We know on the authority of James Hope, who wrote down his 'Recollections' of this time at the request of a friend, that Turner, having fled from Ireland, filled the office of resident agent at Hamburg of the United Irishmen. The Irish envoys and refugees, finding themselves in a place hardly less strange than Tierra del Fuego, ignorant of its language, its rules and its ways, sought on arrival the accredited agent of their brotherhood, hailed him with joy, and regarded the spot on which he dwelt as a bit of Irish soil sacred to the Shamrock. The hardship which some of the refugees went through was trying enough. James Hope, writing in 1846, says that Palmer, one of Lord Edward's bodyguard in Dublin, travelled, 'mostly barefooted, from Paris to Hamburg, where he put himself into communication with Samuel Turner.' The object of Palmer's mission was to expose one Bureaud, then employed as a spy by Holland. 'Palmer,' writes Hope, 'gave Turner a gold watch to keep for him.' He enlisted in a Dutch regiment, and was found drowned in the Scheldt. 'When Turner,' adds Hope, 'was applied to for the watch by Palmer's sister, he replied that he forgot what became of it.' Hamburg in troubled times was a place of great importance for the maintenance of intercourse between England and France. Here, as Mr. Froude states, 'Lord Downshire's friend' had vast facilities for getting at the inmost secrets of the United Irishmen. Hope's casual statement serves to show how it was that this 'person' could have had access to Lady Edward Fitzgerald's confidence, and that of her political friends at Hamburg. FOOTNOTES: [27] In chapter vii. my contention will be found established on conclusive testimony, which had failed to present itself until years had been given to a slow process of logical deduction. _Vide_ also Appendix to this volume. [28] 'The Northern Marquis' was, of course, Lord Downshire. [29] 'A Lanthorn through some Dark Passages, with a Key to Secret Chambers,' was the title originally chosen for the present book, but I finally laid it aside as being too much in the style of old Parson Fry's 'Pair of Bellows to Blow away the Dust.' [30] How this book got out of the Castle and was sold for waste paper by a man named Fagan is a curious story in itself. The volume is now preserved in the Royal Irish Academy. [31] A prisoner named Turner, Christian name not given, indicted for high treason, is announced as discharged in December 1795, owing to the flight of a Crown witness.--Vide _Irish State Trials_ (Dublin: Exshaw, 1796); Lib. R. I. Academy. [32] _Vide_ pp. 21-2. Newell's pamphlet will be found in the Halliday Collection, vol. 743, Royal Irish Academy. [33] _Vide_ Mr. Matthew's narrative in _The Sham Squire_, sixth edition, pp. 355-363. [34] This place of rendezvous was, doubtless, chosen because of its proximity to Leinster House, where Lord Edward mainly lived.