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will be remembered that Downshire's visitor, in his list of men marked out for doom, gave prominence to Dr. Macnevin, 'a Physician who had great weight with the Papists.' 'He (the betrayer) had discovered,' writes Froude, 'that the object of the Papists was the ruin and destruction of the country, and the establishment of a tyranny worse than that which was complained of.'

The famous memorial of Dr. Macnevin, embracing a full report on the state of Ireland, and appealing to France for help, was written at this time.[172] On arrival at Hamburg he entrusted it to Reinhard, the French minister there, by whom—as we learn from the 'Cornwallis Papers'—it was translated and forwarded to Paris. Mr. Froude thinks its betrayal to the English Cabinet a very remarkable circumstance, and the more strange because 'no suspicion has been suggested of Macnevin's treachery.' A hidden hand contrived to pass on to Pitt this document destined to become historic.[173]

Wickham, writing to Castlereagh on August 15, 1798, states that the rebel executive committee directed Dr. Macnevin to proceed to Paris by the way of Hamburg; that the principal objects of his journey were to give additional weight and credit to the mission of Lewins, and to confirm the information that had already been transmitted.[174] Again the reader may be reminded that Lewins and Turner were rival envoys. Each is found constantly trying to circumvent the other. Turner, therefore, had a special object in foiling and intercepting Macnevin's memorial.

      Reinhard, in the betrayed despatch of July 12, 1797, tells De la Croix, at Paris, that every confidence might be reposed in Lewins. Lewins' usual post was at Paris, just as Turner's was at Hamburg, but both passed to and fro. Of Lewins, Reinhard takes care to say that Macnevin

not only attested that he possesses, and deserves, the utmost confidence, but that he is designated a minister at Paris in case of success. Mr. Macnevin wished much that his memorial should be communicated to him.[175]

      If it was Turner's interest to intercept Reinhard's letter establishing confidence in Lewins, it was still more his interest to keep back from Lewins a document which, while vindicating his name, would protect it from further attack; and this the 'Memorial' of Macnevin was designed to do.

Camden had now ceased to be Viceroy and was succeeded by Cornwallis.[176] The latter co-operates with the Home Secretary in screening from publicity the name of their informer. The report of the Secret Committee was now in progress. Cornwallis, writing to Portland, says:—

      

      The same reason may not operate against the production of Dr. Macnevin's memoir, which might be supposed to have fallen into our hands by various other means, and which, from its being produced, without connection with the other papers, might not create any alarm in the quarter where it is so necessary that the most implicit confidence in our prudence and secrecy should be preserved.

Your Grace will of course be aware that no account will be given, even to the Secret Committee, of the means by which these papers came into the hands of Government.[177]

      Portland duly acknowledged Lord Cornwallis's despatch,

      in which you represent the advantages which might result from laying before the Committees of Secrecy of the two Houses of Parliament in Ireland the whole, or at least a part, of the very secret and authentic documents relating to the conspiracy in that kingdom, which I had the King's permission from time to time to transmit to the late Lord-Lieutenant [Lord Camden]. I lost no time in acquainting his Majesty's confidential servants with your Excellency's sentiments upon this very important and delicate question; and I am now to inform you that, after its having repeatedly undergone the most serious investigation and discussion, the result of our unanimous opinion is, that the communication of the whole of those papers cannot on any account, or in any situation of the country, be suffered to be made to a parliamentary committee, under whatever qualification or conditions it may be appointed, consistently with that secrecy which in certain cases the honour and safety of the State require to be observed.

      We agree, however, for the reasons you have stated, that the same objection does not exist to the production of the greater part of Dr. Macnevin's memoir, and I have therefore had an extract made of such parts of it as it appears to us may be laid before the public without inconvenience. …

To prevent as much as possible any occasion being given which can tend to a discovery of the channels by which this intelligence has been obtained, I most earnestly recommend to your Excellency to do your utmost in procuring that the facts which are stated from it may not stand in the report of the committees in the exact order in which they are given here, but that they may be mixed with other information which has been derived from other sources.[178]

      

      The precautions taken to screen the betrayer were certainly very complete. Castlereagh tells Wickham (July 30, 1798):—

His Excellency authorised me to read the correspondence and memorial once over to the committee of the Commons, with a strict injunction that no person should note a single fact; and I can truly state that the individuals on that committee are altogether in the dark as to the manner in which that intelligence was obtained, and, from the mode in which it was gone through, can only have a very general impression of its contents. The same precaution was used in the Lords; and, I trust, although the Duke of Portland's despatch to his Excellency does not altogether sanction what has been done, yet that his Grace and the Ministers, who have so wisely enjoined the greatest precaution to be observed in the use to be made of that most interesting and important correspondence, will be of opinion that the guarded manner in which the Lord-Lieutenant made the communication to the committees, not authorising the smallest extracts to be made, or any of the facts to be relied on in their report, without being fully authorised by his Excellency, will preclude any danger to the State from this valuable channel of intelligence being in any degree brought into suspicion.[179]

In June 1798 Lord Edward was dead. The Sheares's had been executed. Macnevin, O'Connor, T. Addis Emmet, and Sampson lay in prison in Dublin. Blood flowed on every side. The city was like a shambles. The State prisoners, on the understanding that executions should cease, and that they might be allowed to leave Ireland, consented to reveal, but without implicating individuals, the scheme of the United Irishmen. A prolonged secret inquisition by the Secret Committee took place. As soon as their evidence appeared, Macnevin and his fellow-prisoners complained, by a public advertisement, that the Crown officials who drew up the report of the Secret Committee had garbled the facts and distorted their evidence. Into all this it is not necessary now to go, but it may be observed that, while everything inconvenient was left out, an innuendo was made that the betrayal of Dr. Macnevin's memoir may have been due to Reinhard, the French Minister. This—apart from M. Mignet's testimony to the incorruptibility of Reinhard—serves to exculpate him, and narrows the spot on which suspicion now rests. Reinhard, in his letter to De la Croix, thinks it strange that Turner had never spoken to him about certain revelations made by 'the Secret Committee of the Parliament of Ireland;'[180] but the reason now seems intelligible enough.

Macnevin published his 'Pieces of Irish History'[181] at New York in 1807, and notices the betrayal of the memorial which he had addressed to the French Government. Up to that time, and until his death in 1840, he does not seem to suspect Turner. Had any such doubt occurred to him, he would have been the first to avow it. At p. 146 of his book Macnevin inveighs against a 'profligate informer,' 'a ruffian of the name of Reynolds;'

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