Secret Service Under Pitt

Armstrong was another man who, unlike Turner and Magan, boldly betrayed, and by baring his name to popular odium, bared his breast to its penalties. He lived to old age in a dis...

Another man there was of the same type as Turner, who posed in impenetrable disguise, but unlike Reynolds and Armstrong, spied in secrecy and on the express condition that he sh...

Thirty years ago I published in 'Notes and Queries'[427] an _exposé_ of McNally, so far as it could then be done on circumstantial evidence. His secret letters to the Irish Gove...

It is to be regretted that the State Paper naming 'O'Leary and Del Campo' should be couched in words so brief and cautious. Mr. Lecky offers no explanation of it. Not only are w...

The State Papers throw no light on what Plowden styles 'the arbitrary withdrawal of O'Leary's pension.' The following historic incident, now forgotten, and curious in its detail...

An old and very influential French newspaper, 'Le Journal des Débats,' published, on February 29, 1884, an article descriptive of the pleasure with which its writer had heard su...

Although the spy did not confide to Lord Downshire until October 1797 his name and secrets, there is reason to believe that he had furnished information previously. To enhance h...

Dr. Madden, in a well-known work of considerable authority, singles out three divines as examples of noble qualities: _i.e._ 'the Right Rev. Dr. Doyle, the Rev. Arthur O'Leary,...

In 1799, Turner's stealthy steps can be traced once more in London. It will be remembered that Lord Edward Fitzgerald had met, by appointment near Whitechapel, M. Jägerhorn, a s...

A recent letter from the ex-Crown and Treasury Solicitor for Ireland quotes the following from Mr. Lecky's notice of an unnamed spy, and asks me 'Who is he?'[390] 'He was a Dubl...

The letters of secret information in the well-known 'Castlereagh Correspondence' being mostly without date are inserted regardless of chronological sequence, and are often, from...

Of Duckett, an amateur rebel envoy, mentioned in connection with the arrest of Napper Tandy,[259] something remains to be said. He was a man of very active habits, and if less i...

Twelve Presbyterian clergymen were concerned in the rebellion: the Rev. W. Steel Dickson, D.D., who wrote an interesting 'Narrative' of his 'Confinement and Exile,' Rev. Samuel...

A second mission of secrecy to Spain proved more successful than his first. In 1786 London swarmed with freed negroes, made wicked by idleness, and four hundred of them, with si...

Lord Cloncurry in his Memoirs writes of his 'dear friend Lord Edward Fitzgerald,' and readers of that book will remember the touching narrative given of the writer's arrest and...

Mr. Froude, after a perusal of the letters of Downshire's friend, and other documents, states that a priest named O'Coigly or Quigley 'had visited Paris in 1797, returned to Dub...

Mr. Froude, quoting from the betrayer's letter to Downshire, writes:--'I went to Harley Street, where Fitz[116] told me of the conduct of the Catholics to him and his friends. H...

Todd Jones, Wolfe Tone, and Hon. Simon Butler were three Protestants to whom, Mr. Froude says, the Catholic Committee voted 1,500_l._ each, as a reward for their cordially rende...

It was not easy to separate the threads of the tangled skein which Mr. Froude found hidden away in the dust of the past. But, lest the process of unravelling should tax the read...

No greater contrast could be found to the idiosyncrasy of Magan than that of Thomas Reynolds. If the former was shy, shrinking, and unobtrusive, Reynolds had indomitable _audace...

It is now some years since Mr. Froude invested with new interest the Romance of Rebellion. Perhaps the most curious of the episodes disclosed by him is that where, after describ...

career of Magan;' and he quotes the above as 'a very curious fact,' adding that it would be interesting to know if 'the transaction took place shortly after the death of Lord Ed...

adviser: 'No papers on politics were found on me, for I never had such' (_Memoirs_, p. 138). Previously, he casually mentions that his father 'insisted upon my going to London t...

[7] Cyrus Marie Valence, Count de Timbrune, born 1757, died 1822. His exploits as a general officer are largely commemorated in the memoirs of his friend, Dumouriez. After havin...