The remainder of McNally's letters during these troubles of 1803 are yet wanting. No doubt they remain among Wickham's papers of the period which are still a sealed book.[483] Among the sensational incidents of the hour was the outrage of searching Curran's house, and the capture of Emmet's love-letters to Sarah Curran--to whom the youth had been secretly engaged. Curran himself, we are told, though aware of Emmet's visits, was ignorant of the attachment. But there was a seemingly dear old friend, having access to Curran's domestic circle, whose eagle eye could penetrate still deeper secrets. In the absence of McNally's private reports of that month there is, however, no absolute proof against him on this point. Mount Jerome,[484] the seat of John Keogh, the great Catholic leader, was also searched, and his papers seized. Dr. Madden mentions that, in 1802, Emmet had dined at Keogh's in the company of John Philpot Curran, when the probability of success in the event of a second rebellion was debated with great animation.[485] Whose was the whisper which betrayed this information never transpired. But Curran, the great depository of popular secrets, maintained, as will be shown, no reserve with McNally. So far back as 1797 McNally writes:-- Grattan and Curran are compleatly in the secret. Everything that's done or intended is communicated to them.[486] A quantity of information follows, and the letter ends with these pregnant words:-- Curran gives a dinner at his house. _Will be there._ This is the man whom William Henry Curran describes as having been 'from his youth to his latest hour the most affectionate, unshaken and disinterested friend' of his father.[487] Before and after the conviction and death of Robert Emmet, the initials 'L. M.' peep from the 'Secret Service Money Book.' On August 25, 1803 (the very day on which Emmet was captured), we read: 'Mr. Pollock for L. M., 100_l._' Pollock, Clerk of the Crown for Leinster, is the same man through whom the bribes for 'J. W.' (McNally) are paid.[488] The 100_l._ cannot have been for the actual capture of Emmet, for I know that in November following a bulk sum was paid for that service. The _douceur_ to L. M. was in acknowledgment of useful information.[489]