A word remains to be said respecting Parker, the second agent named in Orde's letter of 1784. He is not so easily identified as Father O'Leary. The Irish books which treat of the period may be vainly searched for the name of Parker. It has been said that the adventurous spirit, who thirteen years later aroused by his eloquence the British navy to mutiny, was identical or connected with Orde's agent. I do not bind myself to the truth of this theory; nor am I able to prove a negative; but certainly some circumstances support it worthy of consideration; and having promised in a former chapter to recur to Parker of the Nore, I am afforded an opportunity for doing so by Mr. Froude's account of the secret mission to Dublin. Orde's agent arrived there in September 1784, to overreach and, as we are told, outmouth noisy patriots. It is true that Parker the mutineer was finally executed by the English authorities; but Jemmy O'Brien, the spy, also swung at the same hands. The former had received a classical education, and had served in the navy during the American War. His character was bad. His irrepressible oratory and power of influencing minds got him into scrapes. He married a woman with some property, which he dissipated, and was then imprisoned for debt. Released at length, he was sent on board the royal fleet as a 'supernumerary seaman,' to quote Portland's proclamation offering 500_l._ for his arrest. 'The address, ready eloquence, but, above all,' says Rose, 'the deep dissimulation he possessed, gave him vast influence over his comrades.' If true that Parker was sent on board the fleet to counteract mutiny, the result only shows that it is possible for an extinguisher to take fire. In his written defence, read on the fourth day of his trial, he 'solemnly declared that his only object of entering into the mutiny was that of checking a most dangerous spirit of revolt which had prevailed in the different ships, the bad effects of which he had done all in his power to prevent.' How he fanned the flame of mutiny, and on its outburst was appointed 'President,' we have already seen. This was in 1797. Who is the Parker, with persuasive oratorical powers, that is sent on a questionable mission to Ireland in 1784? It may be said that this cannot be Parker who afterwards figured at the Nore, because at the time of the secret mission to Dublin he was serving in the navy at a far distant place. The following words of Gorton make it hard to prove an 'alibi' for Richard Parker.[654] After describing his service during the American War, Gorton writes: 'On peace taking place he retired from his professional duties.' American independence had been won in 1778; but the articles of peace were not signed by England until November 30, 1782. Therefore Parker could be easily in Dublin in 1784. Mr. Froude's remarks about him are meagre, but it may be gleaned that the Parker of '84 was a man qualified and ready to keep a dark diary of what he observed.