Abounding with glowing imagery, classical allusion, and displaying in every sentence the energy of an enlightened and vigorous mind, the Doctor took occasion to felicitate his flock, in the most emphatic terms, on the happiness enjoyed in this country, on the constitution and state of which he pronounced a fine panegyric, happily applying to the extent of our dominion and national glory the line of the poet-- Imperium Oceano, famamque terminat astris. O'Leary's friends will hope that it was by this tone, rather than by playing the ignominious _rôle_ of a spy, that he sought to regain governmental favour. The sole remaining letter in the carefully preserved records of the informers of '98 which names O'Leary must not be excluded here. Things had quite changed since 1784. Higgins, in a secret letter to Dublin Castle, dated January 2, 1798, says:-- I took leave to inform you, some time since, that many Roman Catholics seem apparently sorry for the lengths they've been led, and suggested, if O'Leary, or any popular preacher, was to exert himself among them, thousands would come to swear allegiance. I know O'Leary would be a tower of strength among them. He was their first champion, and is most highly respected by the multitude. His writings and preaching prevented the White Boys and insurgents of the South from joining the rabble of Cork and rising _en masse_ at the period when the combined fleets of Spain, France, etc., were in the English Channel.[652] Higgins does not say that O'Leary authorised him to make this proposition; and even had he done so, it cannot be deemed base. Orde's letters to the Home Office in 1784, though urging extreme caution lest he and his colleagues should be themselves betrayed, show him to be impulsive in statement, and prone to jump to conclusions. These letters, blemished by an occasional expletive, are printed by Mr. Lecky. Orde is quite sanguine as regards wonderful Catholic secrets that O'Leary would unearth, but this is not the only case in which he exhibits rashness of assumption. These notes must now end. If their freedom and fulness need justification, it is found, perhaps, in O'Leary's own words. He had meditated a history of the political events of 1780. The duty of the Historian [he writes] binds him to arraign at the impartial tribunal of truth both men and actions; unmask the leading characters; examine into their motives; lay open the hidden springs of proceedings, whether worthy of applause, or deserving to be doomed to censure; and embellish his narrative with suitable reflections. No person is obliged to write a history [he adds], but when he writes it he must tell the truth.[653]