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
Although the case of M. Jägerhorn is opened in the first volume of the
'Castlereagh Papers,' and misplaced among the incidents of another
year, we do not find until far in the second the letters addressed to
him in 1797 by General Valence and Lord Edward. In 1799 Jägerhorn had
sought to renew his perilous enterprise. The same keen scent which
traced Lord Edward, in 1797, to the lodgings of the confidential envoy
in London, was once more on his track. Wickham, writing from the Home
Office on March 28, 1799, has news for Castlereagh in Dublin: 'I have
the satisfaction to inform your lordship that we have secured M.
Jägerhorn, who was coming over here on a mission similar to that which
he undertook some two years since, when he met Lord Edward Fitzgerald
in London.'
A full report is given of Jägerhorn's examination, in which he is
asked: 'Were you not charged to deliver to Lord Edward Fitzgerald a
letter from somebody?' and he replied, 'Madame Matthiessen.' This was
the lady, nearly connected with Lady Edward, and alluded to by Mr.
Froude as a name found in secret papers. He is further questioned
about Lord Edward, Lady Lucy, General Valence, and a number of other
persons whose names had cropped up in the interview between Turner and
Downshire; but, though the queries were searching, and Jägerhorn now
seemed completely in Pitt's power, nothing material was wrung from him.
England and Russia were at this time allied, and Jägerhorn, pretending
that he had a pension of 2,000 roubles as a spy of Russia, rather
dumb-foundered his examiners, and he at last regained his liberty. All
this is to be found, with full details, in the 'Correspondence of Lord
Castlereagh.'
The paltry sum which Turner received for his services now comes to
be considered. This man, who had every facility of access to Lady
Edward's house at Hamburg and its rebel _entourage_, held the key of a
position so incalculably important that he never himself discerned
its marketable value. Thousands would doubtless just as readily have
been paid to him as 'the cool 500_l._' that he modestly asked. 'To get
the information had cost him,' he said, 'three times that sum, and to
keep up the acquaintances and connections he had at Hamburg he could
not live on less.' 'Small profits and quick returns' seems to have been
his motto.
'Fresh evidence of the person's power to be useful,' writes Froude,
'made Pitt extremely anxious to secure his permanent help.' The
Cornwallis papers record, but without any attempt to identify him, that
the pension Samuel Turner received--dating from 1800--was but 300_l._
a year. Wellington when Irish Secretary addressed to Portland a letter
in which a present payment of 5,000_l._, and 'not more than 20,000_l._
within the year,' appears guaranteed to one nameless informer.[235]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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