Secret Service Under PittFitz-Patrick, William J. (William John)
History
Secret Service Under Pitt
Fitz-Patrick, William J. (William John)
Ireland -- History -- 1760-1820; Pitt, William, 1759-1806; Secret service -- Ireland
It will be seen that the price paid to _Samuel Turner_ is officially
reported in Dublin Castle. For centuries it had been the custom for
England to charge her Pension List on the Irish Establishment. Irish
spies and informers are generally of a low type. Reynolds--perhaps
the most important of them--could not spell, as his letters, placed
in our hands by Sir W. Cope, show. The same remark applies to the
correspondence of other informers printed by Dr. Madden. The letters
of Mr. Froude's spy are those of an educated man, and show that
he corresponded and conversed in French. Samuel Turner was well
qualified for all this and more, having graduated in the University of
Dublin.[734]
These are but a few of the reasons which satisfied me that the betrayer
described by Mr. Froude was SAMUEL TURNER. I arrived at my conclusions
slowly--according as certain facts, 'far between,' presented themselves
in the field of research. But the reader, if he cares to trace the
career of this man, and does not object to meet a repetition or two,
will find an array of circumstantial evidence amounting to moral
demonstration. It may be added that documental proof finally came to
crown these researches.
_GENERAL NAPPER TANDY_
(See chap. viii. _ante_.)
The late Mr. Allingham, of Ballyshannon--father of William Allingham
the poet--in one of his last letters, dated April 25, 1866, recalls a
strange incident. 'Should you treat of the stirring period of 1798,'
he writes, 'perhaps the following little fact may be acceptable. Some
forty years ago I chanced to be on a visit at the hospitable residence
of the late N. Foster, Esq., in the Rosses;[735] he told me of J.
Napper Tandy having put in to the Rosses, in the year 1798, with a
French ship of war, the "Anacréon," and how he at once hoisted an
Irish flag emblazoned with the words "Erin go Bragh." Tandy was then
a general in the French service. He had with him, for distribution, a
sheaf of proclamations, addressed to the Irish nation; they had been
printed in France, and he left several copies at Mr. Foster's. I got
Miss Grace Foster to take an exact copy of the strange document, and
which now I send you.
'The French General Rey also had a grandiloquent proclamation with him,
beginning "The soldiers of the Great Nation have landed on your coast,
well supplied with arms and ammunition of all kinds, with artillery
worked by those who have spread terror amongst the ranks of the best
troops in Europe, headed by French officers; they come to break your
fetters, and restore you to the blessings of liberty. James Napper
Tandy is at their head; he has sworn to lead them on to victory or die.
Brave Irishmen! the friends of liberty have left their native soil to
assist you in re-conquering [_sic_] your rights; they will brave all
dangers, and glory at the sublime idea of cementing your happiness with
their blood."[736]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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