The promptitude of O'Leary's arrival in Dublin impressed badly all who read it in Froude; for Orde, according to that historian, asked the English Secretary of State to send him over two trained men from their own staff of informers.[576] The letter containing this request, however, I have not seen in print or manuscript. O'Leary came over at the same time as a detective named Parker; but the alacrity of the priest's arrival, though it looks badly, may not be altogether due to his readiness to play the spy. This man, 'poor in everything save genius and philosophy,' to quote Grattan's words, was informed, according to England, one of his biographers, that his presence in Dublin was necessary in order that some formalities should be gone through ere his name could be placed on the Irish Civil List.[577] England says that a pension which, during the previous year, he was on the point of receiving, fell through because of a change in the Cabinet; and may not this consideration have been in itself enough to expedite the journey? O'Leary had been interviewed in London by Sir Evan Nepean, a practised diplomatist, and consented, we are told, to come to Dublin to make certain inquiries. But who can tell what wily words were employed to induce him to wait on the Irish Secretary, Orde, at Dublin Castle? Orde posed as a man rather liberal for the time, and was the correspondent of Grattan and Lord Kenmare. Men of the world know that very different language is often used when writing _of_ a person, than when addressing that person direct. On the other hand it should be remembered, assuming that Sydney conveys a correct impression of what passed, that O'Leary seemed willing to accept 100_l._ for services dealing, not with the special exigencies of the hour, but on condition that he continued, from year to year, and for the same annual fee, to probe to the bottom certain secrets of his party. When he arrived in Dublin the country was rent by great and just discontent. One grievance was that Parliament possessed no adequate representation of the popular voice. In March 1784, Flood brought in a Bill for 'Reform,' and twenty-six counties petitioned in its favour. It had been decided that the Convention[578] of the previous year should be followed up by a national Congress. This announcement brought dismay to the Castle. The loss of her American Colonies had just taught Pitt a lesson. Contemporary pamphleteers, thinking perhaps of the then fashionable melodrama, 'The Castle Spectre,' saw Dublin Castle scared by mysterious terrors. 'The letters C.O.N.G.R.E.S.S.,' writes Orellana,[579] 'are magic letters, of themselves sufficient to rise an apparition before the eyes of a guilty Minister--an apparition that will seem to draw his curtains in the dead of night, and rouse him from his pillow!' The Congress was in fact the ghost of the Betrayed Convention.