It is certainly admitted by even O'Leary's panegyrists that at the period of the Convention of 1783 delicate overtures, which they assume he rejected, were made to him; but the magnanimous words supposed to have been used by O'Leary when parleying with his tempter rest on no authority whatever, and some will be disposed to suspect that a colour is imparted to the overtures more presentable to general readers than the naked truth, whatever it was. The pension, I repeat, which O'Leary already enjoyed, was, I think, merely for his writings; though, prior to September 1784, he may have accepted douceurs for distinct acts of diplomacy. At all events it is due to O'Leary to give him the full benefit of the exculpatory words of his brother priest. Describing the Volunteer Convention, Father Buckley writes, eighty years later:-- During Father O'Leary's visit to Dublin on this occasion, he was waited on by a gentleman who was well known to be on very close and friendly relations with the Government of the day.[560] The visit appeared, for some time, to be merely one of ceremony, and the visitor paid many handsome compliments to the Father on the style of his writings and their good effect on the public mind. Soon, however, it was easy to see that diplomacy had more to do with the visit than etiquette, for the gentleman, in courteous language, intimated that if Father O'Leary would use his pen in extolling certain measures just then brought forward by the Administration, his services would be handsomely requited. O'Leary was displeased and indignant at the proposal to barter his patriotism for a bribe, and conveyed his feelings in no measured phrase. The request was therefore softened down into an entreaty that he would at least abstain from writing on those measures in terms of condemnation. But the minion of the Government knew not with what manner of man he had to deal. 'I will never be silent,' warmly exclaimed O'Leary, 'whilst my exertions can be of the least service to my religion or my country.'[561] Thus far Buckley, the biographer of 1867. England, O'Leary's biographer of 1822, finishes the interview in less florid words: 'He was then told that a pension of 150_l._ per annum was to be offered for his acceptance, and that no condition repugnant to his feelings as an Irishman or Catholic was to be annexed to it. A change in the Administration[562] took place shortly afterwards, and the promise remained unfulfilled.'[563] Father England assumes that O'Leary spurned the overtures at the time of the Convention, though later on his acceptance of a pension is admitted. While guiltless, no doubt, of direct betrayal, he may have been led to connive at a trick by which the Irish Government succeeded in breaking up the Convention.[564]