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The betrayer tells Talleyrand that 'the spirit of the North was completely broken.' In point of fact, however, it was in the North that the real martial spirit of the United Irishmen blazed, and there the best battles were afterwards fought under the leadership of Orr and Monroe. Turner was anxious to make the French turn their thoughts of invasion to other points on the Irish coast, and he so far succeeded that in August, 1798, Humbert's expedition, embracing not 1,000 men, landed at Killala, among the starved and unarmed peasantry of Connaught. He calculated on meeting enthusiastic support; but, as Mr. Lecky says, it soon became apparent how fatally he had been deceived. After winning one battle, and losing another, Humbert surrendered to Cornwallis.

'May I assure them that you'll come in three months?' Talleyrand is asked. The object of this and other questions, which, to a casual reader, seem hardly consistent with Turner's treachery to his friends, is now pretty plain. Great doubt prevailed as to whether an invasion of Ireland was really to be attempted. The First Consul blew hot and cold upon it. If the spy, as an envoy of the United Irishmen, could only extort from Talleyrand an explicit reply in writing avowing the intention to invade, and telling the exact time on which the descent on Ireland was to be made, England would thus be well prepared, and her fleet able to destroy the French armament as she had already destroyed that of De Winter. Why Bonaparte, at first so anxious for invasion, should have changed his mind, is explained, in the recently published Memoirs of Gouverneur Morris, as due to the conflicting reports of Irish envoys. At St. Helena he told Las Cases that his mistake in '98 was to have gone to Egypt and not to Ireland.⁸⁵

Mr. Froude states that the betrayer had discovered one of the objects of the Papists to be the seizure of property, and had determined to separate himself from the conspiracy. Attention is requested to that part of the foregoing letter⁸⁶ where the writer refers to the Cromwellian holders of estates in Ireland, and asks that every individual be guaranteed his property without respect to old Catholic claims and to their political conduct prior to the time of actual invasion. Samuel Turner represented some of the Cromwellian Settlers, and 'his most particular friends,' as he calls them, were amongst those who held grants of land in succession to the old Papist proprietary. The descendants of these men viewed invasion with alarm, lest their lands should go, just as the property of the Papists had already gone.⁸⁷

Talleyrand's caution in talking with Turner contrasts with the freedom with which he opened his mind on the same subject to his confrères. A very important book was published in 1890 at Paris by M. Pallain, 'Talleyrand sous le Directoire.' It depicts his diplomatic life, and gives the pith of his despatches. From Turner and Duckett he probably derived some impressions regarding Great Britain and Ireland. He augurs well from the Irish rebellion, which has been 'cemented,' adds Talleyrand, 'by the blood of celebrated victims.' The first victim was the Rev. William Jackson, in 1794. Talleyrand urges the invasion of Ireland and the establishment of an Irish Republic 'for the instruction or chastisement of England.' 'Nelson's fleet,' he says, 'is manned almost exclusively by Irishmen,' and that their patriotism 'will teach them to see in the English their oppressors and enemies.' Talleyrand's sketch of 'Irish Landed Proprietors' is full and curious.

Another man who, besides Talleyrand and Grégoire, dealt cautiously with Turner was Stone, as Turner in his secret letter to the Home Office admits. Stone had been tried in England for high treason and sent into exile.⁸⁸ At Hamburg and at Paris he belonged to the set mentioned by Mr. Froude's cloaked spy⁸⁹ as including Lady Edward Fitzgerald (Pamela), Lady Lucy Fitzgerald, Mrs. Matthiessen, and General Count Valence. Madame de Genlis in her 'Memoirs' mentions Stone conjointly with her daughter Madame de Valence and her 'niece' Pamela.⁹⁰

CHAPTER V
LORD CLONCURRY SHADOWED

Discoveries and arrests now multiplied, despite the care with which Reinhard and Lady Edward persuaded themselves that all negotiations had been fenced.

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 long confinement in the Tower. This peer seeks to show that he himself was innocent of treason, but Mr. Froude states, after studying the letters of Lord Downshire's friend, that 'Lord Cloncurry was a sworn member of the Revolutionary Committee.'⁹¹ The betrayer's first interview with Downshire took place on October 8, 1797. In that interview he ranked among the marked men, Lawless, afterwards Lord Cloncurry. During the next month we find his movements narrowly watched. One of Mr. Froude's sensational surprises is a statement in reference to this subsequent British Peer and Privy Councillor. Pelham, Chief Secretary for Ireland, writing to the Home Office on November 7, 1797, refers to the fact – if fact it is – that

'Mr. Lawless, Lord Cloncurry's eldest son, is going to England this night, charged with an answer to a message lately received from France. I have sent Captain D'Auvergne in the packet with Mr. Lawless, with directions to find where he means to go in London, and to give you immediate information.'⁹²

A story never loses in its carriage; and Portland was perturbed by the news. The Hamburg spy, who was the first to mention Lawless's name, was now consulted.

Two secret letters from the Home Office, dated June 8, 1798, and printed in Lord Castlereagh's 'Correspondence,' speak of a communication received from 'a person in Hamburg,' and how

'His Majesty's confidential servants have found it necessary to take into custody and detain several natives of Ireland, now resident here, of whose intimate connection and correspondence with the leaders and inciters of the present rebellion in Ireland there was no room whatever to doubt… Communicate this information to the Lord Lieutenant, that the Honourable Mr. L – , Mr. S., of Acton,⁹³ and Messrs. T., A., and C.,⁹⁴ of the Temple, have been apprehended here, and Messrs. McG – and D – at Liverpool;⁹⁵ and that warrants for apprehending the following have been granted: Dr. O'K – , C —⁹⁶ of Abbey Street, Dublin, and Mr. H – .⁹⁷

Lord Cloncurry states that the Duke of Leinster, Curran, and Grattan, who happened to be visiting him, were also taken into custody; but this statement is not wholly borne out by contemporary accounts.

Wickham's second letter of June 8, 1798, recurs to the arrests and speaks of 'most secret, though accurate, intelligence received from Hamburg,' adding: —

There are some papers found in Mr. Lawless's possession that tend directly to show his connection with some of the most desperate of the Republican party here, as well as with those who are in habitual communication with the French agents at Hamburgh, and his Grace is in daily expectation of some material evidence from that place, tending more directly to implicate that gentleman in a treasonable correspondence with the enemy.⁹⁸

'Braughall' was another name which will be found in the list written out by Downshire from his visitor's dictation. Lord Cloncurry, in his Memoirs, describes Braughall as 'his business agent and confidential friend;' while Tone constantly refers to him in cordial terms. The newspapers of the day record his arrest and how 'papers of a very seditious nature were found in his house.'⁹⁹ Among them was a letter from Lawless urging him to contribute to the defence of unfortunate O'Coigly, and mentioning that 'Little Henry' had munificently subscribed. This passage, Lord Cloncurry states, was interpreted at Dublin Castle as referring to Henry Grattan, though the writer meant Mr. Henry of Straffan, brother-in-law to Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and as the result of this mistake Grattan was placed under arrest, but speedily liberated.

A memoir of O'Coigly is furnished by Dr. Madden in the first edition of his 'United Irishmen,' and embodies information derived from Cloncurry. Deferring to the Hon. Mr. Lawless, when in London, he says: 'Every Irishman who frequented his house was vigilantly watched by agents of a higher department than the police.' Pelham says that he sent Captain D'Auvergne on board the packet with Lawless, charged to find out where he went to in London; and it would seem that during the tedious journey of those days, Lawless suspected D'Auvergne's mission. 'The agent of a higher department than the police' would also apply to Turner, who was in London at this time. Who was the detective who had his berth next to young Lawless on board the boat, sat and chatted with him in the coach to London, and afterwards dogged his steps? Letters furnishing secret information, and signed 'Captain D'Auvergne, Prince of Bouillon,' may be found in the 'Castlereagh Papers.'¹⁰⁰ This personage represented an old and illustrious French family. The Prince, finding his patrimony sequestered during the Revolution, looked out for a livelihood, and seems to have been not fastidious as to the sort. Cloncurry states that when bidding good night at the house of a friend, he would say, 'I haven't the conscience to keep my poor spy shivering longer in the cold.' After 1798, D'Auvergne's usual post was Jersey, whence his letters in the 'Castlereagh Papers' are dated, and furnish the fruit of espionage, including all warlike preparations made by the French at Brest.¹⁰¹

Mr. Froude quotes a letter from Portland, part of which is to the same effect as that already given, and announcing the discovery of important papers 'in Mr. Lawless's [Cloncurry's] possession that tend directly to show his connection with some of the most desperate of the Republican party in England, as well as with those who are in habitual communication with the French agents at Hamburg; and yet,' he continued, 'under present circumstances, and with evidence of the nature of that of which the Government here is in possession, strong and decisive as it is, none of those persons can be brought to trial without exposing secrets of the last importance to the State, the revealing of which may implicate the safety of the two kingdoms.'¹⁰² But although the leading men could not be brought to trial, it was fit to hold them fast, that thus the teeth of the conspiracy might be drawn. One important man – Stewart of Acton – was certainly let out on bail; but he was a cousin of Lord Castlereagh's.

These rough notes ought not to close without some notice of a reply to Portland's criminatory remarks, which the late Lord Cloncurry has placed on record. When the 'Castlereagh Papers' appeared he was an octogenarian and enjoying, it is to be hoped, an unimpaired memory; but it is an open secret that the book known as 'Lord Cloncurry's Personal Memoirs' was fully prepared for publication, and its style strengthened throughout, by a practised writer connected with the Tory press of Dublin, and who believed that Cloncurry had been wrongly judged in 1798.

As to the papers alleged by Mr. Wickham to have been found in my possession, [Lord Cloncurry is supposed to write] and tending directly to show my connection with some of the most desperate of the Republican party in London and Hamburgh, I now solemnly declare that I believe the statement to be a pure fiction, and that no papers were found, as I am most certain that, with my knowledge, no papers existed which could have had any such tendency, more directly or indirectly than, perhaps, a visiting ticket of Arthur O'Connor's, or a note from O'Coigly in acceptance of my invitation to dinner.¹⁰³

On the other hand, it is stated in a letter to the Home Office, dated July 24, 1799, that rebel despatches had been regularly addressed to Mr. Lawless in the Temple, 'whose fate,' it is added, 'is much lamented at Paris.'¹⁰⁴ Lord Cloncurry himself admits that in the autumn of 1797 he was elected – but without his desire or knowledge – a member of the Executive Directory of the United Irishmen, 'when, for the first and only time, I attended a meeting held at Jackson's in Church Street.'¹⁰⁵ This date furnished fresh proof of the promptitude and accuracy of Turner's information to Downshire (supplied also in the autumn of 1797) – information which revealed the adhesion of Lawless, afterwards Lord Cloncurry, to the Executive Directory. Jackson's name is also to be found in the list as dictated by Turner. Of course Lawless must have been already a United Irishman, or he could not be eligible for election to a seat in the Directory. Binns, who was arrested with O'Connor and O'Coigly at Margate, says: 'Coigly was no stranger to Lawless; he made him a United Irishman in his father's house, in Merrion Street, Dublin.'¹⁰⁶ Cloncurry's Memoirs state merely that O'Coigly, who was the finest-looking man he had ever seen, presented to him a letter of introduction, descriptive of Orange persecution, which it was alleged he had suffered.

Lawless and O'Coigly had opinions in common; and both were much together in London. The former never forgave O'Connor for having – as he said – unfairly sacrificed O'Coigly during the trials at Maidstone.¹⁰⁷ In collecting evidence to hang the priest, renewed attention fell upon Lawless. His first imprisonment lasted for six weeks. On April 14, 1799, on the eve of his marriage with Miss Ryall, who at last died of a 'broken heart,' he was again arrested on Portland's warrant and committed to the Tower, where he remained two years. Lord Cloncurry states that his father, in dread of confiscation following his son, left away from him 65,000l. However, the Irish rebel lived to become a British peer, a Privy Councillor, and the adviser of successive Viceroys. Dr. Madden, who received much help from Cloncurry when compiling his 'Lives of the United Irishmen,' states that Robert Emmet dined with this peer in Paris, previous to leaving France on his ill-fated enterprise; and Madden, in his second edition (ii. 137), says he knows not how to reconcile the account of the interview, as supplied in 'Cloncurry's Personal Memoirs,' with a verbal account of the same given by his lordship to himself.

The list noted by Downshire from the dictation of his visitor, though complete as regards the Rebel Executive of 1797, far from embraced all the names which more careful thought must have brought to the recollection of the informer. It had now become second nature to him to discharge, almost daily, letters of fatal aim, jeopardising the lives and reputations of men who implicitly trusted him. He also, as it appears, 'opened a correspondence' with leading United Irishmen. It is not sought to be conveyed that all the information came from Turner; but the following remarks of Mr. Froude, although they repeat a few names already mentioned, are important, as connecting 'Lord Downshire's friend' with the harvest of captures in midsummer 1798: —

Every day was bringing to the private knowledge of the Cabinet how widely the mischief had spread, as the correspondence which continued with Lord Downshire's friend added to the list of accomplices. Lord Cloncurry's son was no sooner arrested, than Stewart of Acton, a young Agar, a young Tennent, young Curran, McGuckin, Dowdall, and twenty others,¹⁰⁸ whose names never came before the public, were found to be as deeply compromised as he.¹⁰⁹

The question was even mooted as to whether he and others should not be excepted by name from the Bill of Indemnity, or even specially attainted by a Bill of Pains and Penalties, in consideration of the impossibility of convicting them by the ordinary course of the law.¹¹⁰

Turner's knowledge and duties as a United Irishman having been mainly confined to Ulster, it seemed strange that one of the Northern Committee could be so intimate with O'Connor and Lord Edward. Even in the betrayer's first interview with Downshire he reveals much intimate acquaintance with both. All this can be readily understood now. In November, 1796, O'Connor took a house near Belfast, preparatory to offering himself for the representation of Antrim. Dr. Madden states that Lord Edward and O'Connor lived together for some months, and during their stay maintained friendly intercourse with the Northern leaders.¹¹¹ Soon after we find the command in Ulster assigned to O'Connor. 'Arthur O'Connor,' resumes Mr. Froude, describing the events of December, 1797, 'after spending a few months in the Castle,'¹¹² had been released on bail, Thomas Addis Emmet and Lord Edward Fitzgerald being his securities. "The person" who had come to Lord Downshire had revealed the secret of the visit to Switzerland; but without betraying his authority Camden could not again order O'Connor's arrest.'¹¹³ After an interval, however, and at a critical moment, O'Connor was apprehended anew, and he remained a State prisoner until 1802.

At an early stage of this chase I met with the seeming difficulty that the name of Samuel Turner appears in the list of leading rebels which 'the person' gave to Lord Downshire.¹¹⁴ In undertaking to give a complete list of the Executive Committee, he could not well omit his own name. No doubt to invest it with increased importance, he puts it next after those of Lord Edward and Arthur O'Connor (the nephew of Lord Longueville), and before Stewart of Acton and the future Lord Cloncurry. The act is consistent with the usual swagger of the man, and shows the ingenuity by which he hoped to baffle all subsequent evidence of his treachery.

Lord Camden writes: 'The intelligence with which we are furnished would, if certain persons could be brought forward, be sufficient to bring the conspiracy to light, defeat its ill consequences, and make a salutary impression on the minds of the people.'¹¹⁵ 'Unfortunately,' comments Mr. Froude, '"certain persons" declined to be brought forward. Pelham, when in London, made large offers to Lord Downshire's friend, but without effect.'

CHAPTER VI
THE MASK TORN OFF AT LAST

Mr. Froude, quoting from the betrayer's letter to Downshire, writes: – 'I went to Harley Street, where Fitz¹¹⁶ told me of the conduct of the Catholics to him and his friends. He said he would prevail on O'Connor, or some such,¹¹⁷ to go to Paris; if not, he would go himself, in order to have Lewins removed.'

Lord Edward came to this decision obviously on the representations made by his false friend regarding Lewins. The false friend will be found impugning Lewins on every opportunity. Turner and Lewins, it may be repeated, clashed as rival envoys; Lewins, a Catholic, represented the Leinster Directory, while Turner claimed to represent the Northern. Turner worked his pen and tongue to such purpose that he at last succeeded in convincing Lord Edward of Lewins's treachery. Binns, in his narrative, states that 'O'Coigly had been commissioned by the Executive to supersede Lewins in Paris, whom some suspected of betraying the interests of Ireland.'¹¹⁸

The letter from Hamburg (first revealed by Mr. Froude) continues: —

Mrs. Matthieson¹¹⁹ has just heard from Lady Lucy that O'Connor is come. I supped last night with Valence, who mentioned his having introduced Lord Edward¹²⁰ and O'Connor to the Minister here¹²¹ in the summer before the French attempted to invade Ireland.¹²² They both went to Switzerland, whence O'Connor passed into France, had an interview with Hoche, and everything was planned.

I feared lest Government might not choose to ratify our contract, and, being in their power, would give me my choice either to come forward as an evidence or suffer martyrdom myself. Having no taste for an exit of this sort, I set out and arrived here safe, and now beg you will let me know if anything was wrong in my statements, or if I have given offence…

One of the many unexplained letters in the Castlereagh Correspondence finds its keynote here. In August, 1798, Wickham, of the Home Office, writes as follows to Castlereagh, who then held O'Connor a prisoner in Dublin.¹²³ Wickham's object, though shrouded in mystery, was no doubt to check the accuracy of 'Lord Downshire's friend,' and to weigh the marketable value of his services: —

It would be a great satisfaction to me, personally, were O'Connor to be questioned on the object of his journey to Switzerland with Lord Edward Fitzgerald in 1796, and whether they, or either of them, were in France at that time, and what French agents they saw besides M. Barthélemy. I was absent with the Austrian army at the time of their arrival, so that I lost the opportunity of observing their motions.¹²⁴ If either of them went into France, which I am persuaded they did, I should be curious, for very particular reasons, to know whether they went in by way of Basle, and whether their passports were given in their own names. Should there be no impropriety in questioning O'Connor on these points, as I have said before, it would be a great satisfaction to me that it should be done.¹²⁵

Fifty pages may be turned ere the answer to this letter comes. It is headed 'Secret,' and bears date 'Dublin Castle, August 17, 1798.' All my circumstantial evidence, aiming to show that Turner is the man whom Mr. Froude could not identify, is crowned by this letter. Castlereagh thus replies to Wickham: —

'Secret. 'Dublin Castle: August 17, 1798.

'I have endeavoured to obey your commands in examining Mr. O'Connor as to the object of his journey to Switzerland with Lord Edward Fitzgerald. At first he declined answering to this point, considering himself as only bound to state the facts which came to his knowledge after he became a United Irishman, of which body he was not then a member. Upon being pressed, without mentioning names, he stated it thus: – In the summer of 1796, as set forth in the Memoir, an agent was sent to France to arrange with the Directory the plan of invasion. This person went to Hamburg; from thence, accompanied by his friend, to Switzerland; neither went to Paris, but the person employed had an interview near the French frontier with a person high in the confidence of the Directory; upon a communication with whom everything was settled.¹²⁶ The reason neither proceeded to Paris was lest the English Government, in whose pay most of the officers in Paris were supposed¹²⁷ to be, should suspect the design, and arrest the persons on their return.

'This perfectly agrees with Richardson's information, which states that Lord Edward and O'Connor met Hoche, and arranged the invasion. 'R – states that O'Connor went into France; if he did, it was only a short distance merely to meet Hoche, and, from what O'Connor said, Lord E. seemed to be the principal.'

The above paragraph is one of much importance. Richardson I have discovered to be another alias of the hydra-headed Turner. Distinct proof of this will be found presently. Castlereagh continues: —

'Should I succeed in drawing from him any further information on this point, I shall have great pleasure in transmitting it. He further stated that, when taken in Kent,¹²⁸ although he had not authorised any person to hire a vessel direct for France, but rather looked to reach a Dutch port, yet his real object was to pass through Switzerland into France, and fairly confessed that, had he reached Paris, he should not have been idle, as, though not charged with any special commission, he did believe the Directory would have considered him as an accredited agent.'¹²⁹

Ordinary students of history are not free to search the papers of the Home Office, London after the date 1760; and the present writer ventured to ask Mr. Lecky whether he had met the name of Turner in his inquiries. The object of Mr. Lecky's history is distinct from mine, and his researches have taken a different direction; but he could not fail to observe, he said, that the Government correspondence threw not much light on questions of espionage, 'for names of informers,' he adds, 'are nearly always concealed.' However, on referring to his notes, it appeared that 'Richardson' was the pseudonym of Samuel Turner. While thanking my correspondent, I thought it well to remind him that in the 'Castlereagh Papers'¹³⁰ 'Furnes' is stated to be the alias for this man. And I added, in order to guard against mistake, that one Thomas Richardson, a Liberal magistrate for Tyrone, was confined, in 1797, with Neilson and Teeling. The historian's reply is very satisfactory:¹³¹ 'Samuel Turner wrote his letters to the British Government under the name of Richardson. This,' adds Mr. Lecky, 'is not a matter of inference, but of distinct proof.'

Once only 'Richardson' is mentioned in 'Castlereagh.' It was the false name by which the Home Office, when obliged to communicate with Dublin Castle, masked Samuel Turner, LL.D., of the Irish Bar. Lord Castlereagh's letter to the Home Office confirms the intimate knowledge possessed by Turner of the doings of O'Connor and Lord Edward Fitzgerald. O'Connor was now – August, 1798 – in an Irish dungeon; and Lord Castlereagh having, as he says, pressed him to answer certain questions, adds: 'This perfectly agrees with Richardson's information, which states that Lord Edward and O'Connor met Hoche and arranged the invasion.'

Besides his horror of martyrdom by the knife, Turner had a lively dread of the martyrdom of exposure and social ostracism. Jackson's trial in 1794 had the effect of deterring approvers. Curran's skill in torturing such persons was marvellous; and Mr. Froude declares that he stretched Cockayne as painfully as ever the rack-master of the Tower stretched a Jesuit. 'He made him confess that he had been employed by Pitt, and showed that, if Jackson was a traitor to the State, Cockayne was a far blacker traitor to the friend who trusted him.'¹³²

'Richardson' is now shown to be the same man as he who gave his information to Downshire; and that 'Richardson' was an assumed name for Samuel Turner.¹³³ Thus the question of identity is established without appealing to further evidence. But inasmuch as my efforts to track Turner open up facts long forgotten, and others new to the historian, some readers may not object to follow.

As regards Lord Edward's meeting with Hoche, more than once referred to in Turner's letter to Lord Downshire and in the correspondence of the Home Office, M. Guillon, a recent investigator,¹³⁴ could find no trace of it in the French official archives. Special efforts were made at the time to veil this historic interview. No wonder, therefore, that Mr. Froude, in introducing the information furnished by Downshire's mysterious visitor, points specially to the secret meeting with Hoche, and how Hoche himself had not revealed it even to Tone.

Wickham was but carrying out Portland's behest in signifying to Castlereagh that O'Connor, then a prisoner, should be questioned on points of which the Home Office had acquired private knowledge. On August 23, 1798, the same polite pumping of O'Connor is urged – a task fraught with no great labour to a man of Castlereagh's tact and powers of persuasion. 'A private communication,' Wickham writes, 'of the names of the persons with whom Mr. O'Connor corresponded abroad, would answer the particular purpose required by the Duke of Portland.' The 'particular' object is not explained. It was probably that the spy might, as previously suggested, cultivate epistolary relations with the men whom O'Connor¹³⁵ would admit to have been his correspondents.¹³⁶

Teeling, one of the Northern leaders, who had been closely associated with Turner, gives a curious glimpse of the easy intercourse which Castlereagh would maintain with his captives. Sometimes he made the arrests himself in the first instance, and afterwards could charm his prisoners by drawing silken bonds around them. Teeling was accompanied by his father on horseback, when 'we met,' he writes, 'Lord Castlereagh, who accosted us with his usual courtesy. We had proceeded up the street of Lisburn together, when, having reached the house of his uncle, the Marquis of Hertford, we were about to take leave of his lordship. "I regret," said he, addressing my father, "that your son cannot accompany you," conducting me at the same moment through the outer gate, which, to my inexpressible astonishment, was instantly closed, and I found myself surrounded by a military guard.' Teeling, later on, describes a visit paid by Castlereagh to him when a prisoner: —

Fatigued, and apparently much dispirited, Lord Castlereagh entered the room. He possessed the most fascinating manner and engaging address, with a personal appearance peculiarly attractive, and certainly not in character with the office he had that day assumed. For though national pride was extinct in his soul, the graces of nature were not effaced from the form, nor the polished manners of the gentleman forgotten in the uncourteous garb of the officer of police. He regretted that in his absence I had been subjected to the painful restraint of an additional guard. It was not his desire that they should have been placed within my room. A slight repast had been prepared for him, of which he pressed me to partake. The wine was generous, his lordship was polite, and the prisoner of State seemed for a moment forgotten in the kinder feelings of the earlier friend. [Lord Castlereagh then informed Teeling that they had that day arrested Neilson and Russell.] 'Russell!'¹³⁷ said I. 'Then the soul of honour is captive! Is Russell a prisoner?' Lord Castlereagh was silent. He filled his glass – he passed me the wine. Our conversation had become embarrassing…¹³⁸