This is slightly misleading. Pitt had given a pledge, through Cornwallis, to Archbishop Troy that he would not accept office except on condition that the Catholic claims were to be met. In 1801, owing to the fixed resolve of the King against Emancipation, Pitt went out. His conduct, therefore, was so far straight. When he returned to power in 1804, in complete violation of that compact, O'Leary had been two years dead. Among O'Leary's admirers there was none more ardent than the late Lord Chancellor O'Hagan, in whose now deserted study still hangs a fine portrait of the friar, inscribed with soul-stirring sentiments on which O'Hagan had long sought to shape his own course. This gentleman could not bring himself to believe Mr. Froude's charge branding O'Leary as a spy, and was unable to rest until he read with his own eyes at the State Paper Office the original correspondence. He returned to Dublin declaring that the imputation was but too well founded. This view, coming from a man of judicial mind, might be taken as conclusive; but yet, one is unwilling to see a great reputation wrecked, without wishing to throw out a hope or a plank by which there is a chance of saving it. This plank is, indeed, a poor one; but, just as a sinking man will grasp even at a straw, humanity suggests that no effort should be left untried to keep the struggler afloat. The two letters which led Lord O'Hagan to his reluctant conclusion are now before the reader. In neither is the Christian name of O'Leary given; but no other priest of the name obtained contemporary notice. The most damaging bit of evidence is Sydney's letter to Rutland announcing that O'Leary, having been talked to by Nepean, was willing to do what was wished for 100_l._ a year.[645] These letters bear date 1784, eighteen years before O'Leary's death. No letters of his in any way compromising him have been found. The voluminous papers of Pelham, the Irish Secretary, from 1795 to 1798 do not once mention his name. 'I have certainly never seen any reports from O'Leary to the Government,' writes Mr. Lecky in reply to an inquiry; 'and I have quoted in my History every passage I have come across in which he is ever mentioned.'[646] These passages are few. O'Leary was a decided humourist: no one conversing with him felt quite sure when he meant to be serious. In the 'talk' that passed he may have played the diplomat. We have seen how Orde distrusted him. To a request blandly urged in personal converse by a statesman who had already pensioned him, this friar, existing merely by connivance, could not afford to assume attitudes of offended dignity. A glimpse of his precarious position is caught from a speech of Grattan's:--