An Act of Parliament provided that the Secret Service Money placed at the Viceroy's disposal should pass confidentially through the hands of the Chief Secretary; but this arrangement has not always been adhered to, as is evident from the fact that the 1,000_l._ reward for the discovery of Emmet was lodged to the credit of the informer in Finlay's bank. The hint of Dr. Ferris is not uninteresting, but the books of Newcomen's bank do not seem to have been preserved. Barrington states that Sir W. Gleadowe Newcomen, who voted for the Union, received a reward of 20,000_l._ with a peerage, and the patronage of his county. It is a strange irony of fate that Lord Newcomen died poor. For years he lived alone in the bank, gloating, it was wildly whispered, over ingots of treasure, with no lamp to guide him but the luminous diamonds which had been left for safe keeping in his hands. Moore would have compared him to 'the gloomy gnome that dwells in the dark gold mine.' Wrapped in a sullen misanthropy, he was sometimes seen emerging at twilight from his iron clamped abode. La Touche's bank stood on the opposite side of Castle Street, and Dublin wags compared the street to a river because it ran between two banks. Jokes soon gave way to sobs. One day Newcomen's bank broke,[372] and prosperous men perished in the collapse. Lord Newcomen had previously retired to Killester, where he died by his own hand. No claimant appeared for his coronet, and the line became extinct. This was the twenty-seventh Irish peerage which had failed since the Union. Gleadowe had been M.P. for Longford when he voted for the extinction of the Irish Parliament. Richard Lovel Edgeworth, a betrayed constituent, regarded this vote as an act of treason, and in anger shot forth the following bolt:-- With a name that is borrowed--a title that's bought, Sir William would fain be a gentleman thought; His wit is but cunning, his courage but vapour, His pride is but money--his money but paper! What was a pointless sarcasm in 1800 became a stubborn fact in 1825--Newcomen's notes were waste paper. The Hibernian Banking Company soon after began business within the walls. FOOTNOTES: [284] I leave unchanged some of the circumstantial evidence which had convinced me of Magan's guilt, adding in brackets the criminatory letters subsequently found (January 1891). [285] Thus, in 'Croppies lie down,' to the tune of which, as Moore says, 'more blood had been shed than often falls to the lot of lyrical ballads'-- 'The ruthless Fitzgerald stept forward to rule, His principles formed in the Orleans school.' [286] _Memoirs of Miles Byrne_, iii. 247. (Paris: Bossange, 1863.)