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was confined to the arrests at Bond's in Dublin, and did not take place until March 1798. Ten pages further on Macnevin speaks of the 'unparalleled fidelity of the United Irish Body.' Dr. Macnevin was struck by the knowledge the Government had acquired of the 'negotiations of the United Irishmen with foreign States,' and, he adds, 'at this time one of the deputies [i.e. himself] had personal evidence of its extent and accuracy. That knowledge was obtained from some person in the pay of England and in the confidence of France.' And Dr. Macnevin then proceeds to point to Reinhard by name!

This is just what the officials of the Home Office wished for all along. Wickham, referring to the publication of Macnevin's memorial by the Secret Committee of the House of Lords, writes: 'It may fairly be presumed that the copy has been obtained at [the Foreign Office] Paris, or from R.'s [Reinhard's] secretary at Hamburg. This conjecture will be at least as probable as the real one.'[182]

One circumstance struck Macnevin as 'confirmation strong' of his dark suspicion. Reinhard, as he tells us, made difficulties about giving him a passport to Paris. A most important despatch from Reinhard to De la Croix thus concludes:—

What I must particularly urge, Citizen Minister, in regard to this business, is, at least, that you will have the goodness to direct me as to Mr. Macnevin. I will not give another passport without your order.[183]

This letter—possibly written at Lady Edward Fitzgerald's house at Hamburg, and put into her post-bag—was treacherously betrayed to Pitt. When De la Croix remained ominously silent in response to the above appeal, is it surprising that Reinhard should have made difficulties and delays in giving Macnevin a passport?[184]

Macnevin's groundless distrust of Reinhard naturally influenced the views of a most painstaking investigator. Dr. Madden, who, when he at last saw, in the 'Castlereagh Papers,' Reinhard's letters to De la Croix, regarded the circumstance as damning proof of his treachery.[185] Subsequently Mignet, the great French historian and keeper of the ministerial archives at Paris, who had ample official means of knowing the character and acts of both Reinhard and De la Croix, assured Madden in writing that both men were incorruptible. This may be taken as conclusive, for, unlike Turner, there is not a line in any English State Paper tending to compromise Reinhard or De la Croix.[186]

For the act of betrayal we must therefore look to Samuel Turner, agent at Hamburg of the United Irish Brotherhood; the man who had access to the most secret papers in Lady Fitzgerald's house, and who, we learn, 'was admitted to close and secret conversations upon the prospect of French interference in Ireland with Reinhard.' This, in fact, was the grand proof submitted by Downshire's visitor to show that he was in a position to spy to advantage—a fact sufficient in itself to demonstrate that Reinhard was himself no spy.

      Dr. Madden's suspicion of Reinhard was doubtless strengthened by a passage which for a long time puzzled myself, and occurs in Wickham's letter to Castlereagh of June 8, 1798. Wickham speaks of 'information confirmed by a person at Hamburg, who must necessarily have derived his intelligence from a very different source, and who could not but be ignorant of that from which R. had procured all that he has communicated to us.' The name thus masked is not Reinhard, but Richardson—an alias for Turner, as proved at p. 48 ante.

One thing greatly complicated this puzzle as regards 'R.' Wickham, in a subsequent letter, dated July 25, 1798, speaks of 'R.'—meaning not Richardson, but Reinhard, as the context shows.[187] But these blanks are due to the noble editor of the 'Castlereagh Papers,' the late Lord Londonderry; and in cloaking the name Richardson—it inadvertently peeps out in one place, like 'Capel' instead of 'Catesby' in 'Lothair'—he doubtless thought that it was a real name.

      On February 18, 1798, Lord Moira addressed the House of Lords in favour of Catholic Emancipation, which, he declared, must be granted, as well as Parliamentary Reform. 'The greatest evil to be feared from it sinks to nothing compared to the mischief which is raging at present. The expression of a conciliatory desire on your part would suspend immediately the agitation of the public mind.'

      Mr. Froude says that the members of Council knew more than Lord Moira—'if he really believed his words;' and he adds that they must have found it hard 'to sit patient under his flatulent declamation.' How much Turner's tattle had excited the Cabinet, and aroused lasting prejudice against a statesman not less able than estimable, appears from the historian's words: 'At that moment the Council were weighing intelligence from the friend at Hamburg, so serious that they had all but resolved on an immediate arrest of the entire Revolutionary Committee.'

Reinhard tells De la Croix, on July 12, 1797, that while 'Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Macnevin[188] were of the moderate party, Turner was for a speedy explosion.'[189] Turner was co-operating in a very base policy, one which unscrupulous statesmen are said to have planned. During the examination of Macnevin before the Secret Committee, Lord Castlereagh confessed that 'means were taken to make the United Irish system explode.' The policy of exciting a premature explosion before Ireland had been organised peeps forth in the Report of the Secret Committee of the Irish Parliament: 'The rebellion [we are told] would not have broken out so soon as it did, had it not been for the well-timed measures adopted by Government.'

      Turner's policy changed according as the policy of his employers changed. In March 1798 the rebel Directory at Dublin were seized as they sat in council at Oliver Bond's. Soon after, three out of thirty-two counties rose; and to crush that partial revolt cost England twenty-two millions of pounds and twenty thousand men.

      FOOTNOTES:

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      [140] Castlereagh, i. 282–292.

      [141] Ibid., General Index, iv. 504.

      [142] Further on will be seen Portland's caution to Castlereagh as to the means to be taken by the Secret Committee of the Irish Parliament in order to divert suspicion from their spy.

[143] The letter, of which this is an extract, appears in the Castlereagh Papers (i. 275–6). It was the interest of the spy that this letter should not be seen at the Foreign Office, Paris. It could do him no harm in the eyes of Pitt. A second intercepted letter from Reinhard states that consistently with his duties he sent Samuel Turner [of Hamburg] to General Hoche (see Castlereagh, i. 285). Tone mentions in his diary that Hoche one day 'seemed struck when I mentioned Hamburg, and asked me again was I going hither. "Well then," said he, "perhaps we may find something for you to do there. There is a person there whom perhaps you may see."' Tone muses, 'Who is my lover that I am to see at Hamburg, in God's name?' (Diary, ii. 341.) His diary is relinquished, however, just as he gets there, and his death in an Irish prison occurred soon after.

[144] English in Ireland, iii. 278.

[145] Ibid. iii. 284.

[146]

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