This is further useful in showing that O'Leary was no admirer of the French king, and now that he was a pensioner of England would hardly object to discover the reported French agents in Dublin, who, with Napper Tandy, are said to have 'drank on their knees' the toast of 'Louis of France.' The latter story--told by the Viceroy, Rutland, in his letter to Sydney--bears improbability on its face. It seems strange that Tandy and his party, who not long after were Red Republicans and the allies of Carnot and Hoche, would drink the health of Louis XVI. on their knees.[547] They were principally Protestants; and John O'Connell, in the Life of his father, says that Sheares shocked the future Liberator by exultantly displaying a handkerchief soaked in the French king's blood. I suspect that when O'Leary returned from making, in September 1784, the inquiries which he is assumed to have done, his report was something in the spirit of Canning's knife-grinder: 'Story! God bless you, I have none to tell, sir;' and that Orde concluded O'Leary himself was in the plot. On October 17, Orde writes to Nepean, alluding to some rumour about our friar which is not stated. 'Del Campo's connection with O'Leary--or rather O'Leary's with him--may have given rise to all the report; but, after all, I think it right to be very watchful over the priest, and wish _you_ to be so over the Minister. They are all of them designing knaves.' Thus it appears that in little more than a fortnight after O'Leary is supposed to have begun to spy, Orde was far from satisfied with him. FOOTNOTES: [522] _United Irishmen_, iii. p. vi. [523] Mr. Froude, with the letter before him which he found, could adopt hardly any other impression. Mr. Macdonough, in _Irish Graves in England_, follows Froude, and speaks of O'Leary's 'traitorous conduct.' He, however, errs in assigning 1811, instead of 1802, as the date of his death. See _Evening Telegraph_, February 6, 1888. [524] The omitted matter is merely a compliment. [525] Plowden's _Ireland since the Union_, i. 6. (Dublin, 1811.) [526] Mr. Lecky, who examined the State Papers, tells us that seven years later, _i.e._ 1791, 'The chief members of the Irish Government made it their deliberate object to revive the religious animosities which had so greatly subsided, to raise the standard of Protestant ascendancy, and to organise through the country an opposition to concession.' [527] Vol. vi. 369. [528] _Vide_ Lecky, iv. 491. [529] 'If 30,000 men under the denomination of French troops landed in Ireland,' writes O'Leary, '15,000 Protestants from France, Germany, Switzerland, &c., would make up half the number. Neither are you to confide in their promises of protection.'--O'Leary's _Tract_, p. 104. [530] Dean Lee, the grandnephew of Dr. Carpenter, tells me that a smart apostate priest had been deputed to frame the new oath.