I observe also that they have passed very lightly over their connections with the Spanish Government, and yet we have undoubted proof that a direct communication had taken place with some Minister of that country at the time that McNevin was at Hamburg. The Duke of Portland particularly wishes that some of them should be closely questioned as to this point, and the mode now adopted of examining them separately seems to be particularly favourable for drawing the real secret from them. They certainly had audiences of the Spanish Chargé d'Affaires at Hamburg, and, I believe, also of Mr. D. C. at Paris. I have always had strong suspicions that Dr. H.[657] has sent returns of the state and temper of the Catholics in Ireland to the Spanish Government.[658] 'D.C.' must be Del Campo,[659] the Spanish Minister already mentioned in Sydney's letter about O'Leary; and 'Dr. H.' can only mean Dr. Hussey, chaplain to the Spanish embassy in London. As such, he was the servant of Spain, and when a conclave of English Catholics named him as envoy to Rome, there to lay before Pius VI. a document of much importance, Del Campo refused him leave of absence. The latter had now ceased to be Spanish minister, and Lord Camden had become the Viceroy of Ireland. Mr. Froude, with warmth, writes: 'Lord Camden had brought into Ireland, as he supposed, a serpent of healing, but it turned on him and stung him.'[660] This allusion is to Dr. Hussey who, in 1797, became Bishop of Waterford, and at once issued a pastoral charge so ultramontane that it gave quite a shock at Whitehall. He lived in a style of brilliant pretension hitherto unattempted by his brother bishops,--men who, as Shiel states, were wont to pick their steps stealthily, as among penal traps. Dr. Hussey's elevation to the See of Waterford was due to the British Crown, but may have been influenced by a desire to shelve him in a remote place where he could do scant harm by intrigue. 'It was as mischievous a performance as ever I read,' quoth Sir John Coxe Hippesley _à propos_ of Dr. Hussey's pastoral, 'and ministers here took care he should know their sentiments on that subject. He was in dudgeon thereat, and the Duke of Portland told me he demanded his passport "to return to Spain;" it was made out, but the doctor thought better of it, and he remains to lend his hand to _the tranquillity_ of Ireland.'[661]