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
Wickham's letter of June 8, 1798, enumerated, for the information
of Lord Castlereagh, a number of men whose arrests in England seem
consequent on the information furnished by Downshire's visitor. These
names include McGuckin, the attorney, who had been concerned for
O'Coigly at Maidstone. The subsequent career of this once determined
rebel, but who soon after his arrest in 1798 became a spy for the
Crown, enhances the importance of Turner's information at a great
crisis. The first recorded payment to McGuckin of secret service money
is March 5, 1799.[242] His son migrated to France, and was created a
baron by Louis Philippe.
The peril of assassination which shadowed every step made by Turner
was not adequately weighed by Pitt when estimating the value of his
services. The risk he ran was not confined to Ireland. The life of an
English spy abroad was deemed equally unsafe, and there is much reason
to fear that more than one met with short shrift. Even a successful
diplomat, if his subtlety touched French interests, could not regard
his life as safe. The disappearance of Benjamin Bathurst, a kinsman
of Earl Bathurst, has never been explained. Bathurst was sent on a
secret mission to Vienna, at the time that England before opening the
Peninsular campaign sought to persuade Austria to declare, by way of a
distraction, war against France. Austria soon after crossed the French
frontier, and Bathurst received hints of threatened personal doom.
Hoping to avoid assassination, he took a northerly route in returning
to England, and on reaching Perleberg in Brandenburg, he visited, in
his agitation, the commandant of cuirassiers, requesting that sentries
might mount guard at the inn where he stopped. These were supplied,
and Bathurst spent the day in writing and destroying letters. Shortly
before his carriage came to the door in the dark of a November evening,
he told some troopers who escorted him that they might withdraw. While
all the household was on the alert to see him off, he walked beyond the
circle of the lantern glare, and was lost to sight at the heads of the
horses. This occurred on November 25, 1809, and Bathurst was never seen
or heard of more, notwithstanding that, as we are reminded by Baring
Gould, England offered 2,000_l._ reward, and Prussia 100 Friedrichs
d'or, for the discovery even of his remains.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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