William J. (William John) Fitz-Patrick - Secret Service Under Pitt

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT

THE PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE AND MEMOIRS

OF

DANIEL O'CONNELL, M.P.

By WM. J. FITZPATRICK, F.S.A.

KNT. ST. GREG. GT.

'In these volumes there is nothing tedious, and they are well put together.' Standard.

'Mr. Fitzpatrick, who has done more than any living writer for Irish biography, has in this, his latest and most important work earned the gratitude of all students of Irish politics.' Daily Telegraph.

'This work stands high above the extravagant and indiscriminating eulogies of O'Connell, accompanied by ignorant and malignant denunciations of all opposed to him, hitherto given to the world by patriotic biographers.' Times.

'Inspired by love and admiration, pursued with laborious and indefatigable industry, and guided by honesty and good judgment. It gives a higher and, we believe, a truer view of O'Connell's character than has been given to the world before.' Vanity Fair.

'Fresh light is thrown upon a most interesting period of Irish history by this publication, in which Daniel O'Connell reveals his innermost thoughts upon great public questions, as well as on themes of sacred and private import. Courts and Cabinetsthe intrigues of public men and the subtleties of political organisationsare alike laid open to the public gaze.' Daily Chronicle.

'To Mr. Fitzpatrick is due the gratitude of all students of history, of truth, and of human character for the patience and pertinacity with which he has collected these letters, and the knowledge, discretion, and tact of his arrangement. He has let O'Connell tell his own story, and the connecting thread is slight and scientific, such as only minute knowledge of his period could make it. The reader is hardly conscious of its presence, yet it suffices to weld a huge mass of miscellaneous correspondence into an authentic biography and lifelike portrait of the man who, of all others, made the greatest mark on his country and his generation.' Athenum.

'Mr. Fitzpatrick, while presenting to us a collection of moderate extent, has not only woven them into a web of fair average continuity, but has, as a sculptor would, presented to us his hero "in the round," so that we may consider each of his qualities in each varied light, and judge of their combination into a whole, whether it is mean or noble, consistent or inconsistent, natural or forced.... Few indeed, as I think, of those who give a careful perusal to these pages, will withhold their assent from the double assertion that O'Connell was a great man, and that he was a good man. Upon this issue the volumes now before us will enable us to try him: and in trying him to try ourselves. For who can any longer doubt that some debt is still due to him; that he was, to say the least, both over-censured and undervalued?'Mr. Gladstone , in The Nineteenth Century.

London: JOHN MURRAY, Albemarle Street.

BY

W. J. FITZPATRICK, F.S.A.

LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16th STREET
1892

These rough notesbegun long ago and continued at slow intervalswere put aside during the onerous task of editing for Mr. Murray the O'Connell Correspondence. The recent publication of Mr. Lecky's final volumes, awakening by their grasp a fixed interest in pre-Union times, and confirming much that by circumstantial evidence I had sought to establish, affords a reason, perhaps, that my later researches in the same field ought not to be wholly lost. Mr. Lecky's kindness in frequently quoting me merits grateful acknowledgment, not less than his recognition of some things that I brought to light as explanatory of points to which the State Papers afford no clue. This and other circumstances encourage me in offering more.

My sole purpose at the outset was to expose a well-cloaked case of long-continued betrayal by one of whom Mr. Froude confesses that all efforts to identify had failed; In various instances a veil will be found lifted, or a visor unlocked, revealing features which may prove a surprise. Nor is the story without a moral. The organisers of illegal societies will see that, in spite of the apparent secrecy and ingenuity of their system, informers sit with them at the same council-board and dinner-table, ready at any moment to sell their blood; and that the wider the ramifications of conspiracy, the greater becomes the certainty of detection.

It may be that some of these researches are more likely to interest and assist students of the history of the time than to prove pleasant reading for those who take up a book merely for enjoyment. Yet if there is truth in the axiom that men who write with ease are read with difficulty, and vice vers, these chapters ought to find readers. Every page had its hard work. Tantalising delays attended at times the search for some missingbut finally discoveredlink. Indeed, volumes of popular reading, written currente calamo, might have been thrown off for a tithe of the trouble.

'If the power to do hard work is not talent,' writes Garfield, 'it is the best possible substitute for it. Things don't turn up in this world until somebody turns them up.' Readers who, thanks to Froude and Lecky, have been interested by glimpses of men in startling attitudes, would naturally like to learn the curious sequel of their subsequent history. This I have done my best to furnish. The present volume is humbly offered as a companion to the two great works just alluded to. But it will also prove useful to readers of the Wellington, Castlereagh, Cornwallis, and Colchester Correspondence. These books abound in passages which, without explanation, are unintelligible. The matter now presented forms but a small part of the notes I have made with the same end.

A word as regards some of the later sources of my information. The Pelham MSS. were not accessible when Mr. Froude wrote. Thomas Pelham, second Earl of Chichester, was Irish Secretary from 1795 to 1798, but his correspondence until 1826 deals largely with Ireland, and I have read as much of it as would load a float. Another mine was found in the papers, ranging from 1795 to 1805, which filled two iron-clamped chests in Dublin Castle, guarded with the Government seal and bearing the words 'Secret and Confidential: Not to be Opened.' These chests were for a long time familiar objects exteriorly, and when it was at last permitted to disturb the rust of lock and hinge, peculiar interest attended the exploration. Among the contents were 136 letters from Francis Higgins, substantially supporting all that I had ventured to say twenty years before in the book which claimed to portray his career. But neither the Pelham Papers in London nor the archives at Dublin Castle reveal the great secret to which Mr. Froude points.

That so many documents have been preserved is fortunate. Mr. Ross, in his preface to the Cornwallis Correspondence, laments that 'the Duke of Portland, Lord Chancellor Clare, Mr. Wickham, Mr. King, Sir H. Taylor, Sir E. Littlehales, Mr. Marsden, and indeed almost all the persons officially concerned, appear to have destroyed the whole of their papers.' He adds: 'The destruction of so many valuable documents respecting important transactions cannot but be regarded as a serious loss to the political history of these times.'