from whom Government received it. There is so much evidence against this person, that he is (I am informed) completely in the power of Government. Your Grace will observe, that the care of Mrs. Jackson is recommended by her husband to the National Convention, and that Mr. McNally is desired to assist her by every means in his power to procure her assistance from them. It has occurred to me, that an excuse might be made for Mr. McNally's being allowed to enter France for the purpose of attending to this woman's fortunes, that he should go through London, and in case your Grace should wish to employ him, I would inform you when and where he will be found.'1

Portland replied that he was perfectly ready to make use of the services of McNally in France, if Camden thought that he might safely be trusted, but he suggested that this was very doubtful. The control which Government possessed over him depended entirely upon the conclusive evidence of treason they had against him. Would that control continue in a foreign country? Camden, on reflection, agreed that it would not be safe to try the experiment. McNally, however, he was convinced, would be very useful at home.2

Of this, indeed, there could be little doubt. As confidential lawyer of the United Irishmen, he had opportunities of information of the rarest kind. It is certain that he sometimes communicated to the Government the line of defence contemplated by his clients, and other information which he can only have received in professional confidence, and briefs annotated by his hand, will be found among the Government papers at Dublin. He was also able, in a manner which was not less base, to furnish the Government with early and most authentic evidence about conspiracies which were forming in France. James Tandy, son of Napper Tandy, had been a brave and distinguished officer in the service of the East India Company, and although he had been a United Irishman in the beginning of the movement, he appears

1 Camden to Portland, May 20, 1795 (Record Office). At the bottom of the copy sent by Camden is written, True copies from the originals delivered to me, May 14, 1795, by J. W.' J. W. is the signature under which McNally invariably wrote to the Government. I am unable to say what

had happened to him between Jackson's death (April 30) and May 14, whether fresh evidence had been brought against him, and under what circumstances he was induced to surrender the papers of Jackson.

2 Portland to Camden, May 22; Camden to Portland, May 26, 1795.

CH. XXVII,

LEONARD MCNALLY.

141

to have been very unlike his father both in character and opinions. McNally was his intimate friend, and by his means saw nearly every letter that arrived from Napper Tandy, and some of those which came from Rowan and Reynolds. The substance of these letters was regularly transmitted to the Government, and they sometimes contained information of much value. Besides this, as a lawyer in considerable practice, constantly going on circuit, and acquainted with the leaders of sedition, McNally had excellent opportunities of knowing the state of the country, and was able to give very valuable warnings about the prevailing dispositions.

6

Few men would have been thought less capable of long-continued deception than this good-humoured, brilliant, and mercurial lawyer; and in times when public feeling ran fiercely against all who were suspected of disloyalty, he was the most constant, and apparently the most devoted, defender of the United Irishmen. Curran, after a friendship of forty-three years, spoke of his uncompromising and romantic fidelity,' and Curran's son has left an emphatic testimony to his many endearing traits.' Yet all this time he was in constant secret correspondence with the Government, and there are, I believe, not less than 150 of his letters in the Castle of Dublin. ceived strangely little for his services. Though an excellent lawyer, and a man of much undoubted ability, he was overwhelmed with debts, which were largely due to his supposed politics. In letter after letter he describes himself as reduced to utter destitution; but from time to time he obtained from the Government some small subsidy, which extricated him from his immediate difficulties. It was doled out, however, with a most tardy, penurious, and uncertain hand. At last, his crowning

1 In one of his letters to the Government he writes: Why will not answer my request? I am in deep distress for money. He can inform you of my services. I had no resource but in the assistance of my friends. Everything professional is lost on account of my politics.' (Jan. 9, 1797.) In recommending McNally for a pension, Cooke (if he was the writer of the paper in the Cornwallis papers) adds: He was not much trusted in the rebellion, and I believe has been faithful.' (Cornwallis Cor

respondence, iii. 320.)

He re

2 The smallness of his subsidies is very remarkable. In one letter he says: 'P. [Pollock] assured me some considerable time ago that the L. Lnt. had promised me 2001. a year for the life of myself and children, yet I still remain without having this business settled.' (J. W., Sept. 3, 1796.) Shortly after, Pollock writes that J. W. should have some money for Cork. A guinea a week had been stipulated. 'He has not got anything for the last twenty weeks.' (J. Pollock, July 9, 1796.)

reward arrived in the form of a secret pension of 3001. a year, which was disclosed after his death. Had his politics from the beginning been of a different type, his professional talents would probably have raised him to the bench.

The interest, the singularity, and the melancholy of his career will certainly be enhanced by reading his letters. Written for the most part in great haste, without regular beginning or ending, but in the most beautiful of handwritings and in the tersest and happiest English, they reveal with great fidelity a strangely composite character, in which the virtues of impulse seemed all to live, though the virtues of principle had wholly gone. Though his revelations were very important, it was evidently his object to baffle plots without injuring individuals, and he retained all the good nature and native kindness of his disposition. He retained also, to a very remarkable degree, the calmness and independence of a most excellent judgment, a rare discrimination in judging the characters of men and the changing aspects of events. From no other quarter did the Government obtain so many useful warnings, and if the advice of McNally had been more frequently listened to, some of the worst consequences of the rebellion might have been avoided.

The country was now passing, with a portentous rapidity, into a condition of hopeless moral and political disorganisation, and disaffection was spreading through all classes. The memorial of Wolfe Tone, which had been brought in evidence against Jackson, and which was presented to the French Government in the beginning of 1796, described it as completely ripe for revolution. The Protestants of the Established Church alone, he said, supported England, and they only comprised about 450,000 of the population. The Protestant Dissenters, whom he believed to be twice as numerous, and who formed the most intelligent portion of the middle class, were almost all republicans. Republican ideas had spread widely among the Catholic leaders; and the bulk of the Catholic peasantry, 'who had been trained from their infancy in an hereditary hatred and abhorrence of the English name,' and were in a condition of the most abject misery, had almost all passed into the organisation of the Defenders. The picture seemed an exaggerated one, but McNally assured the Government that it was 'justly conceived and accu

CH. XXVII.

MCNALLY'S PICTURE OF IRELAND.

143

rately written.' 'The whole body of the peasantry,' McNally said, 'would join the French in case of an invasion, or rise in a mass against the existing Government if any men of condition were to come forward as their leaders; and in either of these events,' it was very doubtful whether the militia or even the regular army could be fully depended on.

'The sufferings of the common people,' he continued, ‘from high rents and low wages, from oppressions of their landlords, their sub-tenants, the agents of absentees, and tithes, are not now the only causes of disaffection to Government, and hatred to England; for though these have long kept the Irish peasant in the most abject state of slavery and indigence, yet another cause, more dangerous, pervades them all, and is also indeed almost universal among the middle ranks, by whom I mean the upper classes of artists and mechanics in the cities, and farmers in the country. This cause is an attachment to French principles in politics and religion lately imbibed, and an ardent desire. for a republican Government. Rest assured these principles, and this desire to subvert the existing Government of the country, are more strongly rooted, and more zealously pursued by the Roman Catholics, than even by their teachers and newly acquired allies, the Dissenters. A contempt for the clergy universally prevails. Deism is daily superseding bigotry, and every man who can read, or who can hear and understand what is read to him, begins in religion as in politics to think for himself.' This is shown, not only by the language of the peasants, and by the rapid spread of Defenderism, but also by the contempt with which Archbishop Troy's address against the Defenders was generally received, though it was read publicly by the priests from the altars. This address, which, a few years ago, would have operated with the terrors of thunder on an Irish congregation of Catholics, is now scoffed at in the chapels, and reprobated in private. . . . So sudden a revolution in the Catholic mind is easily accounted for. I impute it to the press. The publication of political disquisitions, and resolutions by the societies of United Irishmen of Belfast and Dublin, written to the passions and feelings of the multitude, affected them with electrical celerity. These papers prepared the way for Paine's politics and theology. Several thousand copies of his various writings

were printed at Belfast and Cork, and distributed gratis.

I am assured, and I believe it to be true, that in the county of Cork, Paine's works are read by the boys at almost every school, and that in most houses they now supply the place of the Psalter and Prayer Book.'1

The United Irishmen, whose meetings had been forcibly suppressed in 1794, reconstructed their society, in 1795, on a new basis, and it now became distinctly republican and treasonable. An oath of secrecy and fidelity was substituted for the old test, and great precautions were taken to extend and perfect its organisation. The inferior societies, which had at first consisted of thirty-six, were now composed of only twelve members each, and an elaborate hierarchy of superior directing committees was created. There were lower baronial committees, upper baronial committees, district and county committees, and provincial directories, each being formed of delegates from the inferior bodies; and at the head of the whole there was a general executive directory of five members, elected by ballot from the provincial directories, sitting in Dublin, and entrusted with the government of the whole conspiracy. The oath bound the members to form a bond of affection between Irishmen of every opinion, and to endeavour to obtain a 'full representation of all the people.' This phrase was substituted for an equal representation of the people in Parliament,' which was used in the original test, and the suppression of all mention of Parliament was not without its significance. In order to preserve secrecy, the names of the members of the supreme directory were only communicated to a single member of each provincial directory, and orders were transmitted from committee to committee by a secretary appointed in each. Emissaries were sent out, and much seditious literature disseminated, to propagate the system. A subscription of one shilling a month was paid by every member. Nightly drilling took place in many districts; arms were collected, and the prospect of a French invasion was kept continually in view. According to the Government information, there were sixteen societies in Belfast, a vast number in the counties of

1 J. W., Sept. 12, 1795 (Irish State Paper Office). In order to shorten my references, I may mention that

all the letters of McNally referred to

in the following pages are in the collection of private and confidential correspondence in Dublin.