Kitabı oku: «Secret Service Under Pitt», sayfa 25

PRIESTS AS SECRET AGENTS

Dr. Hussey was not the last Catholic priest sent by the Court of England on a private mission to the Continent. The subsequent Duke of Wellington, writing from London to Dublin Castle on March 18, 1808, says: —

'It would be very desirable to have a person to send over to Holland and France just at the present moment, and I know nobody that would answer our purpose so well as – , the Scotch priest. I wish, therefore, that you would desire him to come over to me.'

On the following day he writes: —

'As I intend to send – to Paris, it might not be inconvenient to know the person through whom the disaffected communicate with the French Government in order that – might watch him.'⁸⁰⁸

The chief blank may be filled with the name of the Rev. James Robertson. The nephew of this man, Mr. A. B. Fraser, found among his papers, 'A Narrative of a Secret Mission to the Danish Island in 1808.' The priest had been sent by Wellington to the Spanish general Romana, and the result was the transmission of the Spanish army from the service of France, by the British fleet, from North Germany to Spain.

Spain was the theatre of a still more important case of secret service rendered by a Catholic priest. In 1860 I wrote to Field-Marshal Lord Combermere as the only man then living likely to know of the relations which subsisted, during the Peninsular War, between Wellington and Dr. Curtis, Rector of the Irish College of Salamanca. The following is a portion of his reply: —

'Dr. Curtis had been fifty years head of the College when he left Spain to become Roman Catholic Primate of Ireland.

'He had communicated very valuable information to the Duke of Wellington while Soult held his headquarters at Salamanca.

'His connection with the Duke was suspected before the first entry of the British into Salamanca, and two days previous to this event, while dining with Soult, Dr. C. heard the General remark how strange it was that Lord Wellington seemed so well acquainted with his proceedings.

'Some of the aides-de-camp looked at Dr. Curtis pointedly on this occasion, and the next day, while at table with the same party, similar observations were made, and Dr. Curtis perceived that the suspicions of Soult had been in some manner confirmed.

'On his return home that night, he found two gendarmes awaiting him, and he was at once conveyed to prison.

'He assured Lord Combermere that had not the English arrived the next day, he would have been executed as a spy.'

It may be added that the mysterious reference in Wellington's despatch of May 8, 1811,⁸⁰⁹ is to Dr. Curtis.

The appointment of this priest by the Pope as 'Archbishop of Armagh, and Primate of All Ireland' was directly due to influence exerted with Cardinal Gonsalvi by British statesmen, including Lord Castlereagh, Minister for Foreign Affairs. The Duke of Wellington maintained for many years a constant and cordial correspondence with the Primate, and the Duke's change of policy on the Catholic Question was not uninfluenced by it. The papers of this eminent prelate, varied and voluminous in their character, have been long in the custody of the present writer, and at a future day may be dealt with as their importance demands.