Kitabı oku: «Secret Service Under Pitt», sayfa 14

His manners [he says] were the most winning and artless, anticipating his goodwill and urbanity before he opened his lips; and when they were opened, his expressions did but ratify what those manners had before ensured. And you had a further earnest of this in the benign and ineffable smile of a countenance so little practised in guile that it at the same time invited to confidence, and denoted an impossibility of your being betrayed.

Curran, addressing the Irish House of Commons in 1787, revealed a trait highly honourable to the friar: 'Mr. O'Leary was, to his knowledge, a man of the most innocent and amiable simplicity of manners in private life. The reflection of twenty years in a cloister had severely regulated his passions and deeply informed his understanding.'⁵⁴⁰ Curran's knowledge was partly derived from the fact that O'Leary belonged to 'The Monks of the Screw,' often regarded as a convivial club; but 'whose more important object,' writes Hardy, the biographer of Charlemont, 'was a co-operation of men holding a general similarity of political principles resolved to maintain the rights and constitution of their country.' Previously, O'Leary had dedicated his Miscellaneous Tracts 'to the Dignitaries and Brethren of the Monks of St. Patrick,' addressing them, with his wonted humour, as 'Reverend Fathers and illustrious Brethren.'

He had already written in denunciation of French designs on Ireland; and what more natural than that he should now be asked to track the movements of certain French emissaries which the Government heard had arrived in Dublin, and were conspiring with the Catholic leaders to throw off the British yoke.⁵⁴¹ This task O'Leary, as a staunch loyalist, may have satisfied his conscience in attempting, especially as he must have known that in 1784 the Catholics, as a body, had no treasonable designs, though, doubtless, some few exceptions might be found. In fact, his friend Edmund Burke, a member of the Ministry in 1783, declared, but later on, that 'the Irish Roman Catholics were everywhere loyal, save at certain points where their loyalty had been impaired by contact with Protestants.' Orde,⁵⁴² while using O'Leary, thought him a knave; yet feigned a readiness to believe his reports. The exhaustive correspondence of Count d'Adhémar, the French ambassador in London, with his Government, is now open to inquirers at the French Foreign Office; but, as it makes no allusion to any French agent in Ireland at this period, the story may be little better than one of the sensational myths so often found in the letters of informers to the Irish executive.⁵⁴³ But, although no documental evidence exists of a French agent having been in Dublin in 1784, it is certain that five years later, i. e. in 1789, one Bancroft, an American by birth, was sent on a secret mission from France to Ireland.⁵⁴⁴

We hear of no important arrests during the troubled period that O'Leary is said to have been set in motion; but the Habeas Corpus Act had not been suspended since 1779, and was not until 1794 that Pitt renewed the suspension.

In analysing O'Leary's life and judging his conduct, it is not fair to ignore any remark of his tending to exculpate; but, if panegyrics are desired, the reader should consult the memoirs by England, Buckley and some others. Almost O'Leary's last public performance appeared in 1800: 'An Address to the Lords of Parliament, with an account of Sir H. Mildmay's Bill relative to Nuns.'

His loyalty was not [he said] the effect of necessity or timeserving policy, for in France, where the Penal Laws of England drove him for education, and where the Catholics of Ireland had Seminaries and Convents with full admission to all the degrees of her universities, I resisted every solicitation to enlist any of the subjects of these kingdoms in the French King's service, though I had then every opportunity of being appointed to superintend prisons and hospitals during the wars. It was my interest to recommend myself to the favour of people in power, and consequently more my interest to become more a courtier than a moralist. St. Paul calls God to witness when he asserts the truth: I can do the same when I assert that conscience was the rule of my conduct.⁵⁴⁵

This is further useful in showing that O'Leary was no admirer of the French king, and now that he was a pensioner of England would hardly object to discover the reported French agents in Dublin, who, with Napper Tandy, are said to have 'drank on their knees' the toast of 'Louis of France.'

The latter story – told by the Viceroy, Rutland, in his letter to Sydney – bears improbability on its face. It seems strange that Tandy and his party, who not long after were Red Republicans and the allies of Carnot and Hoche, would drink the health of Louis XVI. on their knees.⁵⁴⁶ They were principally Protestants; and John O'Connell, in the Life of his father, says that Sheares shocked the future Liberator by exultantly displaying a handkerchief soaked in the French king's blood.

I suspect that when O'Leary returned from making, in September 1784, the inquiries which he is assumed to have done, his report was something in the spirit of Canning's knife-grinder: 'Story! God bless you, I have none to tell, sir;' and that Orde concluded O'Leary himself was in the plot. On October 17, Orde writes to Nepean, alluding to some rumour about our friar which is not stated. 'Del Campo's connection with O'Leary – or rather O'Leary's with him – may have given rise to all the report; but, after all, I think it right to be very watchful over the priest, and wish you to be so over the Minister. They are all of them designing knaves.'

Thus it appears that in little more than a fortnight after O'Leary is supposed to have begun to spy, Orde was far from satisfied with him.

CHAPTER XVI
ARTHUR O'LEARY IN LONDON

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 we uninformed as to the nature of the 'Report;' but we are left to guess who Del Campo was. One thing is evident: Dublin Castle and the Home Office put their heads together, shook them mysteriously, and then urged extreme caution in dealing with knaves. Books of biographic reference make no mention of Del Campo's name; but it is quite clear from Cumberland's memoirs that Del Campo was the Spanish minister, next in authority to Florida Blanca.

In the year 1780 [writes Cumberland], and about the time of Rodney's capture of the Caracca fleet, I had opportunities of discovering through a secret channel of intelligence many things passing, and some concerting, between the confidential agents of France and Spain (particularly the latter) resident in this country, and in private correspondence with the enemies of it. Of these communications I made that use which my duty dictated and to my judgment seemed advisable. By these, in the course of their progress, a prospect was opened of a secret negotiation with the Minister Florida Blanca, to which I was personally committed, and of course could not decline the undertaking it.⁵⁴⁷

While the American War still raged, and hostilities from France and Spain continued to threaten, Richard Cumberland, son of a bishop and the secretary of a former viceroy, started on his secret mission to the courts of Lisbon and Madrid, bearing from England letters of accreditation, quite a boxful of instructions, and accompanied by his wife and daughters 'on the pretence of travelling into Italy upon a passport through the Spanish dominions.' Cumberland's interviews with Del Campo are described, and for a time all went well; but, owing to terrible rumours as regards the 'No Popery' riots in London, which now broke out, led by Lord George Gordon, President of the Protestant Association, the treaty⁵⁴⁸ collapsed; Del Campo refused to appear; Cumberland was recalled, and the Government who sent him out withheld the repayment of 5,000l., the amount of expenses he had incurred.

It may be said that Orde's want of confidence in O'Leary arose, not because he had furnished so little secret information, but because of some whisper that the Spanish Minister had had pourparlers with him. It would be strange if O'Leary, who in 1779 wrote powerfully against the hostile designs of Spain, should be suspected, within the next few years, of abetting them. The rumour, which Mr. Lecky says is not stated, may have been merely that O'Leary, the only Catholic writer of intrepidity at that day, had been asked by Del Campo, who soon after became resident Spanish minister in London, and was himself of English extraction,⁵⁴⁹ to write an exposure of the 'No Popery Riots' and their leaders – incidents which Spain, now more than ever defiant in its pose, could not fail to turn to political account.

A postscript to O'Leary's 'Miscellaneous Tracts' mentions that he had been requested to give a history of the London riots. 'I promised to undertake the task,' he writes, 'and began to digest my materials; but afterwards reflecting that the duty of the historian bound me to arraign at the impartial tribunal of truth both men and actions – unmask the leading characters,' &c… he then came to 'consider my own state exposed in consequence of the Penal Laws to the insult of every ruffian, and, comparing the defenceless situation of the priest with the duty of the historian, I dropped the attempt.'

These tumults of 1780 lit a flame which did not die out even with the expiring century. During their height most of the Roman Catholic chapels of London, especially those of the foreign embassies, were gutted and burnt. Papists' houses were attacked, as well as the houses of all persons known to favour them. For days and nights the mob gained an almost complete mastery of London, which is described as like a city taken by storm. The venerable Bishop Challoner was roused from his sleep and urged to fly; he died soon after of palsy, the effects of the shock. No man's life was safe who did not mount the badge of riot, a blue cockade; windows displayed flags of the same colour; while the watchword 'No Popery' was prudentially inscribed. Broadsides were circulated under the auspices of Lord George Gordon – the unholy high priest of the holocaust – in which Englishmen were exhorted to remember 'the bloody tyranny and persecuting plots exercised on Protestants by Rome' – the Spanish Armada, of course, included. Society seemed falling to pieces. From Tyburn to Whitechapel the highway presented a frontage of mourning. Every shop was closed. Mr. Archer, a priest, deposed in court that he had paid 40l. to be allowed to pass through Fleet Street, and a hackney coachman refused 10l. to drive a papist to Hampstead. The mob, flushed with victory, now sought allies in the prisons. Newgate, then recently rebuilt at a cost of 150,000l., was attacked with fury; its great gates fell before them like frail partitions; 500 felons, including those set free from Clerkenwell, were let loose upon the burning city, leaving behind them in flames, not the gaol only, but the whole street.⁵⁵⁰ It seemed a second 1666, and the famous fall of the Bastile, nine years later, was but the mere echo.

Storm had not as yet burst over Ireland; but the heavy air was charged with electricity. The following are the words with which Mr. Froude awakened widespread interest, and drew forth that missive from the Antipodes given on a previous page.

If rebellion was meditated [Froude writes], the Government required fuller knowledge; and 'a new plan of management' had to be adopted 'to obtain exact information of the conduct and motives of the most suspected persons.' 'Useful and confidential agents,' whose silence and fidelity could be relied on, 'who would write the daily history of a man's motions,' without betraying himself, were not to be found in Dublin.

The Irish Secretary applied to the English Cabinet to furnish him from their own staff of informers. Two valuable persons answering to Mr. Orde's description were sent, and the name of one of them will be an unpleasant surprise to those already interested in the history of the time.

They were both Irishmen. One was a skilled detective named Parker,⁵⁵¹ an accomplished orator who could outmouth the noisiest patriot, and had already some knowledge of the leading agitators. Orde welcomed this man with a twinge of misgiving. 'I hope he is discreet,' he wrote, 'for he must to a certain extent be possessed of the power of hurting us by garrulity or treachery.'⁵⁵²

The other was no less a person than the celebrated Father O'Leary, whose memory is worshipped by Irish Catholic politicians with a devotion which approaches idolatry. O'Leary, as he was known to the world, was the most fascinating preacher, the most distinguished controversialist of his time. A priest who had caught the language of toleration, who had mastered all the chords of liberal philosophy, and played on them like a master; whose mission had been to plead against prejudice, to represent his country as the bleeding lamb, maligned, traduced, oppressed, but ever praying for her enemies; as eager only to persuade England to offer its hand to the Catholic Church, and receive in return the affectionate homage of undying gratitude. O'Leary had won his way to the heart of Burke by his plausible eloquence. Pitt seemed to smile on him: it is easy now to conjecture why. When he appeared in the Convention at the Rotunda the whole assembly rose to receive him. Had such a man been sent over on an open errand of conciliation, his antecedents would have made the choice intelligible. But he was despatched as a paid and secret instrument of treachery, in reply to a request for a trained informer.⁵⁵³ What the Government really thought of Father O'Leary may be gathered from Orde's language when told to expect him. 'He could get to the bottom of all secrets in which the Catholics were concerned,' and Catholics were known to be the chief promoters of the agitation in Dublin. But he too was to be dealt with cautiously, for he was a priest. 'They are, all of them,' Orde said, 'designing knaves;' 'the only good to be derived from them is, perhaps, to deceive them into an idea that they are believed.'⁵⁵⁴

Sir Jonah Barrington describes Orde as 'a cold, cautious and sententious man.'⁵⁵⁵ These letters in some respects support that impression. A few years later he was created Lord Bolton. His letter, announcing O'Leary's arrival at Dublin on secret service, is dated September 23, 1784.⁵⁵⁶ Let us look back a little and see what the previous year was doing.

The Dungannon Convention, which won great boons for Ireland, was followed by provincial assemblies in Leinster, Munster and Connaught. Resolutions were carried, delegates were appointed, and the nation anxiously awaited the great Volunteer Convention in Dublin, on which the fate of Ireland was declared to depend. Meanwhile one hundred and sixty envoys of the Volunteer army met, electing Lord Charlemont chairman. Red uniforms fringed the streets, and the delegates, two by two, marched through the lines, amid the roll of drums and the waving of national ensigns. The Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry rode to the Convention with an escort of dragoons.

A distinguished corps of volunteers [writes Mr. Buckley] had conferred on O'Leary the honorary dignity of chaplain; and we are assured that many of the measures submitted for consideration at the great Convention held in Dublin had been previously placed before him for his opinion as to their prudence and utility. On that memorable day, when the delegates of a hundred thousand men met in the Rotunda, with all the pomp and power that an armed nation could concentrate for a great national purpose, it was gratifying to the assembled masses of spectators to behold Father O'Leary, as he entered the building, received at the door by the entire guard of volunteers with a full salute of rested arms. He marched up the hall amidst the deafening cheers of the surrounding delegates, and, in the debate which followed, his name was frequently mentioned with honour and applause.⁵⁵⁷

'Plowden's remarks, which you enclose, do not meet the specific statements of Froude, that O'Leary was employed as an informer at the period of the Volunteer Convention,' writes Mr. Morgan McMahon, my Australian correspondent.⁵⁵⁸ Mr. Froude's words certainly tend to convey that the Convention took place at the time of Orde's application for a spy. The date of the Convention was November 1783: Orde's letter was written in September 1784. Again, it is suggested that O'Leary was despatched in reply to a request for a trained informer. But it does not appear that though he may have been useful as a diplomatist he was already a spy. On the contrary, Sydney writes (Sept. 4): 'O'Leary has been talked to and he is willing to do what is wished for 100l. a year.' Orde replies (Sept. 8), 'I am very glad that you have settled matters with O'Leary, who can get to the bottom of all secrets in which the Catholics are concerned.' O'Leary had already a pension, ostensibly for his writings; but the pension for espionage must not be confounded with it.

It is certainly admitted by even O'Leary's panegyrists that at the period of the Convention of 1783 delicate overtures, which they assume he rejected, were made to him; but the magnanimous words supposed to have been used by O'Leary when parleying with his tempter rest on no authority whatever, and some will be disposed to suspect that a colour is imparted to the overtures more presentable to general readers than the naked truth, whatever it was. The pension, I repeat, which O'Leary already enjoyed, was, I think, merely for his writings; though, prior to September 1784, he may have accepted douceurs for distinct acts of diplomacy. At all events it is due to O'Leary to give him the full benefit of the exculpatory words of his brother priest. Describing the Volunteer Convention, Father Buckley writes, eighty years later: —

During Father O'Leary's visit to Dublin on this occasion, he was waited on by a gentleman who was well known to be on very close and friendly relations with the Government of the day.⁵⁵⁹ The visit appeared, for some time, to be merely one of ceremony, and the visitor paid many handsome compliments to the Father on the style of his writings and their good effect on the public mind. Soon, however, it was easy to see that diplomacy had more to do with the visit than etiquette, for the gentleman, in courteous language, intimated that if Father O'Leary would use his pen in extolling certain measures just then brought forward by the Administration, his services would be handsomely requited. O'Leary was displeased and indignant at the proposal to barter his patriotism for a bribe, and conveyed his feelings in no measured phrase. The request was therefore softened down into an entreaty that he would at least abstain from writing on those measures in terms of condemnation. But the minion of the Government knew not with what manner of man he had to deal. 'I will never be silent,' warmly exclaimed O'Leary, 'whilst my exertions can be of the least service to my religion or my country.'⁵⁶⁰

Thus far Buckley, the biographer of 1867. England, O'Leary's biographer of 1822, finishes the interview in less florid words: 'He was then told that a pension of 150l. per annum was to be offered for his acceptance, and that no condition repugnant to his feelings as an Irishman or Catholic was to be annexed to it. A change in the Administration⁵⁶¹ took place shortly afterwards, and the promise remained unfulfilled.'⁵⁶²

Father England assumes that O'Leary spurned the overtures at the time of the Convention, though later on his acceptance of a pension is admitted. While guiltless, no doubt, of direct betrayal, he may have been led to connive at a trick by which the Irish Government succeeded in breaking up the Convention.⁵⁶³

O'Leary, towards the close of his life, had made copious notes illustrative of the history of Ireland – notes handed by him to Plowden, who was glad to interweave them with his own when compiling 'The Historical Review.' Plowden dismisses with the following note the great incident of the Convention: —

Whilst the business of equal representation was in agitation at a meeting of the Convention in Dublin, a pretended letter from Lord Kenmare was produced, purporting to convey the general sentiments of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, in which they were made to express their perfect satisfaction with what had been already done for them, and that they desired no more than peaceably to enjoy the privileges they had obtained.

Catholics thus became excluded from the constitutional prerogatives claimed for Protestants. The proceedings of the Convention were at last adjourned sine die. Sir Boyle Roche invented the fatal letter, and Mr. Froude conveys that he was instigated to this course by the Viceroy. Sir Gavan Duffy states – as a common belief in Ireland – that 'had the Convention not been betrayed by its leaders, the Union would never have taken place.'⁵⁶⁴

O'Leary, though his name, and that of Sir Boyle Roche, are not mentioned in the printed abstract of the proceedings, was certainly present when the fictitious letter was read. Dr. England, describing the demonstration by which O'Leary's arrival was hailed at the Rotunda, adds that it 'occurred on the same day on which the message said to be from Lord Kenmare was read at the Convention,'⁵⁶⁵ but no fault is found with O'Leary by England, who is his invariable eulogist.

Lord Kenmare was a fast friend of our friar,⁵⁶⁶ and is uniformly praised by him.⁵⁶⁷ It was when on a visit to this peer that O'Leary, seeing a wounded stag approaching Yelverton, wittily said: 'How naturally instinct leads him to come to you to deliver him by a nolle prosequi.'⁵⁶⁸ Kenmare, this leader of the higher class of Catholics, was falsely represented as announcing at the Convention that his co-religionists were satisfied with the concessions they had got. I find that O'Leary had privately expressed, very much to his honour, but a short time before, an opinion diametrically opposite; and urging the Catholics not to cease agitation till every link in their fetters had been struck off;⁵⁶⁹ but he now held his peace, and thus wittingly, or otherwise, aided the base schemes of the Viceroy. O'Leary himself had long been recognised as the most prominent exponent and mouthpiece of the Catholic demand; and, from his intimacy with Lord Kenmare, he could hardly fail to have known his sentiments on a question in which both were naturally most interested; the forged letter, however, claiming authority to speak for the Catholics of Ireland, was allowed to pass unchallenged, to the ruin of the Convention and the exultant triumph of a faction.

O'Leary and Sir Boyle Roche are not persons likely to have been intimate; and yet it can be shown that an intimacy did exist. A letter from O'Leary, written a year before the Convention, and to be found later on, avows that he was the friend and political correspondent of Roche.⁵⁷⁰ The forged letter – in which were travestied the opinions and aspirations of the Catholics of Ireland – was read on November 11, 1783.⁵⁷¹ Not until a fortnight after was the fraud exposed by the popular Earl-Bishop of Derry, who read a letter from Lord Kenmare, dated Killarney, Nov. 20, saying, 'I utterly disavow having given the least authority,'⁵⁷² &c., &c. Sir Boyle Roche thereupon addressed to several leading Catholics a remarkable note dated 'Dublin Castle, 14th February, 1784.' This document was, of course, the act of the Administration, Roche having been merely wound up and used as an automaton. His letter, seeking to entrap slavish Catholics and sink them in the mire of unpopularity, began by saying that it would flatter him in the highest degree 'if I should find that my conduct was not disapproved by yourself and friends,' and he holds out the hope that, being once more in Parliament, he would be not unmindful of Catholic interests.

I had certain intelligence [he adds] that the Bishop of Derry had leagued himself with some of the unthinking part of the Catholics, who were in town for the purpose, and that the admission of that body to the rights of voting for members of Parliament was to be the first matter agitated in the Convention. I now thought that the crisis was arrived in which Lord Kenmare⁵⁷³ and the heads of the body should step forth to disavow these wild projects, and to profess their attachment to the lawful powers… I therefore resolved on a bold stroke.⁵⁷⁴

He adds that he was elated to the greatest degree by his success, having 'entirely disconcerted the measures of the leaders of the Convention.'

The Earl-Bishop of Derry was a decided revolutionist and very eager for separation, and is alleged to have said to Lord Charlemont, 'Things are going well, my lord: we shall have blood.' O'Leary, author of 'Loyalty Asserted,' and notoriously a man of peace, would probably have felt little scruple in seeking to avert by diplomatic means what Orde feared might become a bloody chaos. Burke, writing to a brother priest of O'Leary's, said, 'Do everything in your power to check the growth of Jacobinism on the one hand, and oppression, which is its best friend, on the other.' No wonder that the Irish Government blenched at the outlook. One Dublin paper, called the 'Volunteer Journal,' urged assassination; and some men had been arrested, in the previous spring, on a charge of conspiring to murder seven unpopular members of Parliament. The supineness of magistrates and the absence of any regular police force opened great facilities for crime. Riots raged in the streets owing to trade strikes; men were 'tarred and feathered' and let loose before the infuriated mob; soldiers were houghed and left bleeding on the pavement. New corps of volunteers advertised for recruits, and men of the worst repute rushed into their ranks. Meanwhile the Bishop of Derry was raising a fresh regiment of volunteers in Ulster. 'The Viceroy, at Fitzgibbon's advice,' writes Froude, 'sent down officers in disguise to watch him, with a warrant in their pockets should an arrest be necessary;' and he adds that 'this singular prelate ran a near chance of ending his career on the gallows.' The withdrawal from public life of so remarkable a figure was second only in its effect to the collapse of the Convention, of which he was the animating spirit. When, six years later, Bancroft was sent by France on a secret mission to Ireland, his report, now preserved in the Foreign Office at Paris, states, as we learn from Lecky, that the fall of the Convention had 'thrown a certain ridicule on Irish democracy, and it may be long before it is repaired.'

The Convention belongs to the year 1783. Not until the autumn of 1784 are any letters found compromising O'Leary – letters not revealing any distinct acts of espionage, or even penned by himself, but showing him to have yielded to the voice of the tempter.

In judging a man who is not alive to defend himself, one whose memory has been for a century revered, I am reluctantly led to encumber this narrative with various considerations for and against, so that readers may have the result of a conscientious study of the case, and he able to form a judicial conclusion.

The promptitude of O'Leary's arrival in Dublin impressed badly all who read it in Froude; for Orde, according to that historian, asked the English Secretary of State to send him over two trained men from their own staff of informers.⁵⁷⁵ The letter containing this request, however, I have not seen in print or manuscript. O'Leary came over at the same time as a detective named Parker; but the alacrity of the priest's arrival, though it looks badly, may not be altogether due to his readiness to play the spy. This man, 'poor in everything save genius and philosophy,' to quote Grattan's words, was informed, according to England, one of his biographers, that his presence in Dublin was necessary in order that some formalities should be gone through ere his name could be placed on the Irish Civil List.⁵⁷⁶ England says that a pension which, during the previous year, he was on the point of receiving, fell through because of a change in the Cabinet; and may not this consideration have been in itself enough to expedite the journey?

O'Leary had been interviewed in London by Sir Evan Nepean, a practised diplomatist, and consented, we are told, to come to Dublin to make certain inquiries. But who can tell what wily words were employed to induce him to wait on the Irish Secretary, Orde, at Dublin Castle? Orde posed as a man rather liberal for the time, and was the correspondent of Grattan and Lord Kenmare. Men of the world know that very different language is often used when writing of a person, than when addressing that person direct. On the other hand it should be remembered, assuming that Sydney conveys a correct impression of what passed, that O'Leary seemed willing to accept 100l. for services dealing, not with the special exigencies of the hour, but on condition that he continued, from year to year, and for the same annual fee, to probe to the bottom certain secrets of his party.

When he arrived in Dublin the country was rent by great and just discontent. One grievance was that Parliament possessed no adequate representation of the popular voice. In March 1784, Flood brought in a Bill for 'Reform,' and twenty-six counties petitioned in its favour.

It had been decided that the Convention⁵⁷⁷ of the previous year should be followed up by a national Congress. This announcement brought dismay to the Castle. The loss of her American Colonies had just taught Pitt a lesson. Contemporary pamphleteers, thinking perhaps of the then fashionable melodrama, 'The Castle Spectre,' saw Dublin Castle scared by mysterious terrors.

'The letters C.O.N.G.R.E.S.S.,' writes Orellana,⁵⁷⁸ 'are magic letters, of themselves sufficient to rise an apparition before the eyes of a guilty Minister – an apparition that will seem to draw his curtains in the dead of night, and rouse him from his pillow!'