[512] _Life of Curran_, 1820, ii. 380. Italics in original. [513] He seems not to have been so badly maimed as he gave Phillips to believe. John P. Prendergast, a nonagenarian, remembers McNally saying at the Trim Assizes in 1817, 'I have a finger and thumb to tweak the nose of any man who dares to question my acts.' Luckily the present writer did not live in those days. How one thumb went, see p. 177. [514] Letter of J. J. Scallan, Esq., M.D., to the author. Black Rock, April 23, 1890. The Doctor may not be quite right in his assumption. [515] Mr. Lecky says that 'McNally had specially good opportunities of learning the sentiments of Grattan' (vii. 281). Grattan died May 14; McNally on February 13. [516] Rev. John Kearney, P.P., St. Catherine's, to the author, February 10, 1860. [517] McNally and Father Smith seem to have been old chums. So far back as 1805, 'J. W.' writes, in one of his undated letters: 'Smith, the priest whom I have before mentioned, informed me last night that a person arrived here from France within these few days. The intelligence he brings is an assurance of a Descent by the French, and that the Fleet is now in the Atlantic with this object. I do not give credence to his Information. I found it impossible to extract particulars or names, but I am to see him to-morrow (Sunday).' Smith, suspecting McNally to be a spy, is likely to have charged his news with sensationalism, and 'Mac,' no doubt, found him useful as a scout. That he was an open-mouthed gossiping man, his account of his very solemn mission to the death-bed of the spy shows. He never received promotion, and in the end became so deaf that when officiating in his confessional he always reiterated audibly the character of the sin disclosed, so as to be sure he heard it correctly, and the result was very painful embarrassment to such neighbouring worshippers as could not fail to become _en rapport_ with the conscience of the penitent. Compare _Wellington Correspondence (Ireland)_, pp. 192-3, and the 'Information of a Priest regarding threatened Invasion.'