I do not like that phrase of Plowden in which he says--when speaking of O'Leary's pension--that it was only after giving repeated proofs that the secret condition had been complied with, he received a large arrear.[612] Plowden no doubt thinks that the pension was meant as 'hush money;' but it is a question whether O'Leary was quite frank with him as to its character. 'An oak of the forest is too old to be transplanted at fifty,' said Grattan, regarding Flood's removal to London in 1784. 'Disgusted with the condition of his country,' writes O'Leary's later biographer, Buckley, 'and hopeless of doing anything by which it could be improved, he resolved on quitting it altogether and living in the free atmosphere of England, so congenial to a bounding and manly temperament like his.... In the year 1789 Arthur O'Leary left Ireland for ever, and took up his residence in London as one of the chaplains to the Spanish Embassy.'[613] It appears, however, from the testimony of Plowden, the attached friend of O'Leary, that it was a condition expressly made by the Crown that O'Leary was 'to reside no more in Ireland.'[614] I suspect that the appointment just described was brought about by Court intrigue. From the time of the Armada the movements of the Spanish minister were viewed with jealousy, often with alarm. In 1779, when the combined fleets of Spain and France rode menacingly in the Channel, O'Leary, as we have seen, denounced them to the Irish people, and his appointment to the Spanish embassy must have been the work of England rather than of Spain. In 1789 strained relations had again arisen between Spain and England; and a few years later war was actually declared by Spain.[615] Sydney states that O'Leary had already consented to furnish secret information.[616] His present position would enable him to acquire knowledge of, not only the designs of Spain, but of Dr. Hussey too; and without saying that O'Leary could be capable of downright treachery, it is probable that Pitt believed he would. It will be remembered that, in 1780, Dr. Hussey, chief chaplain to the Spanish embassy in London, had been sent with Richard Cumberland to effect a treaty with the Court of Spain, a negotiation not entirely successful. What was the precise nature of the hold which Hussey, originally a Carthusian monk, acquired over the Court of England is destined to remain shrouded. Buckley says it was at the special request of George III. that Dr. Hussey accompanied Mr. Cumberland on a secret mission to Madrid.[617]