 110 infra.
[82] Possibly John Jeffrey, brother of Francis. He was a Scotchman, and usually resided in America (Life of Jeffrey, by Lord Cockburn, i. 50). How completely a Republican spirit possessed him is shown by his brother's letters to him in 1797, beginning 'My dear Citizen' (ii. 30 et seq.). The subsequent Lord Jeffrey was also a democrat, and his movements may have been shadowed, as those of Coleridge notoriously were.