Lewins and Turner were rival envoys--Lewins represented the Leinster Directory; Turner claimed to speak for Ulster. Of Lewins, who stands above all suspicion, Reinhard writes to De la Croix in 1797:--'I think L..... incapable of treachery, but capable of imprudence. I should not answer thus concerning _the other_. What seems further to concur in the support of my hypothesis is, that Mr. L. before his departure made it a point of great importance to ascertain whether there was any other envoy from Ireland, who addressed himself to me, and that he begged me not to give my confidence to any other than to him alone. I refrained from giving these tidings to General Hoche, not only because my means of corresponding with him are uncertain, but because all the letters from Frankfort announce his departure for Paris.' It may not have struck Mr. Froude, as it certainly strikes me, that the man he describes[144] as visiting Lord Downshire, and at the last moment offering to betray, was the same person whom the historian, one hundred pages previously, notices as an informer, 'in the closest confidence of the _Northern Leaders_, but whose name is still a mystery.' It will be seen that Pelham's correspondent of 1796 had fallen into debt and difficulties. This at first seems not consistent with the statement of Mr. Froude that Downshire's visitor was the son of a gentleman of good fortune in the North. But it is easy to see that the son himself had got into pecuniary straits. He tells Downshire of the expenses he is under, and asks Pitt for a 'cool 500_l._'[145] to begin with. In addition to a judgment debt of 1,500_l._ which Jacob Turner in his will forgives his son Samuel,[146] I find, on examining the records of the three Law Courts, that another judgment debt of 800_l._ was marked against Samuel Turner on January 26, 1793.[147] Speaking of informers, Mr. Froude writes under date 1796:-- One of these especially, whose name is still a mystery, was in the closest confidence of the Belfast leaders. He had been among the most enthusiastic of the original members of Tone's society, but he had fallen into debt to others of the confederates and had been expelled. In revenge he sold himself to the Government, satisfied his creditors with money which he received from Pelham, and was at once taken back into confidence. Among others, he became an intimate associate of William Orr, a Belfast tradesman, afterwards executed for treason, who at this time was a member of the Head Northern Committee. Orr told him that everything was ready. Dublin, Cork, Limerick, were waiting only for orders to rise, and when the word was given the movement was to be universal and simultaneous. They had 200,000 men already officered in regiments; they had pikes and muskets for 150,000, and more were on the way.