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target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_f2ac7a00-022a-5791-8138-2933dc2e472f">[21] 'I just made a couple of betts with him, and took up a cool hundred.'—The Provoked Husband, by Vanbrugh and Cibber, ii. i. 311, ed. 1730. See also Smollett's Don Quixote, bk. iii. c. viii.

[22] Froude, iii. 277 et seq.

[23] Alexander Knox, in his History of Down, errs in saying (p. 26) that 'Dr. McNevin was an influential member of the Established Church.'

[24] All these men, unless Hamill and Inishry, are to be found in books which treat of 1798. The first is noticed in the Dublin Penny Journal, March 1, 1834 (p. 274). In 1797 Mr. Hamill was indicted for defenderism and acquitted, 'and the witnesses for the Crown were so flagrantly perjured that the judge, I have heard, ordered a prosecution' (Speech of Henry Grattan in Parliament, May 13, 1805—Hansard, ii. 925).

[25] As regards 'Inishry,' no such cognomen is to be found in the pedigrees of MacFirbis or O'Clery, or any name to which it might be traced. The name that the spy gave was probably Hennessy—which Downshire, in writing from dictation, may have mistaken for 'Inishry.'

[26] Long before the publication of Mr. Froude's book, Arthur O'Connor, in a letter to Dr. Madden, states that 'Lord Edward took no oath on joining the United Irishmen.'—Vide their Lives and Times, ii. 393.

CHAPTER II

       ARRESTS MULTIPLY

       Table of Contents

It was not easy to separate the threads of the tangled skein which Mr. Froude found hidden away in the dust of the past. But, lest the process of unravelling should tax the reader's patience, I have transferred to an Appendix some points of circumstantial evidence which led me, at first, to suspect, and finally to feel convinced, that 'the person' was no other than Samuel Turner, Esq., LL.D., barrister-at-law, of Turner's Glen, Newry—one of the shrewdest heads of the Northern executive of United Irishmen.[27] Pitt made a good stroke by encouraging his overtures, but, like an expert angler, ample line was given ere securing fast the precious prey.

      One can trace, through the public journals of the time, that the betrayer's disclosures to Downshire were followed by a decided activity on the part of the Irish Government. The more important of the marked men were suffered to continue at large, but the names having been noted Lord Camden was able, at the threatened outburst of the rebellion, to seize them at once. Meanwhile an influential London paper, the 'Courier' of November 24, 1797, gave a glimpse of the system that then prevailed by announcing the departure from Dublin for England of Dr. Atkinson, High Constable of Belfast, charged, it is said, with full powers from Government to arrest such persons as have left Ireland, and against whom there are charges of a treasonable or seditious nature.

      

The former gentleman is well known, and will be long remembered by the inhabitants of Belfast, for the active part he took in assisting a Northern Marquis,[28] and the young apostate of the County Down, to arrest seven of their fellow-citizens on September 16, 1796; since which period these unfortunate men have been closely confined without being allowed to see their friends, and now remain without hope of trial or liberation.

      'The young apostate of Down'—thus indicated for English readers ninety years ago—was Lord Castlereagh, afterwards Minister for Foreign Affairs, and well twitted by Byron for his Toryism; but who, in 1790, had been elected, after a struggle of two months' duration and an outlay of 60,000l., Whig Member for Down. Like Pitt, he began as a reformer; like Disraeli, he avowed himself a Radical; and presided at a banquet where toasts were drunk such as 'Our Sovereign Lord the People.' Ere long his policy changed, and his memory is described as having the faint sickening smell of hot blood about it.

Mr. Froude's work has been several years before the world; it has passed through various editions. Thousands of readers have been interested by his picture of the muffled figure gliding at dark to breathe in Downshire's ear most startling disclosures, but no attempt to solve the mystery enshrouding it has until now been made.[29]

The name of Samuel Turner obtains no place on the list of Secret Service moneys[30] expended by the Irish Government in 1798—thus bearing out the statement of Mr. Froude that the name of the mysterious 'person' was not revealed in the most secret correspondence between the Home Office and Dublin Castle. At the termination of the troubles, however, when the need of secrecy became less urgent, and it was desirable to bestow pensions on 'persons who had rendered important service during the rebellion,' the name of Samuel Turner is found in the Cornwallis Papers as entitled to 300l. a year. But a foot-note from the indefatigable editor—Mr. Ross—who spared no labour to acquire minute information, confesses that it has been found impossible to procure any particulars of Turner.

      For years I have investigated the relations of the informers with the Government, and Samuel Turner is the only large recipient of 'blood-money' whose services remain to be accounted for. Turner's name never appeared in any printed pension list. Mr. Ross found the name at Dublin Castle, with some others, in a 'confidential memorandum,' written for the perusal of the Lord Lieutenant, whose fiat became necessary. The money was 'given by a warrant dated December 20, 1800,' but the names were kept secret—the payments being confidentially made by the Under-Secretary.

      At this distance of time it is not easy to trace a life of which Mr. Ross, thirty years earlier, failed to catch the haziest glimpse; but I hope to make the case clear, and Turner's history readable.

Previous to 1798 he is found posing in the double rôle of martyr and hero—winning alternately the sympathy and admiration of the people. Mr. Patrick O'Byrne, an aged native of Newry, long connected with an eminent publishing firm in Dublin, has replied to a letter of inquiry by supplying some anecdotes in Turner's life. It is a remarkable proof of the completeness with which Turner's perfidy was cloaked that Mr. O'Byrne never heard his honesty questioned.[31]

In 1836 there was a tradition current in Newry of a gentleman named Turner, who in the previous generation had resided in a large red brick house situated in the centre of a fine walled-in park called Turner's Glen, on the western side of Newry, in the County Armagh. Mr. Turner had been in 1796 a member of the great confederacy of United Irishmen, one of the leaders who, for self and fellows, 'pledged his life, his fortune, and his honour' to put an end to British supremacy in Ireland. About the date mentioned the notorious Luttrell, Lord Carhampton, who was commander of the forces in Ireland at the time, and was then making a tour of inspection of the army, had to pass through Newry. The chief hotel in Newry at that time adjoined the post-office. The gentry and merchants of Newry generally went to the post-office shortly after the arrival of the mails to get their letters, and while waiting for the mail to be assorted promenaded in front of the hotel, or rested in the coffee-room. Mr. Turner wore the colours he affected—a large green necktie. Lord Carhampton, while his horses were being changed, was looking out of the coffee-room windows of the hotel, and his eye lighted on the rebel 'stock:' here was a fine opportunity to cow a rebel and assert his own courage—a quality for which he was not noted. Accordingly he swaggered up to Mr. Turner and, confronting him, asked 'Whose man are you,

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