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■ l
1
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\
THt: LIFE OF . .
LORD EDWARD
FITZGERALD *
By IDA A TAYLOR
WITH >r'T-.
THE LIFE OF . .
LORD EDWARD
FITZGERALD *
1763 — 1798
By IDA A. TAYLOR
Aotbor o< " Sir Waiter Raldgli "
WITH SIXTEEN FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRA-
TIONS AND A PHOTOGRAVURE PLATE
Loadoo: HUTCHINSON & CO.
Patenioeter Row •* "">» 1903
Fl IZGtKALU -
By IDA * TAYLOR
Au;-;'. .-i"S:i Vi";:i,cf R.-.icigh"
W J I H •> I ■•■::■. N ■ I ; ■
PREFATORY NOTE
I DESIRE, in publishing the present volume, to
thank the editors of The Nineteenth Century and
After^ of The North American Review^ and of The
English Illustrated Magazine^ for permission to include
in it portions of papers on Lord Edward FitzGerald,
the Irish Informers, and Pamela, which appeared in
their respective Magazines.
I also wish to thank Mr. Walter Crane for his
kindness in allowing me to reproduce his design upon
the cover of the book ; Lord Walter FitzGerald
for valuable information and help with regard to
portraits and illustrations ; Mr. Strickland, of the
National Gallery of Ireland, for assistance of the
same kind ; Lord Cloncurry and Mr. BischofFsheim
for permission to reproduce pictures in their possession ;
and Mr. T. W. Rolleston for his kindness both in
revising the proofs of my book and allowing me the
use of his photograph of St. Werburgh's Church.
I. A T.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
Dublin and the Geraldines — St. Werburgh's Church — Lord
Edward FitzGerald's Grave — His Career — A Cause — Varying
Estimates of his Character — Unfitted for Leadership i
CHAPTER II
1763— 1781
Birth and Parentage—The Race of the FitzGeralds — Features of
their History— Lord Edward's Father and Mother— The
Lennox Family — Childhood — The Duchesses Second Marriage
— Boyhood in France — Commission in the Army — America . 12
CHAPTER III
1781— 1783
The American War — Opinions concerning It — Lord Edward
at Charleston — Active Service— Dangerous Escapade —
Wounded at Eutaw Springs — Tony — Early Popularity — St.
Lucia — Back in Ireland 33
CHAPTER IV
1783— 1786
Returned to Parliament— Life in Ireland— Tedium — The Condition
of the Country — Westminster Election— Lord Edward's Family
— Lord Edward in Love — At Woolwich— In the Channel
Islands — Letters to his Mother 46
viii Contents
PAOE
CHAPTER V
1786— 1788
Lord Edward and his Mother — Increasing Interest in Politics —
The Duke of Rutland Viceroy^ Lord Edward's Position in
Parliament and Outside It — Visit to Spain — General O'Hara 64
CHAPTER VI
1788— 1789
Lord Edward in New Brunswick — Second Love Affair — Letters
to his Mother — Irish Affairs— The Duke of Leinster — Lord
Edward declines to seek Promotion — Adventurous Expedition
— Native Tribes — Disappointment — Return Home 74
CHAPTER VII
1790— 1792
Lord Edward offered Command of the Cadiz Expedition— Refuses
it on being returned to Parliament — Decisive Entry on Politics
— In London — Charles James Fox — Dublin — Condition of
Ireland — Whig Club — Society of United Irishmen — Thomas
Paine and his Friends — Lord Edward in Paris • • • 9S
CHAPTER VIII
Pamela — Her Birth and Origin— Introduced into the Orleans'
Schoolroom — Early Training — Madame de Genlis and the
Orleans Family — Visit to England — Southey on Pamela —
Sheridan said to be Engaged to Pamela — Departure for France 1 1 5
CHAPTER IX
1792
Lonl Edwiid in Pftris— Spirit of the Revolution — Enthusiasm in
EogUmd mod Irdand— Shared by Lord Edward— Compro-
>%iiig Action on his Part— Meeting with Pamela— The Due
Contentf
drOriteos and Madame de GenUs—Manriage of Loid Edward
and Pkmela— Loid Edwaid CadOoped 133
CHAPTER X
1793—1793
Pamela and Lord Edward* a Famfly — ^Her Portraifc— Eflfoct upon
Lord Edward of Caahierment— Cathcdic Conventioo— Scene
in Parliament— Catholic Rdief Bill— Lavdeaaneaa in the
Country— Lord Edward*a laolation 15a
CHAPTER XI
1793— 1794
Social Position affected by P<ditical Differences— Married Life-
Pamela's Apparent Ignorance of Politics — Choice of a Home
—Gardening— Birth of a Son— Letten to the Duchess of
Leinster— Forecasts of the Future 169
CHAPTER XII
1794—1795
Failing Faith io Constitutional Methods oi Redress — ^Lord
Edward's Relations with the Popular Leaders — His Qualifi-
cations for Leadership — Jackson's Career and Death — Minis-
terial Changes — Lord Fitzwilliam*s Viceroyalty — And Recall
— Lord Camden succeeds Him— Arthur O'Connor. . .179
CHAPTER XUI
1796
Dangerous State of the Country— Protestants and Catholics —
Savage Military Measures — Lord Edward joins the United
Association— Its Warlike Character— The "Bloody Code"—
Lord Edward's Speech on Insurrection Act — Mission of Lord
Edward and O^Connor to French Government — Meeting with
Madame de Genlis — Hoche and Wolfe Tone— Failure of
French Expedition 196
K Contente
PAGE
CHAPTER XIV
1797
Kfle(*tii of the French Failure— United Irishmen and Parliamentary
I >|)|Hiaition— Attitude of Grattan— Lord Castlereagh— Govem-
niriit lUutality— Lord Moiras Denunciation — Lord Edward
ami his Family— Charge against Him— Meets a French Envoy
III London — Insurrectionary Projects • .212
CHAPTER XV
Irish Informers—*' Battalion of Testimony "—Leonard McNally—
Thomas Reynolds — Meeting between Reynolds and Lord
KUwaril— Reynolds and Neilson— Curran's Invective . 232
CHAPTER XVI
1798
Lord Kdward's Doom Approaching— His Portrait at this Date^
I'ersonal Attraction — Differences among the Leaders — Delay
of French Assistance— Arrest of O'Connor— His Acquittal and
Imprisonment— National Prospects — Reynolds's Treachery-
Arrest of the Committee 245
CHAPTER XVII
1798
Excitement in Dublin^Pamela— Lord Edward's Family — Lord
Castlereagh's Sympathy — ^Lord Edward's Evasion — Various
Reports — Reynolds's Curious Conduct — Meeting of Lord
Edward and Pamela — Martial Law^Lord Edward's Position
— Spirit in which he met It 262
CHAPTER XVIII
1798
Lord Edward in Hiding — Hairbreadth Escapes — Loyalty and
Treachery— In Thomas Street— Last Visit to his Wife—
•^
Contents xi
PAGB
iDsaxTecticmary Plans— Higgins and Magan— Attempt at
Capture — ^Acquittal of Lord Kingston— Lord Edward tracked,
wounded, and taken Prisoner 282
CHAPTER XIX
1798
Coodnct when a Prisoner — Various Scenes in Dublin— Pamela —
The Facts and her Account of Them at Variance — Her After-
life— Visit to Bar^re— Death 305
CHAPTER XX
1798
Attempts to ensure a' Fair Trial— Prince of Wales — Conspiracy
to Rescue — Lord Edward's Condition— Harshness of the
Government — Refusal to admit his Family — Change for the
Worse — Last Intexriew with Lady Louisa Conolly and his
Brother— Death— And Burial — Summing Up. . 316
APPENDIX A
Funeral of Lord Edward FitzGerald 335
APPENDIX B
The Bill of Attainder 337
UST OF PRINCIPAL AUTHORITIES 339
INDEX 341
/
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
XX>RD EDWARD FITZGERALD FronHspUct
Pagt
JAMES, EARL OF KILDARE (DUKE OF LEINSTER) l8
EMILY, OOUNTBSB OP KILDARE (DUCHESS OF LEINSTER) .... 24
CARTON 47
PARLIAMENT HOUSE 68
DEATH MASK OF THEOBALD WOLFE TONE I07
MISS UNLEY (MRS. SHERIDAN) AS ST. CECILIA 126
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN 131
PAMELA 154
LEINSTER HOUSE 177
ARTHUR O'CONNOR 192
VISCOUNT CASTLBREAGH ai8
LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD 247
PAMELA (LADY EDWARD FITZGERALD) AND CHILD 272
ST. CATHERINE'S CHURCH AND THOMAS STREET 302
LORD HENRY FITZGERALD • 3^5
SOUTH WALL OF ST. WERBURGH'S CHURCH 332
xii
LIFE OF
LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD
CHAPTER I
Dublin and the Geraldines — St Werburgh's Church — Lord
Edward FitzGcrald's Grave— His Career— A Cause-
Varying Estimates of his Character — Unfitted for Leader-
ship.
NEAR the east gate — ^formerly the gate of St.
Mary Les Dames — of the city of Dublin
stand a group of buildings notable indeed.
Near by is the Castle, with all its historical and
political associations, past and present. A stone's
throw removed is the sombre edifice whose foundation
dates from the days of faith when, " about the year
of our Lord 1038, the Danish Prince of Dublin
gave to Donat, Bishop of that see, a place to erect
a church to the honour of the Holy Trinity." So
the Black Book of Christchurch records the first gift
to the famous Priory of the Trinity, now known as
Christchurch Cathedral. Again, in close proximity
to the priory (where in 1562 the monument of another
alien, this time of Norman blood, Earl Strongbow,
I
3 XtCe of XorD EtwarD fftjOeraR)
was broken and repaired) die Gty Hall has replaced,
by a double secularisation, G>rk House, on the con-
secrated ground where once stood the G)nyent and
Church of St Mary Les Dames ; while, last of the
group, at an almost equal distance from the Casde
on the farther side, the modem Church of St
Werburgh, with its eighteenth-century, pseudo-classic
frontage, its railed-in pavement and gaslit portico,
remains to tell that once an Anglo-Norman foundation
imported from over the sea the name and fame
of Saint Werberga, sometime — in those remote ages
when blood-royalty and sainthood went hand-in-hand —
Princess of East Anglia and Abbess, as her mother
and grandmother before her, of the Monastery of
Ely.
Close neighbours, these three religious houses shared
with the Castle many a memory of past days ; and
amongst these memories is ever and ag^n recurrent
the name of Ireland*s foster-sons, the Geraldines. To
them she gave true birthrights. With her traditions,
her stones, her sepulchres, and her dust, their race
is associated beyond possibility of severance.
In the Castle FitzGerald after FitzGerald ruled,
whether as the King's Deputy or despite of him. In
the Castle, too, one after another lay imprisoned. In
the Priory close at hand was entombed Maurice
FitzGerald, Earl of Kildare, dead in 1390 — once a
prisoner in the Casde, afterwards Deputy there.
Litde more than a century later, in the choir of
the same church, St. Mary's Chapel was built by
Xife of Xotd Edward |'ft30etald 3
another Earl Gerald, who, dying the following year,
1 5 1 3, bequeathed " his best gown of gold and purple
to make dresses for the priests," already endowed by
him with vestments of cloth-of-gold, a yearly com-
memoration, with other spiritual privileges, being
accorded to the donor and doubtless observed for
many a year. In the Priory, not a score of years
earlier, this same Gerald must have borne a leading
part in the ceremony when— our Lady's statue
in the adjacent Convent-church of St. Mary Les
Dames lending her crown for the occasion — the poor
puppet-king, Lambert Simnel, " well faced and princely
shaped, and of no very evil nature," was crowned,
with feasting and triumphing and mighty shouts
and cries ; and, the pageant ended, was borne *' on
tall men's shoulders," and doubtless accompanied by
the FitzGerald brothers — Deputy and Chancellor at the
time — his chief supporters, to the King's Castle. In
the Priory, again, the rebel nobles, Kildare at their
head, received the royal pardon under the Great Seal,
the oath of allegiance taken by the Earl upon a Host
consecrated by the English chaplain, lest even in this
solemnity deception might be practised and the pledge
rendered a nullity.
Scenes like this, with their vivid mediaevalism, will
recur no more in the quarter of the city where
Christchurch, the King s Castle, and the City Hall
recall or obscure the remembrance of the past. The
Priory, with its vestments of purple and gold, is
become the cathedral church of a faith which has
4 Xffe of %oxb Bbward |'ft30eral&
discarded purple and gold — and much else beside.
St. Mary Les Dames is dispossessed, not only of her
crown, but of her nuns, her convent, her chapel,
and her worshippers ; and her parish, as far back as
the sixteenth century, was incorporated with that of
St. Werberga. But St. Werburgh*s Church — even the
St. Werburgh's of to-day, with its Corinthian columns
and classic portico, has still one tradition to hand on :
a tradition which links the chivalries of the past,
chivalries armoured and helmed, lance in rest and
banners flying, with the chivalries of new centuries
of hope and aspiration and sacrifice, hope with
no coloured visions, aspiration shorn of glamour,
sacrifice without its ritual of palm and crown. For
beneath the chancel of the churgh dedicated to the
Anglian saint lies Edward FitzGerald ; while without,
in a piece of burying-ground belonging to his family,
by a coincidence as strange as that which placed Lord
Castlereagh's monument near that of Grattan in
Westminster, is the tomb of Charles Henry Sirr, from
whose hand Lord Edward received the wound of
which he died.
Ireland gives to her sons many gifts and great ;
and, giving much, she requires from them also much.
To the Geraldines of old she gave her loves, her
hates, her blood, and her soul, receiving from them in
return fair chapels, loyalty to her feith, devotion to
her nationality. To Edward FitzGerald she gave her
last gift — a dream ; and he, for her gift — greater love
hath no man than this— laid down his life.
Xffe of Xor5 E^war5 f ft3®eral5 5
To place a deaths as it were, as the headline of a
life, and a grave as its frontispiece, might seem to
reverse the natural order of things. But it is precisely
the close of Lord Edward's career which has riveted
upon him for a hundred years the gaze of his country-
men ; and of him, as of another, it may be said that,
in their eyes, no action of his life became him like
the leaving it. It is, in fact, his title to a place
in history.
At first sight Lord Edward's story presents only
another monument of failure, vowed as he was to the
service of a cause predestined to disaster, and, further-
more, dead before it had been granted to him to strike
so much as a blow in its defence. But there is
another reading to t|ie record, and Fate is more just
in her dealings than it sometimes appears. The gift
of a cause is in itself no small one, and who shall
determine whether, the character of the man being
taken into account, the price exacted for it was dis-
proportionately great ?
It is, however, necessary to distinguish. If he was
essentially a man with a cause, he was in no wise a
fanatic. To some men it chances to possess their
cause ; to others to be possessed by it. To some,
again, it is, so far as choice can be said to be a factor
at all in the lives of men, the result of fi-ee election ;
while there are others to whom it might almost appear
that no alternative has been offered, in whose case
the attempt to elude the destiny prepared for them
would be as vain as the endeavour to escape from some
6 Xife of Xor5 £dward f ft3®etald
doom which, pronounced upon them at birth, would
be found, like Asrael, the Angel of Death in the Eastern
legend, awaiting them, wherever they might fly.
It was to this last class that Edward FitzGerald
belonged. Single-hearted and loyal as was his devotion
to his country and his country's cause, it would be
a misapprehension to confuse him with those comrades
to whom the enfranchisement of their native land had
been, from youth up, the one engrossing preoccupation
of life, and who formed a group bound together by
the closest ties of association, of class, and of interest.
Between Lord Edward and such men — men of the
stamp of Wolfe Tone, his friend Russell, Emmet,
McNevin, and the rest — cordial as were their relations
during those later years in the course of which he
was being drawn into the stream which was hurrying
them on towards revolution, there was nevertheless
a gulf which, bridged over as it was by a common
aim and a common political interest, could not but
leave them in a measure apart. To the patriots who
were represented by Wolfe Tone, the one absorbing
object removed, life would have held but little meaning.
To Lord Edward, on the other hand, dedicated to
that object as were the closing years of his brief
manhood, it constituted, taking his life as a whole,
but one aim out of many, a single thread, however
shining and important, in the texture of a many-
coloured woof. It was by the gradual elimination
of rival, if not conflicting, interests that the ultimate
domination of that which was to prove paramount
Xtfe of Xor5 £dward f ft3®erald 7
was assured. Lover, soldier, and patriot by turns,
though it is in the last character alone that he has
won a place in the remembrance of men, he brought
almost equal enthusiasm to bear upon each pursuit.
The enterprise in which he met his death was
embraced in precisely the same gallant and irre-
sponsible spirit of adventure, though combined with
an invincible faith in the justice of his cause and a
more serious purpose, which led him to imperil his
life in a harebrained exploit during the American
war or to traverse wildernesses in Canada hitherto
unexplored.
It is true that it is not altogether an easy matter,
oppressed by the sense of coming tragedy — a tragedy
all the darker for the setting in which it is framed
and from the very nature of the victim — to avoid
allowing the shadow to fall backwards, and to cast
its sombre tints over days troubled by no foreboding.
But to do so is at once to lose the true atmosphere
by which Lord Edward's life was pervaded, the bright
and light-hearted daring which does not so much
disregard danger as forget it, and makes its sacrifices
with a spontaneous and reckless generosity which is
almost unreflecting.
The mistake made by some of those whose ad-
miration has been warmest has been of this nature.
They have lost sight of the fact that amongst his
most distinctive traits was the gaiety with which he
faced the crises of life, great and small — a gaiety
not incompatible, especially in those of his race, with
8 Xite of Xord £dward f ft3®erald
complete earnestness of purpose and passionate con-
viction ; but incomprehensible to men of more
ponderous temper, and possibly perplexing to those
of more concentrated aims. Thus one writer is found
adverting to the reverence inspired by the '* solemn
religious enthusiasm " belonging to his character ; while
a tone approaching deprecation is discernible in the
explanation offered by Dr. Madden of the levity of
his bearing at the very crisis of his fate, when not only
life and liberty, but the entire issue of the enter-
prise of which he was leader, were at stake. It was
his habit, says this apologist, to ^^ appear ^^ in his usual
spirits, " apparently " light-hearted and easily amused ;
leaving it to be inferred from the italics that this
gaiety was nothing but a mask, assumed at will. The
theory is as widely at variance with the openness
and simplicity of his nature as the assertions of a
writer less favourably disposed towards him, who
declared him to have artfiilly concealed his trait-
orous designs under the cover of his amiable manners
and conduct, to have fascinated all his acquaintance
into unqualified confidence, and to have sought to
disguise his treason under the shield of the sublimest
virtue and patriotism.
The one view is no less erroneous than the other.
So far as it is possible to judge from the evidence
that remains, what Lord Edward appeared to be,
that he was. There are natures so complex that it
is a difficult matter for even their contemporaries to
hazard an opinion upon them, to adventure with
Xffe of Xor5 £dwar5 fit3®erald 9
any assurance a conjecture as to the motives by which
they are swayed, or to reconcile the man and his
actions. But Lord Edward was not one of these.
There was a singleness and a transparence about his
character which forced upon men of the most opposite
views the recognition of its main features, and amongst
those best qualified to judge a rare consonance of
opinion on the subject is found. On his gaUantry
and courage, his unblemished personal integrity, the
sincerity of his ardour, his loyalty to the cause he
had made his own, and the rare and sunny sweetness
of his disposition, scarcely a doubt has been cast,
even by those whose natural bias would have inclined
them to take an unfavourable view of the leader of
the movement in which he was engaged. Thus a
political opponent, Henry MacDougall, who published
in the year 1799 an account of the persons concerned
in the " foul and sanguinary conspiracy " which had
just been crushed, describes the young commander-
in-chief of that foul conspiracy as "the delight and
pride of those who knew him (this truly unfortunate
circimistance of his life excepted), nor did there ever
exist in the estimation of his friends a more noble
youth, a braver gendeman " ; and if it is true that
the absence of bitterness amongst his Irish opponents
may have been in part due to the glamour clinging
to the figure of a Geraldine, those to whom no
suspicion of national prejudice can attach are at one
with his countrymen in this respect, and few are the
stones which have been cast at his personal character.
lo Xffe of Xord £t)war5 f ft3(Berald
In his capacity of political leader, however, it was
another matter. Here he suffered to a marked degree
from **/^j difauts de ses qualifis.'' A worse man
would have made a better conspirator ; and amongst
all, save such as are pledged to allow no fmling or
deficiency to mar the portrait of their hero, there is
as full a concurrence of opinion concerning his un-
fitness for the part he was set to play as with regard
to the stainlessness of his honour. An authority
vouched for by Madden as being better acquainted
with him perhaps than any other of his associates,
while bearing witness to the nobility of his character,
his freedom from selfishness, meanness, or duplicity,
and to his frankness and generosity, yet denied his
capacity to conduct a revolution; Reinhard, French
Minister to the Hanseatic towns, and a most friendly
critic of the envoy who had been sent to open negotia-
tions with his Government, while declaring himself
ready to answer for the young man's sincerity with his
head— a compliment, it may be observed, which Lord
Edward would not have reciprocated — added that
he was wholly unsuited to be leader of an enterprise
or chief of a party ; and, to quote an observer in a
very diflferent sphere, the informer Cox, while adding
his testimony to Lord Edward's zeal, declared him,
at the same time, unfit to command a sergeant's
guard.
Such would seem to be the general verdict, con-
temporary and posthumous, and one borne out by
the issue of the struggle in which he was engaged
life of Xotb £bwac5 fftsi^eralb n
and his fidlure to cany it to a successful condu^on.
it was a verdict in which — since neither vanity nor
arogance are to be counted amongst his failings-
he would himself in all probability have concurred.
It was part of the gallantry of his disposition not to
from respon»bility when it was thrust upon
But it was his misfortune, and, according as
k ii regarded, the misfortune or the salvation of his
cu umiy, that he was forced into a position which
Jm was not competent to fill. The incongruity of
Ae man and of the situation lends half its tragedy
to die melancholy story.
CHAPTER II
1763— 1781
Birth and Parentage — The Race of the FitzGeralds — Features
of their History — Lord Edward's Father and Mother —
The Lennox Family — Childhood — The Duchess's Second
Marriage — Boyhood in France — Commission in the Army
— America.
LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD, fifth son and
twelfth child of the twentieth Earl of Kildare
and first Duke of Leinster, was born in London on
October 15th, 1763.
The period during which his short life was to be
passed — not thirty-five years in all — was a stormy one
for Ireland. It was a time when the brooding resent-
ment over the wrongs of centuries was gathering to a
head, and sullen submission was being exchanged for
fierce and passionate resistance ; a time when injuries
were inflicted in the name of religion ; when tyranny
was begetting violence, and oppression brutality ; and
when men, despairing of justice, were taking the
vindication of their rights, as well as vengeance for
their wrongs, into their own hands.
The story has been told often enough, now from
one point of view, now from another ; and it is not
Xtre ct Xocd &waxb fftiOctaXb 13
intended to ofier a further repetition of it her^ except
in so far as it may be necessary for the purposes of
pnrdy personal narrative.
Nor does it come within the compass of the present
ivork to dwell otherwise than briefly upon the race
from which the subject of it sprang. To give a
consecutive account, however incomplete, of the
Geraldines, of their digged resistance to English rule,
their forced submissions, and their renewed revolts,
would be) it has been said, to epitomise the history of
their entire nation — a nation whose annals, unconnected
and episodical, ^ are like the scenes of a tragedy whose
author had much imagination but no art '' — and would
oocupf more space than can be afibrded here.
It b with a certain '* Dominus Otho " that the story
begins ; who^ said to have been one of the Gherardini
of Florence, passed into England by way of Normandy,
and is found holding the rank of *^ honorary Baron "
there in the reign of Edward the Confessor.
The descendants of Lord Otho did not remain for
long rooted on the eastern side of St. George's Channel.
About the year 1169 — before Strongbow had made
good his footing in Ireland — two half-brothers, Maurice
FitzGerald and Robert FitzStephen, crossed over, on
the invitation of the King of Lcinster, to help him
against his foes, were invested by him with the lordship
of Wexford, and so were established on Irish soil.^
For a certain time it would seem that the tradition
' From this Maurice not only the Earls of Kildare, but their kinsmen
the Earls of Desmond traced their descent.
14 Xife of Xord B^watd f ftjGenOb
of loyalty to the English throne was, though inter-
mittently, observed by the Genddines, their services
rendered to Edward III. in his contest with the Bruce
having been such as to be rewarded, in the year 131 6,
with the earldom of Kildare. But as years went by
and the original connection with England grew more
remote, they proved less and less submissive vassals of
the Crown ; and though frequently holding high office
in Ireland, they are constantly found suffering imprison-
ment or disgrace, for offences real or imputed, and
acccused, on one occasion at least, of '* alliance, fosterage,
and alteragc with the King's Irish enemies," from whom,
however, they continued to the end to be held distinct.
As early as the fourteenth century a General
Awcmbly was called together at Kilkenny by Maurice,
lurl of Kildare, and others, in opposition to the
I^urliamcnt summoned to meet in Dublin, Earl Maurice
Buffering a subsequent term of imprisonment ; and
unilcr the Tudor kings the Earls of Kildare continued
to display the same features of turbulence and insub-
ordination ; open revolt alternating with perfunctory
actH of submission which plainly bore the character
of mere provisional concessions to necessity.
The history of Earl Gerald, in particular, dating
from 1477, might almost be taken as typical of the
relations existing between the English kings and their
** cousins the Karls of Kildare." Invested with the
office of Deputy, he persisted in retaining it, in spite
of dismissal ; and, calling together a Parliament, was
confirmed by it in his post. It was this same Gerald,
Xite of Xord £dward f ft3®etald 15
too, who headed the Irish nobles in their attempt to
place Simnel upon the throne ; and when the enterprise
had ended in disaster, and letters had been sent to
England to demand a pardon, the nature of his
submission is sufficiently indicated by the petition
presented to the King's envoy by the citizens of
Waterford, who, fearing lest vengeance might be
¥rreaked upon them by the pardoned man in conse-
quence of their refusal to join in the rebellion, entreated
that they might be exempted from his jurisdiction as
Deputy.
Two years later, summoned to meet the King, the
great Irish nobles, Kildare at their head, repaired to
Greenwich ; when Henry VII., telling them good-
humouredly that '* they would at last crown apes,
should he be long absent," entertained them at a
banquet at which the ex-King Simnel played the part
of butler.
Again the scene shifts. Five years more and the
banqueting-hall is replaced by the council-chamber ;
where Earl Gerald, an attainted man, is undergoing
his trial, one of the offences of which he stands accused
relating to the burning of Cashel Cathedral, in con-
sequence of a feud with the Archbishop, now present
in person to prove the charge.
" By my troth," answered the Earl, '^ I would never
have done it, but I thought the Bishop was in it."
The King laughed, pleased, it would seem, with
the bold retort ; and when the Bishop of Meath, also
present, exclaimed that all Ireland could not rule this
i6 Xife of Xord £&ward f it3®erald
man, "Then he shall rule all Ireland," was Henry's
rejoinder. He kept his word. Earl Gerald went
home a free man, restored to all his honours, and
Lord Deputy besides.
His successor, another Gerald, held hostage in
England for his father's good faith, had been present
at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, apparently in favour
with Henry VIII. Summoned from Ireland, however,
later on, to answer charges preferred against him, he
found a lodging in the Tower ; and a report gaining
currency that his execution was to follow, his son
Thomas, not more than twenty years old — a young
man, according to the chronicler, of considerable
personal attraction and '*not devoid of wit, were it
not, as it fell out in the end, that a fool had the
keeping thereof" — promptly resigned the Vice-deputy-
ship, with which he had been entrusted in his father's
absence ; and, joined by two of his uncles, headed an
insurrection.
The folly, if such it were, of Lord Thomas cost
his family dear. Not only, if the explanation given
of his death is to be credited, did his father die of
grief in his prison and find a foreign grave in the
Tower, but five of his uncles, after the thorough and
wholesale fashion of the day, were included in the
sentence passed upon him ; and this though Holinshed
declares that three of the number were known to
have been opposed to his design. " But the enemies
of their house," adds the historian, "incensed the
King sore against it, persuading him that he should
Xife of Xor5 £&war5 fit3®erald 17
never conquer Ireland so long as any Geraldincs
breathed in the country."
Six of the family, therefore, suffered together at
Tyburn, affording signal contradiction to the proud
old boast, to the eflFect that Death himself, in un-
assisted sovereignty and by means of no human
instrument, would alone venture to lay hands upon
a Geraldine :
Who kiUed Kildare?
Who dared Kildare to kill?
Death killed Kildare,
Who dares kill who he will
But the work of extermination had, after all, been
incomplete. Gerald FitzGerald, a young half-brother
of the chief culprit. Lord Thomas, only twelve years
old at the time, as well as a still younger child,
escaped the general massacre, and lived to perpetuate
the race, one more chapter having been added to the
record of Ireland's wrongs.
The history of the Kildare branch of the Fitz-
Geralds from this date becomes less noteworthy. The
King's advisers had possibly been wise in their genera-
tion, and the old fighting spirit of the Geraldines in
a measure broken by that sixfold execution at Tyburn.
The family, indeed, had been left by it so popular
that Robert Cowley, writing to the Secretary Cromwell
in 1539, declared the English Pale, except the towns
and very few of the " possessioners," to be " so
affectionate to the Geraldines that they covet more
to see a Geraldine to reign and triumph than to see
2
l^i^ rr 122 S^iLS TX3S<zzS
• " '^T. vjic .i-Tv^:"! • _ iitc i^ Fr.glish
--" 1- TT- T-T" -rr 1 rcr: rcsc^rbl fumre ;
::s- r--. -jr^i; :rc:r I>scrccii cousins,
: . rr. •- -*r- Tr;:r:w -iz^zr^ =cc tae English
-r --rr- -:.z- Tic^ rn:? r^ -r^ci tish history
:.-_ ~r-r Ttri^:- iurra-rcz orl, fought
^-:— ,c-^Tic 7 — TTtL xzii "w^ n^sstoccd bv
,T l.r=r: I-crzHT:. ZiZ&z tie Fcry Earl,
Tr -T :;:inr:- rork part with the
^-_ - r r^ J-zr-Ti:^. T^.'Zssi : t g e^^r^ under
>: ; * - 1 T-: Ic zTir-^ sw.ci.t:es of the
r^ ~TrJcr--a25 nazszae pctisuis of
;-u-^: ,^-::TiEv ritf St r^iit Kicg and
,. -. r .r^-. v-:^ XTT. r.r'v-Tcr. sore than
.- . - .- "^ ■ -^ T'^?f:risi had paid, at
'. -. - • - -^:.-i"?Sw rse Geraldines,
• .- .-. ' . ■ ^- v.: : M.-,:r^i- venr counted
*. . .,^ -•: --rr? ^i" the people;
-. . « -. •.- - ;-.^i KJ-cane" — ^so
-. ,. •. .-=^..7::- .-crr.e hia by the
; . -^ •' ^-: -..--i vsiT^ earlier to
V. ^- '-^ 7L-:,ir-. fishir:: than his
Xife of Xor& £dwar& f it5®eral& 19
mcnt, he had addressed a memorial to the King
touching the proceedings of that ** greedy Churchman,
Archbishop Stone." The remonstrance, though coldly
received, was effectual, and some months later Stone's
name was removed from the list of Privy Councillors.
That Lord Kildare did not suffer, even in the
estimation of those in power, by the boldness of
his protest would seem to be proved by the honours
subsequently conferred upon him ; while at home his
popularity rose to such a height that it is recorded
that he was an hour making his way through the
crowd which filled the streets between Parliament
House and his own, and a medal was struck to
commemorate the presentation of his memorial.
The great popularity enjoyed by Lord Edward's
father was probably due to other causes besides those
of a political nature. He resided almost altogether
in Ireland, spending his money either in Dublin —
where he built himself Leinster House and exercised
a princely hospitality— or on his estate at Carton ;
and the distinction of his manners was such, in their
noble and attractive courtesy, that it was said that when
in the presence of the Viceroys he gave the impression
of being more Viceroy than they.
In the year 1747, two years previous to the presenta-
tion of his memorial to the King, he had married
Lady Emilia Lennox, second daughter of the Duke
of Richmond, a connection which exercised no little
influence upon his son's subsequent career, bringing
him, as it naturally did, into intimate relationship with
90 Xffe or XorD SdvMKd ffl30enlb
the great Whig families of Engbiid, and giving him a
foothold on English life, both social and poKticaL
lady Emilia was one cf a groi^ of sisters and half-
•inters, two ot whom at least became, like herself, the
nmthers of notable men ; and among Lord Edward's
first cousins were included Charles James Fox and the
Nii|iicr brothers, heroes of the Peninsular War. Lady
Snruh Ixnnox, mother of these last, and a younger
sifitcr of Lady Holland and the Duchess of Leinster,
hm! Ixxn celebrated, in days when beauty was more
of » |K)wer than is now the case, for her loveliness —
•• more iKAutiful than you can conceive,** wrote Horace
WaI|K)Ic enthusiastically ; although he allowed on
another occasion that, with all the glow oi beauty
peculiar to the family, she lacked features. It was this
lady who had enjoyed the singular privilege of refusing
the hand of a King — an opportunity of which she
had availed herself in haste, to repent at leisure.
It would seem that beauty was hereditary in the
Lennox family, for one of Lady Sarah's sons, left for
dead upon the battlefield, was described by an officer
by whom he was discovered in that condition as more
beautiful than any man he had ever seen or dreamed
of ; and in another of Horace Walpole's letters we are
given a picture of a group at a ball, made up of
the Duchess of Richmond and her two daughters,
Ml'tcrwards Duchess of Leinster and Lady Holland,
luTt»rir the most beautiful of a beautiful trio ; while
flir Diikc, her husband, showed his appreciation of his
yond lortiinc by remaining all night at his wife's side.
Xtfe of Xor5 £5war& jfit5®eral& 21
kissing her hand — an exhibition of domestic afFection
which must have been highly gratifying to the public
sense of morality.
The Lennoxes were, in truth, an affectionate race,
the ties of blood possessing in their case peculiar
strength, and surviving to an uncommon degree the
separating forces of life and its vicissitudes. It is
necessary to bear this circumstance in mind in con-
nection with Lord Edward's future life, for it is likely
enough that to this cause, and to the fact of his
possession of so large a home circle, with many
friendships made ready to his hand, may be ascribed
the absence of any indication of the formation of
strong or intimate outside ties.
Of Lord Edward's childhood the details which have
been handed down are few and meagre, nor are those
which we possess of any special interest. Though he
was born in London, if his marriage register is to
be trusted, he must have been almost wholly brought
up in Ireland so long as his father lived, and his
earliest education was received at the hands of a
tutor named Lynch.
When he was no more than ten years old, however,
the Duke of Leinster died, at the comparatively early
age of fifty-one ; and in the following year, not more
than ten months after his death, an event occurred
which electrified society and must have had a consider-
able effect upon the future of the FitzGerald family.
This was the marriage of the new-made widow, the
mother of nineteen children, and already arrived at the
sctz^r:. jc !i=BC tar tl
^=^ -xxi r :nc imsccfal stoi
» ^-r-imim^ imc .rttr- ^=r^ ^ctxazl mr -wrusx he tc
'r»*s«^ ■^'^^ is^ r^ -sc=i :2r -c-rcraor ir 3c3£zb2, m sinti
■^ "^ "*i**- ^ '^a v^ T w * ^ ^ 'ixr jtSE ^na3», it wool
<ar
^o«£i»^ef < ^i»«rp«,4]|g^* s^,. ^^3P5^ ^^rct isr soke's tnti
%Atc Of %ovb Bdward f ft^Gerald 23
name is Ogleby. People wonder at her marriage, as
she is reckoned one of the proudest and most expensive
women in the world, but perhaps she thought it
incumbent (as Lady Brown said of her Grace) to
* marry and make an honest man of him.' I pity her
poor children, and it is supposed that this wretched
proceeding has made Lady Bellamont [Lady Emily
FitzGerald, the Duchess's daughter] more ready to
accept of that miserable match."
Thus Mrs. Delany, acting as spokeswoman for
the world, scandalised by the madness of which the
Duchess had been guilty. The letters of Lady Sarah
Lennox, recently published, throw a light upon the
spirit in which the marriage was accepted by those
who were more intimately concerned in it, as well
as upon the fashion in which the afiair was carried
through by a woman " whose good sense is enough
known to make her conduct of some consequence."
It appears that it had been through what Lady Sarah
terms the impertinence of the Duchess's eldest daughter,
the Lady Bellamont mentioned by Mrs. Delany, that
matters had been brought to a crisis ; when her
mother, '^forced to take un parti^'* confessed, with
some spirit, to those whom it chiefly concerned, that
it was very possible she might marry Mr. Ogilvie ;
writing, further, when all was decided, to her brother
in terms which, to a man of his affectionate disposition,
were well calculated to disarm displeasure : " I am
content," she said, " that you should call me a fool,
and an old fool, that you should blame me and say you
24 Xtfe of X:^r^ E^war^ ftcsGeaXb
dill not think mc carabk Crf s^ich a toUjr ; talk me
over, say what you plcaic, bu: remember that all I ask
(}f ynu is your affection and tcr.icrr^css-" -
That she did not make her denii.id in vain, other in
the case of the Duke or of oiers of her famity, is pbdn
("rnm the sequel.
Of the man for whose sake she consdcred the world
wrll Ifiit comparatively little is known. He was of
f;iiii(| S((itch Moody had been rettimed to the Irish
I'.iili.unnii hy Mr. Conolly, brother-in4aw to Ac
I )iii hc->.'., and lH)re the character of being an efiective
tspi Mki-r, with a clear, articulate voice and a strong
'.liiiih .uient. With his accent he appears likewise
hi h.ivr Itrou^rht from Scotland the shrewd common
rii MM .iihl sulistantial qualities supposed to belong to
liiri ii.KiMii.iliiy. It is certain, at all events, that neither
thi Dm III-.-, iicir her ** poor children" had reason to
ii|iiii( III I iin|M iiilence ; while the account given of
tiini, Ml Hill- five years liter, by Lady Sarah Lennox,
.ililniiirh lift (ivci fiattering, may serve in some measure
II .III I i>|il.(ii.iiii>ii 1)1' the marriage.
•' I li.nr MTn him," she writes, on the return of
ilii iiiii|ili fiiHit .iltroad, ''and think him a very good
'Hill III iii.in. ntii-.t situerely attached to her, which is
.ill tuv liir.iiii-.'. Ill (he iiH'air ; hut she certainly did not
III. II IV liiiii /,nf ;\twyur Jc ses beaux yeux^ for he is
^•'v y\y\\ .iiul li.r. .i disaj^reeablc manner, but as
■.In •..i\-., Miv iiiilv 1 l»elieve, he had known her so
in.iiiv \i.ii'. Ill' iMiiKl iu)( possibly not know his mind^
' / i/i' anti Ixiten of i^uiy SttraA LcnKox\ Vol. L, p. 240.
Xtfc of Xor& E5war& f it50etal&
*5
and his mind was to love her to adoration, and that's
very captivating.'* ^
In spite, however, of the remarkable tolerance dis-
played by the Lennox family, and in spite also of all
that could be advanced in its favour, the marriage
cannot have failed to be regarded by them in the light
of a disaster ; and though there is no trace of any
consequent estrangement between the Duchess and her
relations, it is not unlikely that a few years' absence
from England — a species of honourable banishment —
may have been judged expedient before she should
return to fill once more her place in society.
Whether it was for that reason or not, the Fitz-
IGeralds, shortly after the Duchess's marriage, quitted
Ireland and took up their residence in France, occupy-
ing a house possessed by the Duke of Richmond at
Aubigny as Duke of that name, and placed by him
at the service of his sister and her family.
It was here that the remainder of Lord Edward's
boyhood was passed, and it is possible that the warmth
of his sentiments in after-years with regard to France —
a bias not without its effect upon his career — may be
due in part at least to the years spent by him on the
banks of the Garonne. '* You and I,*' he wrote to
his mother from Paris when claiming her sympathy
on behalf of the Revolution — *' you and I always had
a proper liking for the true French character."
Whether or not it was an altogether wise measure
to educate abroad a boy intended to take his place
» Ibid, Vol I., p. 297.
26 %itc ot %otb £&war& jfit^Geralt)
in an English profession may be open to question;
but besides the reasons connected with the Duchess's
marriage, economical arguments may also have been
taken into consideration in determining her temporary
retirement ; for with so large a family of yoimg
FitzGeralds — no less than nine sons and ten daughters
had been born to the Duke, of whom many would
still be on their mother's hands — to say nothing of
two little Ogilvies shortly added to the tale, there was
probably no superabundance of money available, even
for purposes of education ; and Mr. Ogilvie, setting
his shoulder to the wheel, and qualified, no doubt,
by former experience for the task, seems to have kept
Lord Edward's tuition entirely in his own hands.
It speaks well for the pacific dispositions of both
teacher and pupil that the hazardous experiment was
attended with marked success. Lord Edward's
affection for his mother's husband was only indeed
second to that passionate devotion to herself which,
lasting through every phase of his after-life, presents
one of his most attractive features ; and writing to
Mr. Ogilvie when the period of close association was
at an end, and when, emancipated from parental
control, he had joined his regiment and entered upon
his military career, the boy made due acknowledgment
of his obligations with sincerity none the less evident
because couched in the formal language of the day.
" Whatever [my sentiments] are," he wrote, after
expressing his satisfaction at finding himself in accord
with his step-father on the subject of their corre-
Xife of %ovb lEbx^avb fltiOcvalb 27
spondence — ^** whatever my sentiments are, as well as
anything I have ever acquired, are mostly owing to
your affection for me, both in forming my principles
and helping my understanding ; for which the only
return I can make is my love for you, and that, I
am sure, you are perfectly convinced of." Nor is
there at any subsequent date the smallest trace that
divergent opinions or other causes ever produced a
diminution of the unusual cordiality of a difficult
relationship.
Granted the inevitable isolation from all but family
association of a boyhood passed in a French country
neighbourhood, there was probably little wanting to
make Lord Edward's a happy one. Brothers and
sisters, older and younger, must have filled the house
and found an ideal playground in the old Castle of
Aubigny which stood near, if not adjoining, the more
modern residence ; and the companionship of his mother
would have gone far to make up for the absence ot
the variety afforded by school life.
The system of home education, notwithstanding
all that may be argued to its disadvantage, is not
without its compensations, especially in the case of
a nature standing in as little need as that of Lord
Edward of the rougher discipline a school supplies ;
and to those early years passed under his mother's
roof may be ascribed much of the abiding influence
she exercised over him throughout his after-life, in-
sufficient as it proved to avert the final catastrophe,
as well as the clinging afl^ection and singular confidence
28 Xffe of Xor5 £6warD fit30etal5
which marked his rektions with her to the end. He
bore through life the stamp of a man who has loved
his home.
Mr. Ogilvie appears to have been a practical man.
His stepson had been destined from the first for the
army, and his education was conducted throughout
with a view to his future profession, to which he
seems to have looked forward with eager anticipation.
Even his amusements were brought to bear upon
the art of war, and there is a letter extant to his
mother in which he gives a description of the mimic
fortifications with which, during her temporary absence
from home, he had embellished the Duke of Rich-
mond's orangery, together with an account of a
" very pretty survey " which he had taken of the
fields round the Garonne. The letter concludes
with a half-apology for the boasting of which
the writer had been guilty ; *' but you know," adds
the boy cheerfully, "I have always rather a good
opinion of what I do."
In the last century, however, less time was wasted
than is the case now over the preliminaries of life,
and prefaces were apt to be cut short. At sixteen
young FitzGerald had concluded his education, except
in so far as those studies were concerned which might
be combined with the possession of a commission in
the army, and he was already in England, attached
in the first place to a militia regiment of which his
uncle, the Duke, was Colonel, and was turning to
practical use the experience gained in the orangery
Xtfc ot XorD EI>war5 jp(t5®cral&
«9
W
fortifications and the Garonne survey. It would seem
that under these new circumstances he succeeded in
acquitting himself of his duties no less to his own
satisfaction than formerly, as well as to that of his
superior officer ; and judging from a letter to his
mother, in which he gives a report of the proceedings
of her ** dear, sweet boy/' it is to be inferred that
the rude disciplinarianj Time, had not yet cured him
of the habit of taking a favourable view of his own
performances-
Keen, however, as was his enjoyment of his initiation
into military duties, he was none the less eager to
be done with what he no doubt regarded in the light
of a mere rehearsal of the real business of life, and to
cut short his apprenticeship ; nor is it to be wondered
at that, at a time when actual experience of warfare
was to be gained at the other side of the Atlantic,
he should not have been disposed to linger over the
stage represented by service in a militia regiment at
home. Impatient to begin soldiering in earnest, he
had scarcely been appointed, on the completion of his
seventeenth year, to a lieutenancy in the 26th Regiment,
before he is found fretting at a life of enforced
inaction and moving heaven and earth to get himself
dispatched abroad on active service.
Some necessary delay, however, took place before
his wishes could be accomplished ; and in the meantime
he was not backward in availing himself of such
means of entertainment as were to be found within
reach of his Irish quarters. As usual, he had nothing
30 Xffe of %ovb £^war^ jf it3<9ecal5
but good to report, both of his superior officer and
of the place in which he found himself. Everybody
had shown him great civility, and he had in especial
managed to get particular enjoyment out of a visit
to Lord Shannon's, where he had met his relation
Lady Inchiquin, arrayed, so he asserted, in the self-
same mtfrr^»-coloured gown she had been wearing
when the FitzGerald departure from Ireland had taken
place, though now altered in cut and made up into
a jacket and petticoat. It would seem that Lord
Edward's memory for clothes was good !
There had been another guest, besides poor Lady
Inchiquin, at Lord Shannon's. For a considerable
portion of Lord Edward's life it would not be unsafe
to say that when he was not soldiering he was sure
to be making love, and on this occasion he had made
the acquaintance of a charming girl, the first of many,
with whom, he assured the Duchess, he would, had
he only had time, have fallen desperately in love ;
owning himself, even in the absence of the necessary
leisure, a little touched. In this case, too, no less
than in respect to his military prowess, some trace of
self-satisfaction is to be detected. As to what account
of him Lady Inchiquin might give he confesses himself
doubtful — one fancies his conscience accuses him of
some ill-concealed ridicule of the antique marron^
coloured gown ; but of Miss Sandford's good word —
so much more important — he feels himself secure.
Yet, in spite of these distractions, and others, he
was impatient to be gone, and, though in a less degree,
Xite of Xor^ £^war^ jfft5(?eraI^ 31
anxious upon the subject of promotion. He was
already keenly interested in the details of his profession,
and, young though he was, he took a serious view
of his duties. Happy and hopeful as usual — " le plus
gaV^ in his regiment, as he tells his mother, falling
naturally into French after his long residence abroad —
he had set himself to become a good soldier, and
expected to succeed.
** I am very busy," he wrote, " and have a great
deal to do with my company, which, as the captain
does not mind it much, is not a very good one, and
I have taken it into my head that I can make it
better. You will think me very conceited, but I
depend greatly upon Captain Giles's instructions. . . .
I think by the time I have served a campaign or two
with him I shall be a pretty good officer."
In the meantime he would have liked to have got
a company of his own. He had already held for
more than a month the position of lieutenant in his
Majesty's army, was turned seventeen, and yet, so
far as could be seen, there was no immediate prospect
of his obtaining the promotion to which his brother,
upon his behalf, ought to have had every right.
Dilatory, however, as he considered the authorities
in this respect, he was not so unwilling as he might
otherwise have been to condone their neglect, owing
to the apprehension lest promotion should interfere
with his chance — a far more serious matter — of being
speedily dispatched to the seat of war. One con-
sideration, and one only, damped the exhilaration with
32 Xite of Xor5 £^war^ f it5®ena5
which he looked forward to the prospect of active
service — the inevitable separation from his mother.
Love for her was the only force that even for a
moment came into competition with his sfnrit of
adventure, and the two conflicting sentiments find
expression in his letters.
" How happy I should be to see her ! " he wrote,
'' yet how happy I shall be to sail 1 ** And again,
*' Dear, dear mother," he wrote from Youghall in
answer to a letter the tenor of which it is easy to
conjecture, since to the Duchess the impending sepanu
tion can have had no compensations, ^^I cannot
express how much your letter affected me. The only
thing that could put me into spirits was the report
that the transports were come into Cove."
It was inevitable, however, that at seventeen and
with a nature such as that of Lord Edward, the love
of adventure should win the day. Even the delight
of seeing his mother, he declared, would be enhanced
by being preceded by an American campaign ; and
early in the year 1781 he exchanged into the 19th
Regiment, then expecting shortly to be ordered abroad.
Leaving England in March, he landed in the month
of June at Charleston, to take his share, in strange
contradiction to the latter part of his career, in the
war which England was carrying on against the
independence of her American colonies.
CHAPTER III
1781—1783
The American War — Opinions concerning it— Lord Edward
at Charleston — Active Service — Dangerous Escapade —
Wounded at Eutaw Springs — Tony — Early Popularity —
St. Luda — Back in Ireland.
THE end of the last century was a time when
opinion moved rapidly. In the year 1798 the
Duke of Norfolk, in proposing Mr. Fox's health at
a great dinner of the Whig Club, mentioned in con-
nection with his name that of another great man,
Washington. ** That man," he said, " established
the liberties of his countrymen. I leave it to you,
gentlemen, to make the application."
It is true that, in consequence of this speech, together
with a toast which followed it, variously reported as
" Our Sovereign — the People," or " The People — our
Sovereign," the Duke was dismissed from the Lord
Lieutenancy of the West Riding of Yorkshire ; but
that such a speech should have been received with
applause at an immense representative meeting is none
the less a significant sign of the times.
In the very month that the Duke's speech was
made, the cousin of Fox, Lord Edward FitzGerald,
33 3
\x9 ^n^ ^ rxe yc«i3k2^ ar had reociTed in the cause
jr wnac 3K xroily »xirped » he the " fiberties of his
c:unc-rnisr. * Srrerflacx Tezrs evfier he had been
wmnosi n Btcaesr itrsggk. viien fightii^ under the
SrcsEt iv n Tmncirnt or tbc n^ts of England
jvcr iier cdicimsk Ar tlat beer hour the com-
psrsim ^ rxe rvc ccvecs Ksc whkh his Uood had
>Kn icei wcuiii xesi 37 ^are been present with him ;
iiic vncn X -rsioLY. ^csk Ttflr'ani ofidal of the Govem-
3tcnc wTCt wiicin: ic lAi ^esi acqisaintcd in Chaiieston,
T^cmimiei iim jr rrcac ciii difs^ he rq)lied — was it
WTcrt A 5cn:»: ,^* A icec wrpai occ r — that it had been
:ft X i!(firr;:nc ctu:^ naf le hai been wounded then ;
^(tct ic rroc r.-m: le Xid S»i ^hting against liberty,
•tow XT c
IkiC w-u«^cr :nuT limr Seer tide case in after-life —
X Ki > s >»^t2> tec 1 ToCin? rc» Sr trcubled by morbid
vfxvNv: x*r 1 wTv«?u: c^^^^rxacly cooc — it is certain
;>.u K.* <-v;^c< i:> r:* r^ justice of the quarrel in
^ V v> h: ^:ts r.^ S: ;:f*c^§^i wen; Ekely to disturb the
sxskskx'KV .^ :X' c•^'^^^:!^-vcl^-oI^i bov, or to interfere
\%':N "^is >arsntci:v«t ri irrvirr^ hisrself at last at the
I: v^x^ C?cc :''^.i: i^is cvn^rt Charles James Fox was
nv^ oiilvx \^'ch :Kc rvs^t of h:^ party, bitterly c^pposed
to the s:ru^U\ Njtc :cu:. with the imesponstbility
of a $rAtcMiu.n Ml ho wvna^vicroi himself at the time
iily and iiivlcfetMiccly cxciuvkvi from all participation
Klical politics^ h<^ was tct the habtt of uang
fgi whidi has been describcvi as that of a passion-
Xffe ot Xor^ £^war^ fit3(?eraI^ 35
ate partisan of the insurgents. ** If America should
be at our feet," he wrote after some British victory,
** which God forbid!" His uncle the Duke of
Richmond, too, had expressed his opinion — thus indi-
cating his view of the men by whom the war was
carried on — that Parliament in its present temper would
be prepared to establish a despotism in England itself ;
and neither in society nor in the House did the Whig
party make any secret of the goodwill they bore to
the cause of the revolted colonies, some of the more
extreme among them going so far as to make the
reverses suffered by the British forces matter of open
rejoicing.
But to hold a theoretical opinion is one thing,
to allow it to influence practical action quite another,
and it is to be questioned whether the views enter-
tained by his party and accepted by himself as to
the injustice of the war would have had a more
deterrent effect upon the average country gentleman
in the choice of the army as a profession for one
son than would have been exercised by the prevailing
scepticism of the eighteenth century upon his intention
of educating the other with a view to the family
living. The one was a matter of theory, the other
of practice, and it is astonishing to what an extent
it is possible to keep the two in all honesty
apart.
Lord Edward's temperament, too, was essentially
that of a soldier ; to obey without question or
hesitation was a soldier's duty ; and especially when
36 itte of Xor^ £&war5 ffHiicxaXb
the duty enjoined upon him lay in the direction
of active service he was not likely to examine over-
curiously into the abstract right and wrong of the
principle upon which the war was based. On the
contrary, when the differences of opimon prevailing
in England on the subject were forced upon lus
attention, as, through his connection with the party
in opposition, must often have been the case, he
would dismiss them from his mind as wholly irrelevant
to the more important question of personal duty ;
reflecting, if he gave any thought at all to the
matter, that whatever might have been the original
rights of the quarrel, it was clearly the bu^ness of
every soldier, since England had engaged in the
conflict, to do his best that she should come out of
it victorious.
That she was not likely to do so was, by this
time, except to the eyes of a boy of eighteen, plain.
The eventual issue of the struggle was practically
decided. Ever since the beginning of 1781 reverses
had persistently followed the British arms ; while, with
the assistance of France, success was declaring itself
more and more emphatically on the side of America*
By October of the same year the war was terminated
by the surrender of the British forces under the
command of Lord Cornwallis, and the colonies were
free.
At the time when Lord Edward landed with his
regiment, four months earlier, no apprehension of
I speedy a conclusion to hostilities was entertained.
Itre ot Xotd £t>wait> fitsOeraU) 37
Lord Rawdon, however, in command at Charleston,
was so hard pressed that the officer in charge of the
newly arrived regiments, instead of taking them
to join the forces under Cornwallis, as had been
originally intended, placed them at once at his dis-
posal, with the result of some temporary successes
to the British arms.
To Lord Edward personally the change of plan
was attended with favourable consequences. Having
distinguished himself before long by the display of
unusual readiness and skill in covering a retreat on
the part of his r^ment, the performance made so
advantageous an impression at headquarters that
young FitzGerald was in consequence — other and
more irrelevant circumstances being possibly taken
into account — placed as aidenie'^amp on Lord
Rawdon's staff, a position which afforded him the
opportunity of serving his apprenticeship to active
service under the eye of a general well adapted to
instruct him in the craft.
The fact that details of a personal nature are, at
this period of his life, peculiarly scarce may account
for the exaggerated importance which has been
attached to a boyish escapade of which, brilliant
and reckless though it may have been, many other
lads with an equally adventurous spirit would have
been capable. It is true that an interest not other-
wise belonging to it may be lent to the incident by
the later history of the hero ; for the exploit was
distinguished by precisely that rash and heedless
33 Xfte ot Xorb £^wat^ ftt50eraI^
gallantry which continued to mark his conduct when
it had become no longer a question of his personal
safety alone, but of the success or failure of the
enterprise of which he was the chosen leader.
It was when the English troops were engaged in
effecting the relief of a fort invested by the American
forces that the occurrence took place. A reconnaissance
had been arranged ; and the Adjutant-General of Lord
Rawdon's staffs, before setting out on it, sent to desire
Lord Rawdon's aide^e^amp to accompany the ex-
pedition. The aide-de^amp^ however, was nowhere to
be found ; and after a fruidess search the party was
proceeding on its way without him, when, at a distance
of two miles from the camp, the culprit was discovered,
having been executing a strictly private reconnaissance
of his own, and engaged, at the moment of the
arrival upon the scene of the English patrolling party,
in a hand-to-hand fight with two of the enemy's
irregular horse. His insubordination had come near
to putting a premature end to his experience of war-
fare. Saved, however, by the timely intervention of
hin comrades from the consequences of his foolhardi-
ncHH, he submitted, with much show of penitence, to
the severe reprimand administered by his commanding
officer for the misdemeanour of which he had been
guilty in absenting himself from the camp without
permission ; and so conducted himself that, in spite
of his delinquency, he succeeded in obtaining leave to
accompany the present expedition. " It was impossible
to refuse the fellow," confessed the Adjutant-General,
Xfte ot Xor^ £^war^ jfit3(?eraI^ 39
in telling the story, ** whose frank, manly, and
ingenuous manner would have won over even a greater
tyrant than myself."
There were in after-days, one imagines, not a few
persons who found it difficult to refuse to Lord Edward
that which he desired to obtain !
On Lord Rawdon's return to England, his young
aide-de-^amp rejoined his regiment, and, fighting in
the battle of Eutaw Springs, received the wound to
which he alluded in his Newgate cell. It was also on
the same battlefield that he gained a lifelong friend.
Found lying there insensible by a negro, he was carried
by the man to his own hut and was by him nursed
back to life. The two were never afterwards parted,
and throughout Lord Edward's whole subsequent
history runs the thread of the doglike and devoted
fidelity of " Tony " to his master.
There is indeed apparent at this period, as at every
other, the special gift he possessed in so singular a
degree — that, namely, of winning affection from all those
with whom he was brought into contact. It was not
only black Tony who felt his charm ; and a remarkable
testimony to the position he held amongst his comrades
is furnished by Sir John Doyle, the same officer who
had been unable to find it in his heart to punish the
boy for his breach of discipline by refusing him per-
mission to accompany the reconnoitring party. Sir
John, as Adjutant-General on Lord Rawdon's staff,
had had special opportunities of forming an opinion of
the General's aide-de-campy and the evidence he bears
40 Xtfe Of Xorb S6watd fftsOotOJb
to his extraordinary popularity as well as to his gallantry
b worth quoting.
"I never knew so lovable a person," he wrote,
**and every man in the army, ftt>m the general to
the drummer, would cheer the expresuon. His
fi*ank and open manner, his universal benevolence, his
gaiii de ccruty his valour almost chivalrous, and, above
all, his unassuming tone, made him the idol of all
who served with him. He had great animal spirits,
which bore him up against all fatigue ; but his courage
was entirely independent of those spirits — it was a
valour sui generisJ*'
The popularity thus described, while due no doubt
in some measure to those winning qualities which
are independent of training, may nevertheless be cited
as additional proof that the system of home educa-
tion which had been pursued in his case, and which
had fostered the clinging affections and the gentleness
which lasted through life, had been productive of
none of the ill effects which sometimes make themselves
apparent when a lad who has been thus brought up
is thrown upon the world and forced to find his own
level. The total absence of arrogance or self-asser-
tiveness, upon which Doyle lays special stress, was at
all times one of his marked features, and no doubt
had its share in contributing to that influence over
men of all classes which is essential to the leader of
a party.
Lord Edward's experience of actual warfare, though
exciting so long as it lasted, was not destined to be
I4te cf %otb £^war^ f itsOetal^ 41
prolonged. In the autumn came the surrender of
the British forces at Yorktown; and he was sent
some little time later — it does not appear at what
exact date — ^to occupy a post upon the staff of General
0*Hara at St. Lucia*
The work to be done on the West Indian island
was chiefly that of erecting fortifications ; and was
probably found by the young soldier somewhat tame
in comparison with the excitement of the American
campaign. As usual, however, he cordially liked his
new chief, who put him a little in mind of *'dear
Mr. Ogilvie," and who must have been possessed of
attractions of his own ; since, some thirteen years
later, he broke the heart of Miss Berry, the friend
of Horace Walpole, whose engagement to O'Hara
is said to have constituted the one romance of her
life. So constant, indeed, did she remain to her
faithless lover, in spite of his repudiation, without
explanation or excuse, of the relations between them,
that, years afterwards, on receiving the sudden news
of his death she fell down in a dead faint.
It was not only in the eyes of the woman who loved
him and who described him as the most perfect
specimen of a soldier and a courtier that O'Hara
possessed singular merits. Lord Cornwallis also re-
corded his high opinion of the services he had rendered,
and of his success in reconciling the Guards to the
endurance of every species of hardship. He is
therefore likely to have proved a chief after Lord
Edward's own heart, both from a social and military
42 Xite ot Xor^ £5watd f ttsOerald
point of view ; and, granted the inevitable drawback
of withdrawal from active service, everything at St.
Lucia was much to the ncwcomer*s liking, with the
exception of ** three blockheads who were pleased to
call themselves engineers," and who supplied his one
cause of legitimate discontent.
The mastery he possessed over the French language
was the means of providing him with a greater amount
of variety than fell to the lot of his brother-officers ;
for he was sent, in consequence of it, in charge of
prisoners and under a flag of truce, to the French
quarters at Martinique, where he passed a very
pleasant time, being as well received, or if possible
better, than had that peace been concluded which
was already a grave cause of anxiety and " frightened
everybody."
By reason, doubtless, of its nationality, Martinique
appears to have been a gayer resort than St. Lucia.
The young envoy was at balls every night during his
mission to the island, and found the women pretty
and well dressed, besides being — he is careful to make
the assertion on the authority of the French officers,
but one may be justified in believing that their report
had been corroborated by personal experience — " to use
dear Robert's ^ words, ' vastly good-natured.' "
Lord Edward himself, like his brother, had probably
little cause to complain of lack of good nature on
the part of women ; nor had he as yet made the
discovery that their kindness, in the case of a
^ Lord Robert FitzGerald, his brother, younger by two years.
Itte ot %ovb lEbwmb f it3(?eraI^ 43
younger son possessed of restricted means, is liable
to limitation.
In the comparative seclusion of St. Lucia, and with
leisure to turn his mind to such matters, his thoughts
again reverted to the subject of promotion. His views
on the question had enlarged since he had last occupied
himself with it in Ireland, and a company in the Guards
was now the object of his ambition. A lieutenancy
he would not so much as accept as a gift. He could
not but consider it somewhat strange, to say the least
of it, that, having been now nearly four years in the
service — though he based no daim upon this circum-
stance — he had received no company ; and being
by this time on the way to complete his twentieth
year, he naturally felt aggrieved at the neglect with
which he had been treated. One detects the exist-
ence of a covert threat in the scheme unfolded to
his mother of a plan for seeking in the East Indies,
likely before long to become a stirring scene of
action, the advancement in his profession which
was so unaccountably withheld from him in other
quarters.
It is clear that he considered that his relations had
been remiss in pressing his claims upon the authorities
at home. The Duke of Richmond had declined to
interfere — a determination in which his nephew, viewing
the matter dispassionately, could not but consider him
mistaken ; and her spoilt boy even seems to suspect
the Duchess herself of supineness in the matter. His
letters are nevertheless as full of affection as ever.
44 Itte or Xorb EMimr^ ftts^ctaXb
" What would I not give to be with you," he writes,
only a month after that astute hint had been thrown
out as to a lieutenant-colonelcy to be had in the East
for the asking — "what would I not give to be with
you, to comfort you, dearest mother 1 But I hope the
peace will soon bring the long-wished-for time " — the
peace, observe, the prospect of which "frightened
everybody." " Till then my dearest mother will not
expect it."
There is a curious touch of prudence — the prudence
which recognises and gauges its own limits — in the
allusion made to some wish apparently expressed by the
Duke his brother that he should return to England on
the attainment of his twenty-first year and set his
money affairs in order. The question of the sale of an
estate he had inherited appears to have been raised, and
is the occasion of the frank opinion he expresses as to
his own capacity for the management of financial
business.
" I shall tell him," he writes to the Duchess, " that
any arrangement he may make with your consent I
shall always attend to. I own, if I were to sell entirely,
I should feel afraid of myself; but, on the contrary,
if I were to have so much a year for it, I think I should
get on more prudently. ... As to going home " — on
this point he is decided — " I shall certainly not go
home about it."
Though not with the object of making a settlement
of his money matters, Lord Edward did in fact return
to Ireland even before the date desired by his brother.
Xife ot %otb £^war^ f ft5(?etaI^ 45
By the spring of the year 1783 he was at home again,
having been absent nearly two years, and bringing back
with him the experience of active military operations
which he had been anxious to acquire, and which he
expected to prove of so much service to him in years
to come.
CHAPTER IV
1783— 1786
Returned to Parliament — ^Life in Ireland — ^Tedium — ^The Con-
dition of the Country — Westminster Election — ^Lord
Edward's Family— Lord Edward in Love-^At Woolwich
—In the Channel Islands — Letters to his Mother.
IT was in the summer of 1783, a few months
after his return to Ireland, that Lord Edward's
political career may be said to have been formally
inaugurated, by his finding himself a member of the
new Parliament, returned to it by his brother the
Duke as member for Athy.
In its ultimate consequences the event was of the
last importance, turning, as in course of time it must
necessarily have done, his attention to the condition
of the country and its relations to England. But at
the present moment it was another aspect of the afBur
by which he was principally affected.
Life in Ireland, in Parliament or out of it, pre-
sented a violent contrast to that which he had lately
led. Lord Toward frankly confessed that he foimd
the tedium of that life intolerable. It was no wonder,
't does not appear that he formed any close friend-
B, at least as yet, among the men who were to
46
Xtfe of Xor5 £bwar5 jrit30eraI5 47
be his associates at a later date ; nor, though he was
punctual in his attendance at the House, and from
the first consistent in his adherence to the popular
side, was he likely at twenty- one to find politics
sufficiently engrossing to compensate for the absence
of the excitement of the last two years. It is more
probable that he regarded them chiefly in the light
of an interruption to the serious business of life,
represented by the art of killing, and, in case of
necessity, being killed, after the most approved method
of military science.
Possibly, as he felt himself insensibly drawn into
the current of the interests of those by whom he
was surrounded, the distaste with which he regarded
his new environment may have been modified ; but
at the outset his sentiments were plainly enough
expressed.
" I have made fifty attempts to write to you," he
tells his mother, just then in England, in a letter
dated from his brother's house, " but have as often
failed, from want of subject. Really a man must
be a clever fellow who, after being a week at Carton
and seeing nobody but Mr. and Mrs. B , can
write a letter. If you insist on letters, I must write
you an account of my American campaigns over
again, as that is the only thing I remember. I am
just now interrupted by the horrid parson, and he
can find nothing to do but to sit at my elbow."
For once, it is clear, Lord Edward's sweet temper
was ruffled. The only thing which he thoroughly
48 life or Xor& £dwar& jTitiOeralft
approved, as we find from a letter a month later, was
of his mother's intention of giving up going abroad
in order to bear him company in Ireland. Her
presence, he told her, was the only thing that could
make him happy there. When she was absent he
found home life very insipid.
Yet the situation in Ireland, in Parliament and out
of it, was one which might have been expected to
vary the monotony of existence, and to impart to it
some flavour of excitement, especially to one who
might look to have a hand in the direction of
afllidrs.
During the previous year Parliamentary independence
had been won. But to be effective, as events too
clearly proved, it should have been accompanied by
reform. A situation under which the members of
the Upper House returned, for their pocket boroughs,
a majority of those of the Lower, was a travesty of
Parliamentary government. Opinions, however, differed
as to the next step to be taken. Within the walls of
the House itself party spirit was running so high that
only by the interposition of Parliament was a duel
between Flood and Grattan, the two great popular
leaders, averted. The country at large was in a
condition of ferment and agitation, alike constitutional
and the reverse ; and in some parts was so given over
to lawlessness that, to cite one instance alone, it had
been possible for the notorious George Robert Fitx-
Gerald — a connection by marriage of the Duke of
Leinster's — to keep his father, with whom he had had
Xife of Xorb JE^war^ jTitsi^eralb 49
a disagreement, in confinement for the term of five
months, and, with cannon mounted round the house
where he was imprisoned, to defy for that period
the action of the authorities. The Volunteer movement,
too, was at its height, losing daily more and more of
its original character, to assume an attitude of hostile
menace towards the Government, while Dublin itself
was in so turbulent a condition that outrages in the
streets were of daily occurrence.
All this, one would imagine, must have offered a
variation to the routine of daily life during the first
year of Lord Edward's initiation into Parliamentary
afiairs. Nor were other incidents wanting to break the
monotony which might have attached to it — incidents
such as that which occurred in November, 1783, when
that strange and picturesque personage, Lord Bristol,
Bishop of Deny — one of the most anomalous figures
of the day — drove into Dublin to attend the Volunteer
Convention in royal state, in a carriage drawn by six
horses with purple trappings, and escorted by a troop
of volunteer dragoons under the command of that very
FitzGerald, his nephew, who had successfully held
the sheriiFs officers at bay. Dressed in purple, with
diamond ornaments, the Bishop halted at the door of
Parliament House, saluting with royal dignity those
members — Lord Edward, perhaps, amongst them — who,
startled by the blast of trumpets which had heralded
his approach, had crowded to the door to ascertain
the cause of the unusual tumult.
Of the impression made upon the new member by
4
50 Xtfe of Xor5 £5war5 jrft3<BeraI&
such events as these our means of forming a conjecture
are scanty. That his sympathies were not, so fiu-,
engaged on the side represented by the more recent
developments of the Volunteer movement may be
inferred from a passage in a letter of December, 1783,
in which Horace Walpole informs his correspondent
that '' Lord Edward FitzGerald told me last night
that he fears the Volunteers are very serious, sans
compter the spirits which the late revolution here may
give them." He never took part at this time in the
debates in the House, and there is a gap in his
correspondence with his mother, by which light might
have been thrown on the subject, explained by the
fact that during the next two years his home was for
the most part made, though not without intervals spent
in London or Dublin, with the Duchess and Mr.
Ogilvie at their Irish residence, Frescati.
One of his visits to London, occurring during the
year which succeeded his return to Ireland, was spent
after a fashion which must have afforded a welcome
relief to the monotony of which he complained.
In the General Election of 1784, when the contest
in Westminster was attracting more attention than
any other throughout the kingdom. Lord Edward
was one of those engaged in canvassing the constitu-
ency on behalf of his cousin Charles James Fox — a
circumstance mentioned by Lord Holland as having,
coupled with certain proceedings of his nephew's in
the Irish House of Commons, caused considerable
annoyance to the Duke of Richmond, at the time
%Atc Of Xor5 £6wat5 jrit3(?eraI5 s'
a supporter of the Tory party. It is further hinted
by the same authority that the Duke gave practical
proof of this annoyance at a later date, in matters
connected with the professional advancement of the
culprit.
Whether or not this was the case, the excitement
supplied by the fight must have afforded Lord Edward
ample compensation for any displeasure testified by
his uncle then or thereafter. G^urt and Government
were united in the strength of their opposition to
Fox's candidature ; while among the powerful ad-
herents who threw the weight of their personal
influence into the balance in favour of the Whigs
were the Prince of Wales and the beautifiil Duchess
of Devonshire.
It was a hard struggle, and when the popular
candidate was returned, though not at the head of
the poll, his success was celebrated by a procession
to Devonshire House, graced by the ostrich feathers
of the Heir-apparent, by fetes at Carlton House itself,
and by a dinner at Mrs. Crewe's, in which the royal
supporter appeared wearing the Whig colours. At
all these festivities in honour of the victory he had
helped to win, Lord Edward doubtless assisted, before
returning reluctantly to the routine of ordinary life
at Dublin.
If, however, existence there was not without its
drawbacks, there was another side to it ; and as he
grew more habituated to life under its new conditions,
and as the reaction from the exhilaration afforded by
52 Xife of Xocd Seward fitiOevald
the camp^gning experiences of the last two years
became less oppressive, he must have recognised the
fact that Ireland, especially to a man of his social
temperament, oflered advantages of its own.
Whatever society was to be had, in Dubtin or
elsewhere, was naturally open to him ; and many
members of his own family were settled, from
one cause or another, within reach. The Duke of
Leinster lived principally in his own country, thus
setting an example to less patriotic landlords — ** a
most amiable private gentleman, and a good and
quiet man/' as a contemporary describes him, *^ spend-
ing his rents in Ireland, and justly idolised." Lord
Edward's aunt, too, Lady Louisa, who, herself child-
less, bore her nephew an affection only less than
that of his mother, had married Mr. G>nolly, of
Castletown, near Dublin, said to be the wealthiest
landed proprietor in the country ; and another of
the Lennox sisterhood. Lady Sarah — now married,
for the second time, to a Napier — ^also made her
home in Ireland, her rare beauty so little impaired
by the lapse of years that the Prince of Wales, meeting
in 1 78 1 the woman who, as he said, pointing to
Windsor Castle, '* was to have been there," expressed
his approval of his father's taste, and his conviction
that, even in those distant days, she could not have
been more fair.
It has already been observed that in Lord Edward*8
family the ties of blood possessed peculiar force ; and
•^hc opportunities of constant intercourse with those
%AU Of Xotd £5ward jrit3<Beral5 53
he loved must have served to some extent to reconcile
him to his present surroundings. His stepfather,
indeed, went so far as to assert that this particular
period constituted the happiest time in the lives of
any of the three — himself, his stepson, and his wife —
who loved each other so well. Whether or not Lord
Edward would have altogether endorsed the statement,
it is not unlikely that it was approximately true. He
was twenty-one, launched in a profession of which
he was proud, and in which he had already achieved
a certain amount of distinction. He was living under
the same roof as a mother he adored. And lasdy,
and most important of all, he was in the full swing
of his first serious love affair ; and, threatened with
disappointment though his hopes might be, still, ^^les
beaux jours quand fetais si malheureux " are not un-
fi"equendy the best worth having of a man's life.
The tedium of existence at home had left but one
thing to be done. It was an expedient for which Lord
Edward's nature fortunately offered special facilities.
He had accordingly resorted to it without loss of
time. He fell in love.
The heroine of this preliminary romance was Lady
Catherine Meade, daughter of Lord Clanwilliam, and
afterwards married to Lord Powerscourt. Of Lady
Catherine herself little is known, and that little chiefly
from the letters of her lover, written at a time when,
in the beginning of the year 1786, three years after
his return to Ireland, he was parted from his mother,
having placed himself at Woolwich with a determina-
54 life of Xocd JEtmaxb fftsSeaSb
tion there to pursue a regular course of study. A
military career was that to whidi he still looked
forward, and it is plain that he regarded his Parlia-
mentary duties in the light of a more or less irrelevant
interlude.
It does not appear what share his mother had in
deciding him upon his present step ; but it was pro-
bably not a small one. Lord Edward, it is true, was
his own master. He had reached an age which, a
hundred years ago, represented a stage far more
advanced than at present, when, at twenty-three, a
man is often only just leaving college, and setting
himself for the first time to make his reckoning with
the facts and possibilities of life and to decide upon
his future profession. He had already seen active
service, and had occupied for more than two years
the position of a member of Parliament. In financial
matters he was independent of either profession or
family ; his income, amounting to something like eight
hiuulrcd a year, though a small enough patrimony for
a iluke's son, and wholly inadequate to incline Lord
Clanwilliam to entrust him with the future of his
daughter, being amply sufficient to supply his wants
so long as he remained unmarried.
Yet in spite of all this there was about him a
singular and attractive absence of that assertive spirit
of independence or that desire to emancipate himself
from home influence or control which is so common a
feature of the age which he had reached. *^ As humble
as a child " — if humility were indeed a quality of
Xffe of Xor5 £5war5 jrit3(?etaI5 55
childhood, which may be questioned — ^was part of a
description given of him at a much later date, when
he occupied the post of the recognised chief of the
national party in Ireland ; and at every stage of his
career it would seem to have been a true one.
The deference he uniformly showed to his mother's
opinions, so long as such deference did not imply
a surrender of principle, should be borne in mind,
since it accentuates the strength of the convictions
which afterwards forced him into an attitude of
opposition, not only to the views of the Duchess, but
of most of those he held dear.
To his mother he continued for the present to refer
all his projects, all his schemes ; and it is clear that
he would not at this time have entered upon any plan
of life which should not have received the sanction of
her approval.
A curious proof of the strength of the influence she
retained is furnished by a letter in which his dread is
expressed of a corresponding power, should it be
exerted by Lady Clanwilliam over her daughter in a
direction adverse to his hopes.
** Suppose you were here," he writes, " and to say
to me, ' If you ever think of that girl, I will never
forgive you,' what should 1 do ? even I, who dote on
Kate ! "
Whether her son's attachment to Lady Catherine
had the Duchess's approval ; or whether, which is more
probable, perceiving it to be hopeless, it was by her
advice that Lord Edward repaired to England — a plan
■iuiii powipwefl I3ir 4t>iJiiWr a^isatigc of jflndiiig luiii
a& opportizmtT of -pamcag ^aabay rtoifies and of
bcisg niraaliigad tt> pnct a cvi2t gkI to an anir wnidi
Ae proboblT reg:xr5ed 3& aao tot serious figbt— can
cmij be macer of uupjaxm c What b oertnn b that»
if the o bClq jlion of Ladr Cadicrine*s image had been
her object, her ruiwialMaa vcre IiiDt justified bjr
the erent.
At first, indeed, it might hare seemed likely to
prove othenrise. Lord Edward was gcnuineljr and
honestly in love. It was not his custom to sofier in
silence, and his letters to his mother reflect faidifuUy,
and with a charming and naive anceritr, die fluctuations
to which he was subject, an^ the varying phases of his
mind, ranging from heart-broken discouragement to
complete recovery.
Mr. Ogilvie was at first also in London, having
proln&hly accompanied his stepson to England ; and
the two H{H:nt some time together before Lord Edward
carried into effect his intention of entering himself at
Woolwich.
It waH spring and London at its gayest Lord
lulward was full of engagements, dining out every
(iuy unci (lancing all night. But all this, he was
turcful to explain, did not afford him the slightest
rnjoymcnt ; nothing now interested him in what he
•• UHcrd to call a life of pleasure " ; so little was his
attention engaged in what he was doing that he was
(otiMtantly late for dinner wherever he dined. In
If. Ogilvic's society alone he found real satisfaction.
%U€ Of xord Edward fitsGerald 57
He complained indeed that his step-father was not
at all soft or tender ; but " I make him talk of Kate,
whether he will or not " — poor Mr. Ogilvie ! — ^* and
indeed of you all. I find, now I am away, I like
you all better than I thought I did." And then
once more he recurs to his own grievances. "I
never think of going to anything pleasant myself;
1 am led to it by somebody. I depend entirely upon
other people, and then insensibly y^ nC amused
There were few situations from which, whether
sensibly or not, Lord Edward did not succeed in
extracting some amusement, but at the present
moment he really seems to have been too much de-
jected to find it in London society ; at any rate, he
presently repaired to Woolwich, to try whether work
might be more to his taste than what, at twenty-
three, he had ceased to call pleasure.
At first little improvement is perceptible in his
condition ; and from the tenor of his letters one
might almost be led to suspect that, if the Duchess
had had a hand in sending him away, he was bent
upon demonstrating to her the fruitlessness of the
experiment. He is, he tells her, very busy — it is,
in fact, his only resource, for he has no pleasure in
anything. He acts upon her advice and tries to
drive away care, but without success. And then
comes the first confession of some symptoms of
amendment. ** My natural good spirits, however,
and the hopes of some change, keep me up a little."
And he hopes the Duchess will make him as happy
58 Xife of Xor5 Edward fitsOcxaVb
as she can by giving accounts in her letters — ^it is
easy to guess of what.
**I need not say," he goes on, "I hope you are
kind to pretty dear Kate ; I am sure you are. I
want you to like her almost as much as I do — it
is a feeling I always have with people I love ex-
cessively. Did you not feel to love her very much,
and wish for me, when you saw her look pretty at
the Cottage?**
By July Mr. Ogilvie had returned to Ireland ; and,
unable to depend any longer upon his stepfather to
send home reports of his proceedings, he was forced
to take to more regular letter-writing on his own
account. " By the way, I wish Tony could write,*'
he says in parenthesis ; though whether the fiuthfiil
Tony*s reports of his master*s condition would have
reconciled the Duchess to silence on his own part
may well be questioned. He was working very
hard — a change, no doubt, after two years in Dublin
with nothing to do except to give his vote when
required — but confessed candidly that, if he had le
caur content^ a life of idleness and indolence was the
one which suited him best. He evidently entertained
some apprehensions as to the effect of her husband*s
masculine common sense upon his mother and her
letters. She was not to let Ogilvie spoil her by
telling her she " would be the ruin of that boy.**
If the Duchess minded her husband and did not go
on writing pleasant letters, always saying something
about Kate, he would not answer her — would not
%itc of Xord £^war^ f itsOetald 59
indeed write at all. Here, however, another con-
fession is made — ^he was not in such bad spirits as
in London. •* I have not time hardly. In my
cvening*s walk, however, I am as bad as ever." The
nature of that walk he had explained in a letter to
his brother ; " but upon my honour," he adds, " I
sometimes think of you in it " — ^which assurance
is perhaps all that can be looked for by a mother
whose son is in love. "I wish, my dear mother,"
he goes on, suddenly throwing Woolwich and military
advancement and all else to the winds — " I wish you
would insist on my coming to you."
The Duchess did not " insist " upon it ; and in the
summer the Duke of Richmond, making an official
survey of the Channel Islands, took his nephew
with him.
Further amendment in the state of Lord Edward's
spirits was duly reported to his mother from St. Helier.
*' I have been in much better spirits," he confesses
frankly, "everything being new. ... I shall get a
great deal of knowledge of a part of my profession
in this tour ; for the Duke goes about looking at
all the strong places, and I have an opportunity of
hearing him and Colonel MoncriefFe talk the matter
all over."
He was still, however, unfeignedly anxious to get
home, though he would not carry his wishes into
effect against the Duchess's judgment ; and she, no
doubt fortified by Mr. Ogilvie's representations, was
proof against his importunities.
6o xtfe or Xord £MPatD fttsOexaXb
"Don't you think 1 might come home after this
tour ? " he asks persuasively. " 1 b^n now, my
dearest mother, to wish much to see you ; besides,
I think that, after all this, I could do a great deal
of good at Black Rock, as my nund has reaUy taken
a turn for business. Thinking of Kate disturbs me
more than sedng her would da I do really love
her more, if possible, than when I left you. ... I
must come home ; it is the only chance I have against
la dragonne ** (Lady Clanwilliam).
Besides, he proceeds to demonstrate, making use
of a line of argument which might be expected to
appeal, more strongly than his desire to circumvent
Lady Clanwilliam, to the authorities at home, he
never worked so well as with Ogilvie ; and his
mathematics, especially necessary in his profession,
would gain more by his stepfather's instructions than
by those of any teacher on the other side of the
Channel. Ogilvie, of course, he adds, with a touch
of petulance, would be against his coming ; " but no
matter, you will be glad to have me on any terms,
and I am never so happy as when with you, dearest
mother/'
It says much for the Duchess's strength of mind
that she was unconvinced by this fond flattery.
She evidently refused to listen to the voice of the
charmer, charmed he never so wisely, for in August
Lord Edward was. back again in England, detained
at Goodwood, the Duke of Richmond's house, by a
sprained ancle. " I do think, what with legs and
Itfe of Xorb £&ward f itjOeralD
6i
Other things," he told his mother, *' I am the most
unlucky dog that ever lived/'
He set to work again, nevertheless, this time at
mechanics, and appears to have put the idea of a
present return to Ireland out of his head. He had,
indeed, started another scheme, concerning which he
was, as usual, anxious to have his mother's opinion-
He was, like some other people, very wise on paper.
Goodwood was full of temptations to idleness ;
Stoke, another uncle's house, even more alluring, and
**/> suis foible'^ What would the Duchess think of his
going for four months, till the meeting of Parliament
in January, to study at a Scotch university, where he
would be able to give his whole mind to work ? It
was a scheme which offered many advantages. There
were, however, drawbacks to the plan, of which he
possibly became more conscious so soon as he had
reduced it to black and white. It was three months
since he had seen his mother ; four more would be
*' a great while/* If she decided upon passing the
interval before the meeting of Parliament abroad —
suddenly the Scotch university fades out of sight as
if it had never existed — he was determined to go also
and remain with her till recalled by his Parliamentary
duties*
If he had been three months absent from his mother,
there was some one else from whom he had likewise
been absent for the like period, and that was Lady
Catherine Meade ; and though he was careful to protest
that his sentiments with regard to her had remained
62 xite of %oxb £^war^ f itsGetald
unalterably the same, a rival attraction, towards the end
of August, had begun to make itself felt. He was
right when, in planning that visit to Scotland, he had
anticipated distractions, should he remdn in his present
surroundings. In these matters, as well as in those
relating to money, he placed a just estimate upon his
powers of resisting temptation, whether to extravagance
or to idleness. Besides, "i/ on rCa fas ce quon aime^
il faut aimer ce quon tf *' ; and it was not likely that
a man of Lord Edward's temperament should find
himself for long together without an object for his
affections from which he was not separated by the
breadth of the Irish Channel.
That the possibility of infidelity had begun to make
itself felt was apparent, not only in his protestations
of changelessness, but also in the credit he took to
himself for the fact that, though he had been staying
at Stoke, the house of his uncle Lord George Lennox,
and had there enjoyed opportunities of intercourse with
Lord George's three daughters, he still remained
faithful.
"Though I have been here ever since the Duke
went," he writes, not without some pride, *'I am as
constant as ever, and go on doting upon her ; this
is, I think, the greatest proof I have given yet. Being
here has put me in much better spirits, they are so
delightful."
And most delightful of all was Georgina Lennox,
the youngest of the sisters, then about twenty-one.
Giving a description of this niece some six years earlier,
Xtfe ot Xord B^ward f itsOerald 63
Lady Sarah Napier had mentioned that she was con-
sidered to be very like herself, which would seem
to imply that she was gifted with her full share of
the family beauty ; and with the wit, the power of
satire, and the good-nature with which she was said,
even at fifteen, to be endowed, she must have been
a dangerous rival to the absent Lady Catherine. A
fortnight later than the last letter quoted another was
written, which contained a clear foreshadowing of the
end, though still accompanied by the protestation of
unalterable attachment.
" I love her more than anything yet, though I have
seen a great deal of Georgina. I own fairly I am
not in such bad spirits as I was, particularly when I
am with Georgina, whom I certainly love better than
any of her sisters. However, I can safely say I have
not been infidelle [sic] to Kate — whenever I thought of
her, which I do very often, though not so constantly as
usual ; this entirely between you and me. ... I love
nothing in comparison with you, my dearest mother,
after all."
It is a precarious and intermittent supremacy at
most that mothers enjoy, but they must make the
best of it. The Duchess had, in fact, only exchanged
one rival for another ; but Lady Catherine Meade had
passed for ever out of her young lover's life, and her
place in it knew her no more.
CHAPTER V
1786— 1788
Lord Edward and His Mother — ^Increasing Interest in
Politics— The Duke of Rutland Viceroy— Lord Edward's
Position in Parliament and Outside It — ^Visit to Spain —
General O'Hara.
IF Lord Edward was once more in love, he said less
about it than when Lady Catherine had been the
heroine of his boyish romance. It does not appear
that, even to his mother, his constant confidant, he
mentioned, during the next few months, the passion
which had taken hold of him. His silence may
possibly have been due to the fact that this second
affair was a more serious matter than the first ; or,
again, he may still have been young enough to be
shamefaced over his own inconstancy. At any rate,
his reticence marks a new stage in his development
One fancies, too, that other changes are perceptible ;
that his laughter is a trifle less frequent and whole-
hearted ; that he has become a little older, a little
wiser, than when " pretty dear Kate " was his constant
theme. Perhaps something of the first freshness, so
gay and so young as to be almost childish, is gone.
And if his passionate love for his mother had lost
64
Xtft ot XorD SMMtD fiti^cem 65
nothing of its fervour — ^the devoted affection which,
in its clinging tenderness and open expression, was
more like that of a daughter than a son — yet even
upon this it would seem that a change had passed ;
that it had become graver and deeper than before — an
affection which was shadowed by that foreboding
;q>prehensiveness of possible loss which belongs to
the first realisation of the transitoriness of all things
human.
There had, however, been nothing to mar the glad-
ness of their meeting after the months which, to one
at least of the two, had seemed so long. The Duchess
had passed through England on her way abroad in
the autumn of the year which had witnessed the death
of her boy*s first fancy ; and mother and son had met
once more at her brother's house, where Lord Edward
had eagerly awaited her.
** Do not stay too long at Oxford," he wrote when
she was already on her way ; ** for if you do, I shall
die with impatience before you arrive. I can hardly
write, I am so happy."
It was some months before the two made up their
minds to separate again. The Scotch scheme, not-
withstanding all it had had to recommend it, had
evidently died at birth, for there is no further mention
of any such plan ; and on the Duchess's departure
Lord Edward accompanied her abroad, remaining with
her at Nice until recalled to Ireland by the opening
of Parliament.
Dublin seems to have had no more attraction for
5
66 xite ot Xord B^ward fitsOerald
him, on his return thither, than formerly ; and, especially
in the absence of his mother, had little to recommend
it. He missed her at every turn, and told her so in
language which must have been dear to the Duchess's
heart. To visit her own home at Frescati and to
find her absent, to go to bed in the familiar house
without wishing her good-night, to come down in the
morning and not to see her, to look at her flowers
without having her to lean upon him — ^all this was
" very bad indeed." " You are," he tells her in
another letter, with one of those touches of melancholy
that are new — " you are, after all, what I love best in
the world. I always return to you, and find it is the
only love I do not deceive myself in. . . . In thinking
over with myself what misfortunes I could bear, I
found there was one I could not ; — but God bless you ! "
There is, alas ! no making terms with Fate ; and
whatever has to be borne can be borne. But the
misfortune which Lord Edward felt would have been
intolerable was spared him. His mother outlived him,
to mourn his loss.
Another significant change is apparent about this
time. His interest, his personal concern, so to speak,
in politics was evidently deepening to a marked degree.
Yet here, too, the aspect of affairs was discouraging.
In the country at large the Whiteboy disturbances
had spread to an alarming extent, carrying with them
every species of crime and outrage ; enlisting on the
side of Government some of those who had hitherto
remained either in opposition or had preserved a
Xlte of Xor& EdwarJ) jfit3<Bctal6
67
neutral attitude, and uniting together all parties in the
effort to check the growing disaffection.
From this cause and from others the political
situation, in contrast to the agrarian, was one of
exceptional tranquillity. The Viceroyalty of the young
Duke of Rutland — not ten years older than Lord
Edward himself — had been popular. Although already
impoverished by losses at play, his hospitalities were
conducted on a scale of magnificence surpassing in
brilliancy even that of the court he represented^ and
after a gayer fashion than was the case at Carlton
House, of the ** decorous indecorum " of which, to
gether with the "duU regularity of its Irregularities,"
the Due de Chartres, on his first visit to England, is
reported to have complained. The young Duke was
honourable and generous, his wife beautiful^ — they
were, indeed, said to be the handsomest couple in
Ireland — and between them they had worked a revo-
lution in Irish society, not altogether for the better,
and which, with the sudden relaxation of manners that
accompanied it, was for from pleasing to the stricter
censors of morality, ** accustomed," says a contemporary
historian, ** to the almost undeviating decorum of the
Irish females/'
But whatever might be the effect, upon a society
hitherto distinguished for its purity, of the absence
of dignity and restraint which marked the Viceregal
entertainments, the spirit of good fellowship engendered
by conviviality is not without its use in smoothing
away political rancour and bitterness ; and the Duke's
68 xtfe of Xor^ £&war^ rit3®e»l&
splendid hospitalities had drawn within the circle of
his influence many who might otherwise have stood
apart from it. The success of the system was apparent
in Parliament. ^^ It would not have been supposed
possible, even three years ago," wrote the Chief
Secretary, Orde, *^to have attained almost unanimity
in the House of Commons to pass a Bill of Coercion
upon the groundwork of the English Riot Act"
What Lord Edward could do to lessen the unanimity
upon which the Chief Secretary's congratulations were
based had been done ; and throughout the session he
steadily adhered to the small minority which opposed
the Bill, together with other like measures. His tone,
however, with r^;ard to the political oudook was in
private one of discouragement, though not of tl)at dis-
couragement which loses heart to continue the fight
" When one has any great object to carry," he wrote,
" one must expect disappointments, and not be diverted
from one's object by them, or even appear to mind
them. I therefore say to everybody that I think we
are going on well. The truth is," he adds, however,
candidly, "the people one has to do with are a bad
set. I mean the whole, for really I believe those we
act with are the best."
It was in the course of this year that he made a
speech, upon a motion of Grattan's dealing with the
question of tithes, which helps to define both the
extent of his present sympathy with the popular
agitation and perhaps its limitations. His attitude
w stiU that of a man not inclined to yield to violence
Xife of Xorb £^war^ f itsOetald 69
the concessions demanded by justice. Tithes, he said,
having been a grievance for thirty years, it became
the wisdom of the house to enquire into them. While
the people were quiet, no enquiry was made ; while
they were outrageous, no enquiry perhaps ought to
be made ; but certainly it was not beneath the dignity
of the House to say that an enquiry should be made
when the people returned to peace and quietness again.
He had to be taught by the lessons of experience
that it was by the methods he then deprecated, and
by them alone, that justice could be obtained.
His position was probably at this time a lonely one.
He was drifting away by insensible degrees, if not
in affection yet in opinions and sympathies, from
those who had heretofore been his natural associates ;
while he had not, so far, filled their vacant place. What
were his personal relations with the recognised
Parliamentary leaders on the popular side, with Flood
and Grattan and their friends, or whether he had any
personal relations with them at all beyond those
necessarily existing between members of the same
party, we have no means of ascertaining ; and it is
impossible to avoid contrasting his life at this period,
as it is known to us, with that of the group of men
with whom he was presendy to cast in his lot —
men closely allied with each other in aims and in-
terests, and in habits of daily intercourse and constant
interchange of thought.
With regard to his own family, it is true that
nothing is more remarkable than the absence of any
70 Xite ot Xord BDwarD fitsOetalt)
trace of alienation on their part in consequence of
his identification with a movement with which the
sympathy of most of them must have been small. But
even affection sometimes leaves a man lonely ; and
in point of opinion their paths were rapidly diverging.
Thus the Duke of Leinster, essentially a moderate
man, though commonly taking the popular side in
Parliament and remaining true to the national cause
at the time of the Union, forfeited much of his
influence and popularity about this time by a dis-
position to content himself with the concessions
made by the English Government, and to adhere to
a waiting policy with regard to remaining grievances.
He can, therefore, have had no sympathy with the
extreme party to which Lord Edward was to be allied ;
while the favourite brother of the latter, Henry — of
whom he once said, "Harry is perfect," and whose
letter to Lord Camden, written under the influence
of uncontrollable excitement after Lord Edward's death,
speaks of the uncommon affection which had subsisted
between the two from childhood — was presently to
marry an heiress, and, residing in his villa on the
Thames, to play most often the part of an absentee.
The husband of his aunt. Lady Louisa ConoUy,
whose singular affection for her nephew has already
been noticed, had lately, temporarily at least, deserted
the national side and given his support to Government,
behaving, in Lord Edward's eyes, shabbily in the
matter ; while Lady Louisa herself would seem to
have been a weak though affectionate woman ; and,
Xite ot Xort) BDward f itsOeralD 71
judging from her reference, when her nephew lay
dying in prison, to " dear Lord Castlereagh's distress,"
was too easily swayed by those with whom she was
brought into^contact to have much fellow-feeling at the
service of such as were acting in opposition to the social
and class traditions which belonged to her position.
All things considered, the end of the session must
have been welcome to Lord Edward. Always ready
for change, he went abroad so soon as he was released
from his Parliamentary duties, and was probably still
absent from Ireland when, in the autumn of 1787, to
quote Sir Jonah Harrington, ** the Duke of Rutland's
incessant conviviality deprived the British peerage of
an honourable, generous, and high-minded nobleman,
and Ireland of a Viceroy whose Government did nothing,
and whose court did worse than nothing, for the Irish
people."
Lord Edward, however, had left politics behind
for the present, and had set himself— no difficult task —
to enjoy his holiday. His plans included a visit to
Gibraltar and a journey through Spain and Portugal.
It was a curious coincidence that at the first place he
fell in with the man, Charles Henry Sirr, from whom
he was to receive, eleven years later, the wound the
consequences of which proved fatal, and who has left
upon record an opponent's testimony to the high
character for honour borne by Lord Edward.
The stay of the latter at Gibraltar was a pleasant
one. His old chief, General O'Hara, was attached
to the staff at the Rock, finding it perhaps convenient
— if one is to judge of his circumstances by a state-
ment of Lord Cornwallis's to the efiect that "poor
0*Hara is once more driven abroad by his relentless
creditors " — to remain out of England ; and the
General and his former subordinate were delighted
to renew their acquaintance.
" He is pleasanter than ever," Lord Edward wrote,
to his mother ; " and enters into all one's ideas, fimciful
as well as comical We divert ourselves amazingly
with all the people here ; but diis is when he is not
*all over General,' as he calls it. ... I fed grown
quite a soldier again since I came to this place, and
should like to be in a regiment here very much."
And then he confesses to an attack of home-sickness.
"I wrote you the other day a letter which I was
ashamed to send ; I had got up particularly fond of
you, and had determined to give up all improvement
whatever, and set out to you by the shortest road
without stopping. ... I really cannot stay much
longer without seeing you. . . . Often when I see a
ship sailing I think how glad I should be if I were
aboard, and on my passage to you ! "
He had got her the seeds of a plant which would
grow at Frescati ; and had to hurry off, to dine with
a lady who had been up to the elbows in custards to
receive the General.
Notwithstanding the fact that he had left his heart
in England, Lord Edward seems to have contrived to
extract considerable enjoyment out of his wanderings
in Spain, with a muleteer and black Tony for com-
Xife of Xot5 £dwat5 f it5®etal5 73
panions. He was popular wherever he went ; and
so ready to make friends with those with whom he
was brought into contact, that, as he told his mother,
there was hardly a place through which he passed in
which he did not leave an acquaintance with whom he
felt quite sorry to part. In spite, however, of his
delight in the novelty of all he saw, by the time that
he arrived at Madrid impatience to find himself once
more at home was mastering him.
** I wanted to set off to you by post," he wrote to
the Duchess, only three hours after his arrival, "and
should have been with you, in that case, in seven days.
It was to cost me forty pounds ; but Tony remonstrated,
and insisted that it was very foolish, when I might
go for five guineas, and, — in short, he prevailed."
His return to England was not attended, so far as
the impending love affair was concerned, with good
fortune. The Duke of Richmond indeed, uncle to both
cousins, showed himself anxious to further his nephew's
wishes, but his brother was so much opposed to the
match that he ended by forbidding the lover his house.
Lord Edward under these circumstances displayed
more wisdom than might have been anticipated. Find-
ing himself unable, whilst remaining at home, to get the
better of his disappointment, and no doubt unsettled
and restless, he decided, though not relinquishing the
hope of ultimate success, to absent himself from England
for a time by joining his regiment, now stationed at
New Brunswick. In May, 1788, therefore, he sailed
for America.
CHAPTER VI
1788— 1789
Lord Edward in New Brunswick — Second Love Affair— Letters
to his Mother — Irish Affairs—The Duke of Leinster —
Lord Edward declines to seek Promotion — Adventurous
Expedition — Native Tribes — Disappointment — Return
Home.
LORD EDWARD was more than eighteen months
on the other side of the Atlantic. It was his
last holiday before he set his hand in earnest to the
plough and threw himself, for life and for death, into
the cause to which his few remaining years were to be
dedicated.
Unknown to the public as he still was, except as a
younger brother of the Duke of Leinster and an
obscure member of the Irish Parliament, his own
letters form almost the sole source of information
we possess as to this period of his life. There are,
fortunately, a greater number of them available for
this purpose than at most other stages of his career,
and they give a graphic picture of the manner after
which his life was passed in New Brunswick.
If it was a holiday shadowed by present disappoint-
ment, it was not unlightened by hope ; and there is
74
Xife of Xot5 £dwat5 f it5®etal5 75
apparent, besides, throughout the time of his absence
from home, a manly and spirited determination to keep
the wolves of regret at bay, and to set himself courage-
ously to face the future and whatever it might have
in store for him.
It may well have been that his second attachment
was of a deeper nature than his boyish devotion to
Lady Catherine Meade ; but it is no less clear that
he steadily refused to be wholly absorbed by it, and
that he had ceased, at least in his normal condition, to
look upon love-making as the sole object of a man's
life. Even in his confidences to his mother a new
tone is perceptible ; and the dawn is apparent of that
obstinate determination not to be beaten which is so
essential an element in the attitude with which the
leader of a forlorn hope should meet the chances of
life.
" I love Georgina more than ever," he tells the
Duchess, at a date when his absence had already lasted
some months ; " and if she likes me, can never
change." He is still young enough to believe in im-
mutability, but old enough by this time to make it
provisional : "... I shall never, I think, be happy
without her ; neither do I say that I shall be absolutely
unhappy." And again : " As long as there is the
smallest hope of my being happy with Georgina, it
is not possible to be happy with any one else. Dearest
mother, after yourself, I think she is the most perfect
creature on earth."
It is not the language of a man who felt that life
76 Xife of Xotb E5watb f it5<^tal5
and death hung in the balances. It was well, as the
event proved, that it was not so.
He had not been without other causes of disturbance
besides the uncertainty attending his love-affairs. To
the grief he always felt at being parted from his
mother there had been added in this instance the
additional pain resulting fit)m the consciousness that
she had felt disapproval, or even in some degree
displeasure, at his flight from England, decided upon
i;nthout her sanction and unknown to her. It was
only in the month of August diat she withdrew her
disapprobation of the step.
His letters in the meantime had, however, been
as full and confidential as ever. ** Depend upon it,
dearest mother," he assures the Duchess in the first,
written only three days after his arrival at Halifax,
" I will not miss an opportunity of writing to you."
The town was filled with Irish ; the brogue was
to be heard to perfection ; and he was lodged at the
house of a countryman, Mr. Cornelius O'Brien, who
himself claimed relationship with the FitzGeralds.
*' I accept the relationship," added Lord Edward
with a touch of humour, **and his horsCy for thirty
miles up the country."
The regiment was stationed at St. Johns, New
Brunswick ; and by the middle of July, after a long
and fatiguing journey, he had joined it. As usual,
his interest in the new forms of life with which he
had become acquainted on the way was keen ; and
he describes in especial a day during which he had
life of Xot^ S^wat^ f its&etald 77
been obliged to delay his journey, and which had been
passed in the cabin of a couple of aged settlers, with
whose history he had evidently, after his custom,
become fully conversant before quitting their abode.
" It was," he says, ** I think, as odd and as pleasant
a day (in its way) as ever I passed. . . . Conceive,
dearest mother, arriving about twelve o'clock in a
hot day at a little cabin upon the side of a rapid
river, the banks all covered with woods, not a house
in sight, and there finding a little, old, clean, tidy
woman spinning, with an old man of the same appear-
ance weeding salad. The old pair, on our arrival,
got as active as if only five-and-twenty, the gentleman
getting wood and water, the lady frying bacon and
eggs, both talking a great deal, telling their story:
how they had been there thirty years, and how their
children were settled, and when cither's back was
turned remarking how old the other had grown ;
and at the same time all kindness, cheerfulness, and
love to each other." Then he goes on to describe
what followed : the spirits of the old couple subsiding
as night drew on ; the evening passed in the " wild
quietness " of the place ; himself, Tony, and the guide,
together with their hosts, sitting all on one log at
the cabin door. It is clear that the charm of the
woods had cast its spell upon the guest. '* My dearest
mother, if it was not for you, I believe I never
should go home — at least, 1 thought so at that
moment."
That, making his observations upon the conditions
73 Xife of Xot5 £dwat5 f itsOetalb
of life prevailing in a comparatively new country, he
should have singled out for special commendation
the absence of class distinctions, is worth noting as
an indication, thus early, of the temper of mind which
readily led to his future identification with the
principles of the revolution.
**The equality of everybody and of their manner
of life," he says, ** I like very much. There are no
gentlemen. Everybody is on a footing, provided he
works and wants nothing. Every man is exactly
what he can make himself, or has made himself by
industry. ... I own," reverting to more personal
matters, "I often think how happy I could be with
Georgina in some of the spots I see ; and envied every
young former I met, whom I saw sitting down with
a young wife, whom he was going to work to
maintain."
He kept his promise and proved a good corre-
spondent, Tony, in whose charge the Duchess had
apparently placed the matter, being always at hand
to remind his master of his duty in that respect.
"There has not passed a day yet," Lord Edward
writes, " without his telling me I had best write now,
or I should go out and forget it." Indeed, the
relations between master and servant would seem to
have been rather those of friend with friend than
the ordinary recognition of loyal service well rendered.
"His black face," said Lord Edward again, *'is the
only thing that I yet feel attached to." "I have
nothing more to say," he writes on another occasion,
Xife of Xot5 £dwat5 f it5®etal5 79
"except that the faithful Tony enquires after you
all, and seems as pleased when I get a letter as if it
were to him ; he always puts me in mind to write.
I have found he has one fault : he is avaricious ; he
b^ns already to count the money both he and I are
to save." And once more, when he has manifesdy
been suflfering from a bad attack of home-sickness :
" The faithful Tony talks of you a great deal ; he
and I have long conversations about you all every
morning."
Whether or not Tony's representations were neces-
sary to ensure regularity of correspondence, so soon
as Lord Edward had the pen in his hand it always
proved that of a ready writer. No one was ever more
keen in his enjoyment of novelty, nor more eager
to share his interests with those from whom he was
absent.
With regard to the panegyrics, now of the customs
of the European setders with whom he was brought
into contact, now of the manner of life of the original
inhabitants, which are to be found scattered through
his letters, it may likely enough be true, as a critic
has asserted, that the attraction he professed towards
the simpler modes of existence was, in part at least,
the result of a fashion introduced by Rousseau. But
to be infected by a fashion is not necessarily to be
guilty of affectation, nor is originality, fortunately, an
essential condition of sincerity. It must also be borne
in mind that there were, in his case, personal arguments
which no doubt predisposed him to regard with favour,
8o %ttc Of XorO £^war& fits9aaXb
for the moment at least, those primitive habits which
would have minimised the importance of money. Had
such customs prevailed in England, as he observes
on one occasion, no difficulty would have been raised
as to his marriage ; no ridiculous obstacles would
have been interposed in the way of real happiness ;
there would be no interest, no ambition, no ^MeviUsh
politics*' either! "The dear Ciss and Mimi" — his
little half-sisters — " would be carrying wood and
fetching water, while Ladies Lucy and Sophia were
cooking or drying fish. As for you, dear mother,
you would be smoking your pipe.
By the month of September he had received the
Duchess's assurance that she withdrew her disappro-
bation of the step he had taken in leaving England.
"Dearest, dearest mother," he writes, in the first
gladness of finding the unusual cloud between them
dispeUed, " I have just got your letter from sweet
Frescati. How affectionate and reasonable ! But I
was sure you would be so when you came to reflect.
You cannot think how happy you have made me !
Being absent from you was unhappiness enough,
without the addition of your thinking it unnecessary,
and being a little angry. I own it went to my heart
to feel I was the cause of so much misery to you,
while at the very time, too, you thought the step I
took unnecessary." After which he recapitulates his
reasons, and proves over again how right his course of
action had been. It will do him good in his profession,
and will prevent him from being wholly taken up with
Xfte of lord Bdwatb fft5(?eraI5 si
his unfortunate love afiair. But nevertheless "being
absent from you, my dear mother, is very terrible at
times."
The indulgence of visionary speculations as to the
superior felicities of savage existence did not prevent
him from throwing himself with all his old ardour
into the details of a soldier's life ; and the sternness
of his views concerning military duty is a curious and
significant trait in a character so gentle and in many
respects so careless. He had no desire to be a toy
soldier. His presence with his regiment, he told his
mother, was his duty according to those strict rules he
required from others, and was only entering into the
true spirit of a soldier, " without which spirit a military
life is, and must be, the devil." Besides, suddenly
descending from the somewhat high position he had
taken up, and advancing another and a different argu-
ment by which to reconcile the Duchess to his absence,
** I am always disagreeable when I am in love, and perhaps
you would all have grown to think me disagreeable."
The opinion of William Cobbett, at that time
sergeant-major of the 54th, in which he was serving,
as to the character borne by Lord Edward in his own
regiment is worth quoting. He was, Cobbett told Pitt,
in answer to some questions addressed to him by the
minister, " a most humane and excellent man, and the
only really honest officer he had ever known " — a
testimony which, though favourable to the subject of
it, one may hope was unduly severe upon the rest
of the service.
6
T!iere*«35 vcc imj c h ei reisoo, besides those appealing
lo :ae sukner md die lover, miach made Lord Edward
-TscKs :d be jbstiif tmm Ireland at the present
•uncrure. •*- Devilish po&tks*' were not going well
nere. Hie councy indeed remained quiet, but in
r\iiSin jmr in PvSamenc certain changes had taken
Tiahc:: -vnxvis ipouiki icrre rendere d his portion at home
1 ^t&uit jne.
Fie I?uic: cf Ruchmi had been succeeded in the
V' c g> j » JA t:^ bv Ljri fh i ik'ng ham, whose possession
jf 1 Ciacixc wile wcuic, it had been hoped, serve to
TTvpcacc Tuciic ^^cinicn. But neither this circum-
:scuTcr. tcr rie c-i:nc:Ii;cerv cKasarcs to which resort
roc >Kn sn&OEu ix^i ATixkd to counterbalance the
rcrsciToI -.xnrcruisirty cr the new Lord Lieutenant a
sron >rr "uu^or :eaxrer irtc unprepossessing manners,
rrvi c-"^-: S»:o» w-ft a aknt for taking offence.
Hi lis.* c^rrri^ci wtn r^: "*'expess:Te genius" in the
use .^r rv.?i:c tcr^fv c^r which Gnttin accused him
:*«; ri~c<rrv. r."* :x:!^?cr£ rar^rnccy — a filling peculiarly
u^-V-rj.-M^: —, 1 nx-r chcscr, ro repbce a predecessor
i >r.-*^u >."-^*i r. i!?rceal bv his reckless generosity.
The c^j.: lr.5h fi-niliv:!? rKac;^: themselves gradually
:-. cprosiricT:, rr.onr rcrh^rs ro the Mccroy personally
thin to h:> JLxir:: r..>tn::or. ; JL~d on the occasion of his
refusil to rorsnri in iddre^s trom the Irish Parliament
desiring the IV.r.c;;: of Wilcs to exercise the Royal
authority during the iliness of the King, a vote of
censure was passed upon him by both houses.
The opinion entertained with r^ard to these pro-
Xife of Xot5 £dwat5 f it5(Betal5 83
ceedings by acute observers on the other side of St.
George's Channel is expressed by Horace Walpole,
who observed in a letter to Lady Ossory written in
February, 1789, that he should not be surprised, were
Lord Buckingham to be supported in the imperative
mood so judiciously adopted at the commencement of
the American troubles, if the Irish were to weigh
anchor and sail into the Atlantic Ocean of Independence
after the colonies ; so that the son, like the father —
George Grenville — ^would have the honour of losing
another sovereignty. ** If all this should happen,"
he adds, "pray advertize me in time, madam, that I
may always admire the Marquis of Buckingham."
There was yet another and a more personal reason,
besides die unsatisfactory condition of public aflfairs,
which led Lord Edward to congratulate himself that
he was, for the moment, debarred from taking an
active part in Parliamentary proceedings.
The FitzGerald family, united as they were in
affection, were apt to take difi^erent sides in politics.
Lady Sarah Napier, giving an account of her nephews
some months later, included three of the brotherhood
— Lord Edward himself, his eldest brother the Duke,
and Henry FitzGerald — in the ranks of the Opposition,
Lord Charles and Lord Robert being, on the contrary,
counted amongst Pitt's supporters. At the time her
description was written she was doubtless justified in
declaring her eldest nephew to be " stout," and he had
even taken so decided a part in opposition to the
Viceroy as to become one of the Commissioners
84 %Atc Of lord £bwat5 f it5®eral&
deputed to deliver to the Prince the address which
Lord Buckingham had refused to transmit. But at
the beginning of the latter's tenure of office the Duke
of Leinster had not refused his support to the new
Lord Lieutenant, and had even consented to accept
at his hands the post of Master of the RoUs.^ To
the temporary apostasy from the traditional principles
of the FitzGeralds of which his brother had been
guilty in quitting the ranks of the Opposition Lord
Edward alluded in no measured terms.
** After the part dear Leinster has acted/* he says
in October 1788, framing his censure characteristically
enough, ** I should have been ashamed to show my
face in Ireland. ... I certainly this winter would not
have supported him, though I would not oppose him :
he would have been angry, and there would have
been a coolness which would have vexed me very
much. I have had many quiet, serious hours here
to think about what he has done, and I cannot
reconcile myself to it by any argument. His conduct
both to the public and to individuals is not what
it lought to have been. In short, my dear mother,
it hurts me very much, though I do all I can to get
the better of it. I know it is weakness and folly ;
but then the action is done — the shame is incurred."
Anxious to avoid so much as the appearance of
* The Duke's predecessor in this office had been that Rigby of whom
the story is told that, consulted in jest by the Heir-Apparent as to his
choice of a wife, he had made answer that he was not yet drunk
enough to give advice to a Prince of Wales about marrying.
life ft %otb £5wat5 f it5®ecaI^ 85
soUdtuig a favour from his brother's new friends on
his own account, he adds an injunction that no steps
should ^be taken by Mr. Ogilvie with regard to his
promotion. He was determined to receive nothing
till he was out of Parliament. He was content with
his present position, and had no ambition as to rank.
" The feeling of shame is what I never could bear. . . .
And pray do you tell Leinster from me," he reiterates,
**that I do not wish to purchase at present, or that
he should do anything about a lieut-colonelcy." And
they are to remember how obstinate he is when once
he has made up his mind.
To Mr. Ogilvie himself he wrote in the same spirit :
"Leinster's conduct is too foolish and shabby — I
hate thinking of it. I am determined, however, it
shall not vex me ; but that I may be totally clear, I
must beg you will not mention anything about me to
him. . . . Tony says, if Lord Robert" — who had
thrown in his lot with the Government — "goes on in
the way he is doing, he will soon be a major. I
believe Henry and I are the only two honest ones in
the family."
With regard to any advantage to accrue to himself
from his brother's change of front, his obstinacy
remained unabated. But he was induced by the
remonstrances of the Duke of Richmond to reconsider
his determination to withdraw his support from his
brother in Parliament. The letter in which he
declared himself convinced of his duty in this respect
to the man to whom he owed his seat is too curious
86 xtfe of Xotb £dwat5 f itsOetalb
an example of the Parliamentary morality of the day
to be omitted here.
" I have got a letter," he tells his mother, " from
Uncle Richmond, which was as kind as possible ;
everything he does only makes one love him the more.
He says in his letter that as Leinster is come over
completely to the Government, he can see no reason
why I should not now act with my brother and
uncle. In my answer I have agreed with him, and
said that I certainly shall ; because, upon consideration,
though I think Leinster wrong, and told him so
beforehand, yet as he has taken that part, it would be
wrong not to support him — ^we being his members,
and brought in by him with an idea that he might
depend upon our always acting with him." ^
That a man of Lord Edward's stamp, and holding
his pronounced views, should have been able to per-
suade himself that he was morally bound to hold his
vote at the service of the man by whom he had been
returned to Parliament, however mistaken he might
consider him, is a strange illustration of the prevailing
code of political honour. But it likewise affords a
striking proof that he was in no way eager to adopt a
line of his own or to vindicate his independence ; and
his conduct on this occasion lends additional weight
* There is abundant evidence that a member of Parliament who sat
as nominee of the owner of a borough was generally considered bound
in honour to support his patron's policy or retire. During the Union
debates upwards of sixty such members had to retire and give place
to those who would vote for the Union.
Xife of Xotb £^wat^ f {t5(BetaIb 87
to the reasons which afterwards led to so different
a course of action on his part.
To reap any personal advantage from his submission
was a wholly different matter ; and he reiterated his
determination to accept nothing from the Duke's
new friends : " I am determined not to take any-
thing, lieut.-colonelcy or anything else. I wish my
actions not to be biassed by any such motive ; but
that I may feel I am only acting in this manner
because I think it right. ... I have written to Uncle
Richmond to this same purpose, telling how I meant
to act, and how I felt, and therefore trust he will
not persist in trying to get me a lieut.-colonelcy. I
am content as I am — I am not ambitious to get on.
1 like the service for its own sake ; whether major,
lieut.-colonel, or general, it is the same to me.
High rank in it I do not aspire to ; if I am found fit
for command, I shall get it ; if I am not, God knows
I am better without it. The sole ambition I have is
to be deserving. To deserve a reward is to me far
pleasanter than to obtain it. I am afraid you will all
say I am foolish about this ; but as it is a folly that
hurts nobody, it may have its fling. I will not,
however, trouble you any more about all this hanged
stuff, for I am tired of thinking of it."
At present he was at a safe distance from the scene
of action, nor was there any immediate prospect of
his return to Ireland. Winter had set in — the winter
of 1788-9 — and his attention was, so far as his military
duties admitted of it, chiefly devoted to skating. There
were hunting parties too, and marches over the snow,
involving nights spent camping out in the woods,
wrapped in a blanket, the moon shining through
the branches, the snow banked up around, and a
fire burning in the centre of the little encampment — 2l
mode of life so much to Lord Edward's taste that
he doubted whether he would ever again be able
to reconcile himself to living within four walls.
In England, meanwhile, the question of his pro-
motion had come once more under consideration. The
aspect of public afi^rs had undergone a change both
there and in Ireland. His brother's brief alliance
with the Government, although news of it had not
yet reached him, was already dissolved, and the Duke
had been dismissed from his office.
With the passing of the Regency Bill and the
accession to power of the Prince of Wales it was
confidendy expected that his friends, the Whigs,
would displace the present Government ; and a letter
of Fox's, written at this juncture to his cousin Henry
FitzGerald, gives proof of his intention to make all
use of the means which would be placed at his
disposal to forward, in accordance with the frank and
open fashion of the day, the interests of his family.
After expressing the satisfaction he would feel in
acting with the Duke of Leinster, now returned to
the Whig fold, he proceeded to assure Lord Henry
of his good offices with regard to those members of
the FitzGerald family who had remained within it.
*' With respect to you and Edward," he wrote.
%iU ot Xot^ je^warb f itsOeralb 89
**I must be ungrateful indeed if I did not consider
the opportunity of showing my friendship to you
two as one of the pleasantest circumstances attending
power. One of the first acts of the Regency will
be to make Edward Lieut.-Colonel of the Royal
Irish ; and if a scheme which is in agitation takes
place, I think I shall have an opportunity of getting
for you, too, a lift in your profession."
As he anticipated for himself a return to the
Foreign Office, he wished, with a view to future
arrangements, to learn the views of Lord Edward and
his brother with regard to employment abroad. As
to Lord Robert, whose rapid advancement, it will be
remembered, had been prophesied by Tony, in con-
sequence of his adherence to the Tory Government,
he would have to wait a little, but might be assured
that his prospects should not suffer owing to his
cousin's accession to office.
The King's unexpected recovery put an end for
the time to the realisation of Fox's benevolent schemes,
with which indeed Lord Edward can only have become
acquainted at a later date.
At the present moment he was occupied with other
matters than even military advancement.
In February — his cousin's letter bore the date of
the 1st of that month — he wrote to his stepfather to
announce a projected journey to Quebec, to be under-
taken in the company of a brother-officer, Tony, and
two woodsmen.
** It will appear strange to you, or any people in
90 Xife of Xotb JEbvoax^ f itsOetald
England," he wrote, ** to think of starting in February,
with four feet of snow on the ground, to march through
a desert wood of one hundred and seventy-five miles ;
but it is nothing. ... It will be a charming journey,
I think, and quite new."
It was, in fact, an adventurous undertaking,
described by an inhabitant of Quebec as both arduous
and dangerous ; the route, lying, as it did, entirely
through uninhabited woods, morasses, and across
mountains, having never yet been attempted by the
Indians themselves. To Lord Edward an enterprise
recommended by its novelty, and possibly by the
risk attaching to it, was naturally alluring ; and his
love troubles and political regrets were alike thrown
into the background by the prospect Writing in
excellent spirits, he sends the comforting message to
his sisters that he is as great a fool as ever, and fears
that his folly will stick to him all the days of his life —
he did not guess how few they were to be — and to
his mother his love and the assurance that " U petit
sauvage'' will think of her often in the woods. " She
has a rope round my heart that gives hard tugs at it,
and it is all I can do not to give way."
The journey was accomplished successfully, thirty
days being taken to cover a distance of a hundred and
seventy miles. Most of the way lay through woods
up to that time considered impassable ; it was only
when the River St. Lawrence had been crossed that the
exploring party fell in with some Indians, in whose
company the remainder of the journey was made.
Xife of Xorb £&wat^ f itsOetalb 91
** They were very kind to us," wrote Lord Edward,
who, with his singular faculty of making friends with
all sorts and conditions of men, had evidently entered
upon terms of good fellowship with them at once, " and
said we were * all one brother ' — all * one Indian.' . . .
You would have laughed to have seen me carrying
an old squaw*s pack, which was so heavy I could hardly
waddle under it. However, I was well paid whenever
we stopped, for she always gave me the best bits, and
most soup, and took as much care of me as if I had
been her own son ; in short, I was quite V enfant chert.
We were quite sorry to part : the old lady and gentle-
man both kissed me very heartily."
There had been other pleasures on the journey
besides the society of his Indian friends : the luxury
of a good spruce bed before the fire after a long day's
march, or a moose chase on a clear moonlight night —
to be thoroughly enjoyed, however, only so long as it
was unsuccessful. " At first it was charming, but as
soon as we had him in our power it was melancholy.
However, it was soon over, and it was no pain to him.
If it were not for this last part, it would be a delightful
amusement " ; and, after all — " we are beasts, dearest
mother, I am sorry to say it" — in the enjoyment of
eating the victim, regret was forgotten.
All had, in fact, gone well, and he had nothing left
to wish for, except — the old refrain is repeated in his
letter to his mother — " how I long to feel all your
arms about my neck ! "
He had expected and intended to be at home some
9> TUXt Of %otb £^w«t^ fttsoerald
months earlier than was actually the case, for the
temptation of making a further exploration by
returning to England vid the Mississippi and New
Orleans proved too strong to be resisted ; and in
company with an Indian chief who had himself paid
a vi^t to England, he carried out the plan, passing
through native villages, canoeing down rivu^ and
dancing with Indian ladies, whose manners he found
particularly to his taste. At Detroit, it is true, his
spirits were a little shadowed by the necessity of
parting with a fellow-traveller — ^he does not mention
of which sex ; but, remembering that les plus courtes
folies sont les meilleures^ he found consolation at the
same place in his adoption into the Bear Tribe of native
Indians, whose chief, after a fashion that has fbimd
a parallel in later days, formally inducting his friend
Lord Edward FitzGerald into the tribe as one of its
chiefs, bestowed upon him the name of Eghnidal, ** for
which I hope he will remember me as long as he lives."
The journey was not one to be accomplished
quickly. It was only in December that the traveller
reached New Orleans, where a shock awaited him.
Cut off from communication with England during
his wanderings, he had received no news from home
for months ; and when at last letters reached him,
they conveyed the intelligence of an event which
involved the final downfall of the hopes which had
buoyed him up throughout his voluntary exile. The
girl upon whom his heart had been set had married
another man.
Xtte ct %ot^ B^wttrD f tt30eral& 93
Writing in May of this year, his aunt Lady Sarah
Napier gives free expression to her own indignation
at the treatment her nephew had received. While
the " dear spirited boy " had been living in wild woods
to pass the time till the consent of her parents to
his marriage with the cousin he adored could be
obtained, they had cruelly married her to Lord Apsley
(afterwards Lord Bathurst), and the ungrateful girl
had consented. " We dread," adds Lady Sarah, " the
effect this news will have on him."
It was undoubtedly a blow, sharp and severe. Yet
one cannot but think, reading the letters written by
him when the wound was still fresh, that it was
scarcely so crushing a one as his aunt feared or as his
Inographer — a poet and something of a courtier too,
and writing when the lady was still alive — ^would
have us believe. That he felt the disappointment
keenly there is no more reason to doubt than that,
had his love been true to him, he would have also
remained faithful. But his language was neither that
of a broken-hearted man, nor of one who desired to
assume that attitude.
Writing to his brother, he acknowledges the letter
which had brought him the news ; and using the
Spanish language — a task which no man labouring
under the stress of overpowering grief would have
set himself — he declared that he was submitting with
patience to all human vicissitudes.
In a second letter on the same subject, dated two
or three weeks later, a strain of bitterness mingled.
94 Xife ot Xor& £&war& f ftsGeralb
" I bore all the accounts of Georgina tolerably
well. I must say with Cardenis, •That which her
beauty has built up, her actions have destroyed. By
the first I understood her to be an angd ; by the
last I know her to be a woman.' But this is enough
of this disagreeable subject."
In the same letter he sends his love to dear Madame
de , " who, upon cool consideration, is as charming
a creature as is in the world — in fact, she is sincere,
which is a quality rather rare."
If a blow had been inflicted upon his faith in
human nature by the infidelity of his cousin, one
cannot but believe, judging by the sequel, that it
was one that quickly recovered. It might have been
well for Lord Edward himself— well also for the cause
to which he was to devote himself— had his confidence
in the sincerity of human kind been less.
Thus ended Lord Edward's second love aflair. It
is said that another dramatic incident came near to
being added to the story. On his arrival in London
after his prolonged absence he had hurried at once
to his mother's house, where it so chanced that she
was that evening entertaining her niece. Lady Apsley,
and her husband at dinner. It was only by the
recognition of Lord Edward's voice outside by another
cousin, General Fox, and by his prompt interposition,
that the discarded lover was prevented from intro-
ducing a disconcerting and unexpected element into
the family party.
CHAPTER VII
1790 — 1792
Lord Edward offered Command of the Cadiz Expedition —
Refuses it on being returned to Parliament— Decisive
Entry on Politics — In London — Charles James Fox —
Dublin — Condition of Ireland — Whig Club — Society of
United Irishmen — Thomas Paine and his Friends — Lord
Edward in Paris.
THERE is something strange and relentless, to
the eyes of those who follow the course of
Lord Edward's history, in the manner in which his
doom — the doom of a cause — hunted him down. He
had not sought it. In character and temperament
he was most unlike a man destined to be the chief
actor in a tragedy. But there was no escape. It
drew closer and closer, like what in truth it was,
the Angel of Death.
Almost immediately upon his arrival in London a
proposal was made to him. Had the plan with
which it was concerned been carried into effect, the
whole course of his subsequent career might have
been changed.
He was still, before everything, a soldier. His
political views, pronounced as they were, had as yet
95
96 Xtfe of Xott) Etwatt) fttsGetalD
taken no practical or revolutionary shape. He was
committed to no course of action from which he
could not, in honour, have withdrawn. For politics
as a profes^on it has been shown that he had little
liking ; while his recent experience of the difficulties
in which he was liable to find himself at any moment
involved by a change of front on the part of his
brother n»y reasonably have inclined him to r^ard
with additional distaste the position he held in the
House as the Duke*s nominee. Under these circum-
stances the Dissolution occurring in the spring of
the year which saw his return to England must
have been peculiarly welcome, as relea^ng him from
the necessity of once more taking up the burden
of his Parliamentary duties. He came home, as he
imagined, a free man, neither contemplating nor
desiring the continuance of a political career, and at
liberty to devote himself for the future to the profession
he loved — that of a soldier. It was while labouring
under this misapprehension that he received and
accepted an offer made to him by the Government,
through the instrumentality of the Duke of Richmond.
Struck by the good use to which his nephew had
put the opportunities of observation afforded him both
during his tour in Spain and his more recent visit to
the Spanish colonies, the Duke had invited him to
meet Pitt and Dundas, with the result of an oflfer
both of brevet promotion and of the command of an
expedition shortly to be despatched against Guiiz.
The prospect may well have been dazzling to a
Xife of Xorb £&warb f ftsGetalb 97
soldier of twenty-six. The proposal was one after
Lord Edward's own heart, and he closed with it
without hesitation ; the understanding being that, in
return for the honour done him in singling him out
for a position of responsibility and importance, he
should no longer be found in the ranks of the
Opposition.
In this arrangement there was nothing inconsistent
with the determination he had expressed in the
preceding year to accept nothing, at that time, from
the party in power. ** I am determined," he had then
written, " to have nothing //// I am out of Parliament,'^
He was now, or imagined himself to be, without a seat ;
and that he should have felt no difficulty in giving
this purely negative pledge is a proof of the firmness
of his belief that he had finally withdrawn from any
active participation in political life. This being the
case, he would doubtless have considered it idle to
allow a purposeless parade of opinions having no
bearing upon action to interfere with the performance
of his duty as a soldier. Had he been permitted to
carry into eflPect his intention of retiring from Parlia-
ment and of devoting himself to his profession, the
history of Ireland might have lacked one of its most
tragic chapters. But Fate had ordered it otherwise.
The matter was considered practically settled. The
Duke was to report the arrangement which had been
arrived at to the King, of whose approval and sanction
no doubt was entertained. An unexpected obstacle,
however, intervened, and put an abrupt end to the
7
98 Xife of Xorb B^warb f tt36enil&
negotiations. The Duke of Leinster, against the
expressed wishes of his mother, had, before the arriyal
of Lord Edward in England, taken the step of re-
turning his brother to the new Parliament, as member
for the county of Kildare. He was not, as he had
conceived himself to be, released from die trammels
of Parliamentary obligations ; and on the very day
following his interview with the Duke of Richmond,
he was made acquainted with the fact
It must have been a bitter disappointment— one of
those to which life was accustoming him, and which
were driving him more and more in a single direction.
One by one, outlet after outlet for energy and devotion
was becoming blocked ; and every pathway barred
save that which he was to be doomed to tread.
The course pointed out by honour, under these new
circumstances, was plain, and he did not flinch from
following it. The alternative of declining the seat to
which his brother had nominated him does not appear
to have suggested itself to his mind ; and since he was,
though against his will, to occupy once more the
position of a member of Parliament, it was impossible
that he should take his seat there as a supporter of the
party which he had consistently opposed. In vain his
uncle, angered at the frustration, by what he considered
his nephew's obstinacy, of his plans on his behalf,
warned him that nothing in the shape of promotion or
advancement was to be looked for by a man who
refused his vote to the Government Lord Edward
withdrew, without delay or hesitation, the quasi
tv
Xtfe of Xotb £&watb fitsOetalb 99
pledge obtained from him ; relinquished the chance
of military distinction that he had been offered ;
and resigned himself to a return to the treadmill
from which he had imagined himself to be released.
On a former occasion, owing to a mistaken principle
of honour, he had submitted his better judgment
to the representations of the Duke ; but on the
present one, not the less because to have yielded
would have been to his own manifest advantage, and
perhaps strengthened in his resolution by the con-
sciousness that the bribe offered was the one of all
others most alluring to his spirit of enterprise, he
remained firm in his determination. The die was cast,
and Lord Edward, from the ranks of the soldiers,
passed finally into those of the politicians.
For the present, however, if his doom was gaining
upon him, he remained unaware of it. Men do not
always recognise the summons of their destiny.
When the new Parliament met in July, the majority
of the Government was found to have received a
slight increase. Grattan, however, with Lord Henry
FitzGerald as his colleague, had won the City of
Dublin for the Opposition ; and amongst the members
now returned for the first time was Arthur O'Connor,
nephew to Lord Longueville, who, though entering
Parliament as a supporter of the Government, became
later on one of the most intimate associates of Lord
Edward, and a prominent member of the national
party.
loo ittc Of Xor5 Et>wart> fftsOenOD
The summer sesaon was short, and after a large
sum of money had been unanimously voted tn view
of the war in which Lord Edward had hoped to bear
a leading part. Parliament was adjourned, and he was
at liberty to return to London ; where, in the company
of his mother and sisters, most of the interval was
spent until the reassembling of the House recaUed
him, some six months later, to Ehiblin.
*' Once I get home,** he had promised the Duchess,
*' you shaU do what you please with me.** There was
little doubt that her pleasure would be to keep him
at her side ; and there he remained, paying her his
old tender attentions, and performing, besides, family
duties of the kind indicated in a letter of Walpole's^
when, mentioning that a match of Miss Ogilvie*s — not
more than fifteen at this time — was off, he adds that
her brother, Lord Edward FitzGerald, had carried
her dismissal of the suitor, and ** did not deliver it in
dulcet words."
Upon the episode thus concluded, as well as upon
the family lite of the joint menage of FitzGeralds and
Ogilvics, light is thrown by a letter of Lady Sarah
N.ipicr*s ; who, writing in October, 1790, relates that
her sister the Duchess of Leinster, being at Tunbridge
with her family, **saw Lord Chichester there, a most
pleasing young man, whom all the misses wanted to
catch as a prize, and while she was wondering who
the lot would fill! on, he took the greatest fancy
to her Hi tie girl Cecilia Ogilvie, just fifteen, who
went out only now and then as a favour. He
Xife of XorD £^wat^ f ftsOeralb loi
talked to her much, sought her out in rides and
walks, and is so excessively in love with her that it
would be like enchantment, if it was not certain that
she is, not handsome, but one of the most bewitching
little creatures ever known." Lord Chichester's father,
Lord Don^ll, himself engaged to be married for the
third time, was for retarding the marriage, alleging as
his reason that better settlements would be made at
a later date, ** It is to be hoped," Lady Sarah adds,
evidently sceptical as to the pretext, "Lord Donegall
won't delay it long, as those delays are foolish, and a
little hard on the young folks, who are very much
in love."
The Duchess's gratification at an arrangement which
would, in case of her death, secure a home to both
her younger children, had been great ; for though
the litde Ogilvie sisters had been " loved most exces-
sively" by all the FitzGeralds, their mother felt a
natural pride, so Lady Sarah added, " in not liking
to have them run the risk of being looked on as
half -sisters^ ^ Her disappointment — reflected, one
may believe, in the bearing of Lord Edward to which
Walpole makes allusion — must have been proportion-
ately great when, either owing to Lord Donegall's
policy of delay or to some other cause, the engage-
ment came to an end. At fifteen, however, it can
scarcely have been a very serious matter to the person
chiefly concerned.
Even independently of the presence of his mother,
' Li/e and Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox, Vol. II., p. 78.
toa Uft Of Socb iB&wmb SUs^tuS b
London must have had manjr attnctioos for Lord
Edward. Whatever might be the oat in DufaGn,
there was here no lack of congenial society. Charles
James Fox was, in spite of the fourteen years which
divided the coumns in age, hb intimate friemL It
has been seen how, at a moment when hb own return
to office seemed almost assured, the latter had at once
prepared to give practical expression to his affection.
It was an affection which lasted to die end. ^If
you see my dear, dear Edward,** he wrote to Henry
FitzGerald when Lord Edward was in prison — ^when,
indeed, though tidings of the final catastrophe had
not yet reached England, he was already dead —
** 1 need not desire you to tell him that I love
him with the warmest aflection." While for Lord
FAlwarvi^ young and enthusiastic, the older man,
<in>plo ;uul unaffected in spite of his great intellectual
jHMToi-^, must have possessed singular charm. Unlike
:\< \^vrv the two in character, they were not with-
oMt t.^Mc^ '\n a>mmon. Lord Edward's love for an
^*p\ n iM btc, K^r country sights and sounds, whether
>y^ Ou* wt^trwlvkn forests and plains of the West or
M* ^t«i ,%^^n Insh home, is everywhere apparent; and
\\w \y\\\\ of h<< great cousin, when urged, some ten
ww^ lu>», fx^ trtkc a London house, might almost
\\^\^^ »onu U\^\\\ lus |H:n. " A sweet westerly wind,**
»u»u. I ,iH, »' .^ lv:^\uit\il sun, all the thorns and elms
|v»-» l^»avhuj«, ,\\u\ {\x^^ t\ightingales just beginning to
••iM|\, A\s\ \\yk\ M\\lu\c him to listen to his corre-
.p^iuLm*! •s»ayvMi\M\. The blackbirds and thrushes
Xite ot Xor^ £^war^ fit3(3eraI^ 103
would indeed, he added, have been quite sufficient to
have refuted any arguments in favour of it.
To Lord Edward's Irish nature his cousin's gift of
eloquence must also have especially appealed. "He
seemed," said Godwin, a witness not prone to enthu-
siasm, ** to come as an orator immediately from the
forming hand of Nature. ... It was by sudden flashes
and emanations that he electrified the heart, and shot
through the blood of his hearers." And adding to
his dazzling talents the charm of manner, the gay
and reckless temper, for which he was distinguished,
together with that power of forgetting the future
which Madame du Deflfand described when, some
years earlier, she said, "// ne s^embarrasse pas du
lendemain^^ it would be no wonder if over the younger
kinsman on whom he had bestowed his affection he
should have exercised irresistible fascination.
Nor did he stand alone. It was a period of unusual
brilliancy on the part of the great Whig houses.
A few years earlier the Prince of Wales, fallen under
the influence of Fox, had been unlearning, at Devon-
shire House and other such places of resort, the
austere and rigid lessons of his secluded boyhood,
and receiving his initiation into codes of politics and
morals of a widely difl^erent nature to those in which
he had been instructed during that time of strict and
careful discipline. Sheridan, FitzPatrick, Hare, and
the rest formed a brilliant group ; and Fox, still
forgetting to-morrow, was its presiding spirit.
At these houses, open as a matter of course to Fox's
i(H liCt cf Xocd lE^mmSb flt3GecaI5
first cDusan^ Lord Edward must have enjoyed ample
opportunities of meeting all the most eminent members
of the pirty to which he had always been united by
sympathy and conviction ; while to the chances of
political Gilightcnment that they afimded, would be
added, thoe and elsewhere, allurements of aless serious
nature. To society, unpcJitical as well as pcJidcal,
he possessed, as FitzGerald and as Lennox, a passport,
enjoying the privilege c^ free admisaon into the inner
circle of that eighteenth-century London which is
described with sudi graphic and lifelike fidelity in
the noemoirs of the time.
At all events, and from whatever causes, it is dear
that the interest attaching to the great centre of
ci\*iUsation and social life was appreciated to the fidl
by ** *V f<::i A^arrdr//^ " who, a year earlier, had been so
strongly sensible of the superiority of primitive modes
of existence, Possdbhr he felt a jweference for
extremes in such matters. Or, again, it may be that,
intercourse with Indians and colonists on the other
side of the AtJantic ha>'ing had time to lose its
novelty, a reaction had taken place in favour of
other forms ot life. Nor must the tact be disguised
that, notwithstanding the recent shipwreck undergone
by his aflfcctions, it is to be inferred from the
language of his bic^aphcr that he had already
a^ntrivevl, wnth his ** extreme readiness to love," to
supply, in some Sv^rt, the blank left by his feithless
cousin,
•* When 1 am not happy/' he once told his mother.
Xtfe ot Xor^ £^war^ fit5(3etaI^ 105
** I must be either soldiering, or preparing to be a
soldier, for stay quiet I believe I cannot. Why did
you give me such a head or such a heart ? '*
In the absence of occupation of a military nature,
he was pretty sure to have taken refuge, if only to
pass the time, in that of making love ; and the fact
that the opportunity of such distraction was to be
found for the moment in London added no doubt
materially to the distaste with which, recalled to
Dublin by tbe opening of Parliament, he obeyed the
summons. Life in Ireland, under the circumstances,
offered few advantages. Nor was he in the mood to
profit by such alleviations as might have been available.
** Dublin," he wrote discontentedly, "has been very
lively this week^ and promises as much for the next ;
but I think it is all the same thing — La D and La
S— , and a few young competitors for their places.
I have been a good deal with these two. They want
to console me for London, but it won't do, though I
own they are very pleasant."
He had discovered what was the worst thing that
could be said of a Dublin woman — namely, that she
was cold. "You cannot conceive what an affront it
is reckoned," he tells the Duchess, concluding his
letter, however, in haste, having received an invitation
from the lady to whom he had unwittingly offered this
supreme insult, but who he now trusts is preparing to
make up the quarrel.
The year 1791 was an eventful one, so far as Ireland
was concerned. Already the previous summer had
ZIC^. -V.-,
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o-v^-- •- - cv rtr.-^ji-'s :-e mo5t im-
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Xttc ot lor^ B^war^ f it3(Bctalb 107
Bom in 1763, he had been educated at Trinity
College and called to the Bar. He had at this time
been for some months making himself a name in the
field of Irish politics by means of his pamphlets on
questions of the day ; and had been for a short period
a member of the Whig Club, quitting, however, that
association on becoming convinced that in separation
alone lay any hope for the future of the country.
A Protestant himself, it was his constant endeavour
to bring the Catholic Committee — of which he became
Assistant Secretary — into touch with the Ulster re-
formers.
He has himself left upon record both the general
aim he set before him and the means by which he
hoped to reach it. " To subvert the tyranny of our
execrable Government,** he wrote, " to break the
connection with England, the never-failing source of
our political evils, and to assert the independence of
my country — these were my objects. To unite the
whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of
our past dissensions, and to substitute the common
name of Irishmen in place of the denomination of
Protestant, Catholic, and Dissenter — these were my
means."
Notwithstanding, however, the extreme nature of
the views he personally entertained, the avowed object
of the society of which he was one of the chief
founders went no further, at least at first, than the
obtaining of an equal representation of all the Irish
people, independently of the religion they professed ;
io8 Xfte of Xor^ £^war^ fit5<BeraI&
and the combination, for that purpose, of all faiths
and creeds. The terms of the oath administered, even
when it had been altered, at a later period, to suit
the exigencies of the situation, were indeed curiously
temperate.
**I do voluntarily declare," so the formula be-
gan, " that I will persevere in endeavouring to form
a brotherhood of affection among Irishmen of every
religious persuasion," the object to be pursued being
an equal representation, and the further pledge being
added that no evidence should be borne by members
of the society against their comrades with regard to
any act performed in the spirit of the obligation
incurred.
However moderate might be its professed objects,
the formation of a society banded together for the
purpose of abolishing religious animosities and uniting
Catholics and Protestants for the vindication of their
common rights marked an important epoch in Irish
history. The astounding rapidity with which the
association spread proved that the country was ripe
for it.
On Lord Edward's career the new society had a
most important bearing, although, so far from being
in any practical manner as yet implicated in the
movement of which it was the outcome and result,
he appears to have been barely acquainted with the
man who had been its first leader. Wolfe Tone,
who was compelled to leave Ireland in 1795, t)eforc
the breaking out of the rebellion for which he, more
Xite ot Xor^ £^war^ fit5(3eral& 109
than any other conspirator, had paved the way, though
mentioning Lord Edward FitzGerald with a cordial
and generous appreciation bordering on enthusiasm,
explicitly states in his autobiography that he knew him
but very little.
It would, in fact, seem that even at this com-
paratively late date, and at a time when the whole
of the country, in a ferment around him, was presenting
an object-lesson in the most efficacious methods of
breeding rebels. Lord Edward's revolutionary views,
like those of so many of the English Whigs with whom
he consorted, were mainly confined to the region of
abstract ideas. In point of practice, he continued to
content himself with a consistent adherence in Parlia-
ment to the popular side. Yet, nevertheless, his
political education was not standing still, and the way
was doubtless being prepared for future developments
in the sphere of action.
It was about this time that his name occurs — some-
what incongruously amongst the others which make
up the list — mentioned by Mr. Rickman, friend,
host, and disciple of Thomas Paine, as one of those
visitors accustomed to seek the society of his guest.
Paine himself, just come into additional notoriety
by the publication of his celebrated treatise on the
"Rights of Man," was a teacher eminently qualified
to point out to a neophyte the connection between
revolution as a theoretical principle and as a practical
force ; while his lessons would carry the greater weight
as coming from a man who was a sharer at the
no Xfte of Xor& JE^ward ftt5<Beral^
moment, by reason of the doctrine he had procl^med,
in the enthusiasm evoked by the progress of French
affairs, and to whom belonged some of the glamour
appertaining to a popular idol.
That Paine's own estimate of the influence exercised
by his works was not distinguished by modesty is
shown by an entry in the diary of Wolfe Tone
some six years later, in which a conversation with the
philosopher is recorded. It is there described how,
mention having been made of the shattered condition
of Burke's mind consequent upon the death of his
only son, Paine replied, with conceit almost amounting
to fatuity, that it had been in fact the publication
of the '* Rights of Man " which had broken the heart
of the great statesman, the death of his son having
done no more than develop the chagrin which had
preyed upon him since the appearance of that work.
If, however, the philosopher was *'vain beyond all
belief,'' it could not be denied that he had excuses
for vanity. The wild and extravagant admiration
excited in some quarters by his performance might
well, apart from its intrinsic merits, have afforded
some justification for the excessive value set upon it
by the writer.
*' Hey for the New Jerusalem — the Millennium ! "
wrote, for example, the dramatist Holcroft, upon the
appearance of the book, in almost incoherent excitement
and surely not without some confusion of ideas —
" and peace and beatitude be unto the soul of
Thomas Paine."
Xfte ot Xor^ £{>vrar& jrtt5(3eral^ m
Abroad, too, the appreciation of the production
was great; and in a letter to Lord Stanhope — whose
own admiration was modified by annoyance at the
maladresse with which the author, by associating the
antidpated fall of the British constitution with the
success of the Revolution in France, had alienated
English sympathy — the Comte Fran^ais de Nantes
wrote that Paine*s work had something *' d^ original et
de sauvage comme Us for its amiricaines^
Apart from the interest attaching to a man whose
reputation was so widely spread, there was doubtless
much in the society which gathered around him to
attract one to whom it was comparatively new.
William Godwin, the pedantic author of ** Political
Justice," had, as well as Holcroft, enjoyed the privilege
of reading Paine*s great work before it was given
to the public, and both men, each eminent in the
world to which they belonged, would have been
amongst the select spirits with whom Lord Edward
was brought into association at Mr. Rickman's
house. Amongst others of its frequenters are men-
tioned Home Tooke, another professor of advanced
ideas, the bitterness of whose disappointment at his
exclusion from active political life, owing to the fact
of his being a clerk in holy orders, had transformed
him into an " incarnation of envy," constantly occupied
in defaming the foremost men of the day ; Romney,
the painter ; and Mary Wollstonecraft, afterwards
Godwin's wife, at present engaged upon her work
relating to the " Rights of Women," and not yet
3 Xite of Xot& £&wat& jrit5Getal&
xupying the position of governess to that daughter
f Lord Kingston's who became the heroine of the
ragcdy in which, through the vengeance of her
athcr, her lover lost his life.
Mr. Rickman*s house must, in fact, have been at
he moment a favourite place of resort for all who
¥cre in sympathy with the more extreme revolutionary
Dpinions, moral, social, and political ; and from those
to be met there Lord Edward was doubtless learning
to apply to practical purposes the abstract theories
of Whig politicians. But, drawn thither as he might
be by a like interest, he can, by birth, tnuning, and
character, have had little in common with the group
of clever and middle-class Bohemians of whom the
circle was plainly made up. Their company would
indeed have had for him the charm of novelty ; but
it is difficult to imagine that it offered other or more
intrinsic attractions to a man of his tastes, or that
iinii)!\j; the needy literary men, the artists, and the
ninrr or less genuine political fanatics who sought
lVui\r\ society, he may not have felt himself a trifle
out ol place. Community of principles, like mis-
lonunc, Im1!\^s together strange bed-fellows. Winning
«htni^\l\ lA^rd l^d^vard was, he possessed neither
iMilh.mt t.ilci\ts !\or deep intellectual gifts. So far
.»•« n^'^'.itivc evidence may be accepted as proof, he
I airly ojHned a book save for the purposes of
n\tlit.uv cvlucation, while for any indication of artistic
tastr it is necessary to go back to the days of
AulM^ny, and to that ^' very pretty survey" of the
Xite of Xor6 B^war^ fit3(Beral6 113
country round the Garonne, of which the fields,
bordered with colour, and the trees, delineated with
Indian ink, were regarded by the draughtsman with
such pardonable pride. Of learned ladies too — from
which class one would imagine that Mr. Paine's
feminine disciples were chiefly recruited — he had so
great a dread that he is said to have declined more
than once the profi^ered opportunity of meeting
Madame de GenUs, at this time on a visit to England,
and thus to have deferred to a later date the inaugura-
tion of his acquaintance with her foster-daughter, his
own future wife.
In matters of religion Lord Edward must have
stood no less apart from the group of arrogant and
aggressive sceptics into whose company circumstances
had thrown him ; since he remained to the last,
according to the testimony of his friend Valentine
Lawless, afterwards Lord Cloncurry, a Christian, devout
and sincere, in spite of the efforts, repeated and
persevering, which were made to shake his convictions.
Nor was the son of the Duchess of Leinster likely
to have found himself more in accord on social
than on religious questions with this little knot of
thinkers and writers — adventurers in doubtful paths.
Nevertheless, uncongenial as they might be in
many ways, association with the men who formed
Thomas Paine's clientele in London was likely to
have had too material an influence in the ripening of
Lord Edward's political convictions to make it irrelevant
to dwell upon them in detail here ; while for Paine
8
1 14 Xite of %otb £5W8t5 f it50ecal^
himself his admiration was so genuine^ and apparently
so blind, as to cause him to declare that there was
attaching to the philosopher a simplicity of manner,
a goodness of heart, and a strength of mind, which
he never before had known a man to possess.
For some part, at least, of the year 1791 master
and disciple must have been parted, since Paine is
said to have been compelled, in order to dude the
clutches of the bailiffs, to seek some place of conceal-
ment known only to Home Tooke and to his printer.
If this account of the straits to which an ungrateful
public permitted the popular author to be reduced
is to be credited, it must have been all the more
gratifying when, quitting England in September of
the following year, in consequence of the prosecution
instituted by Government on the publication of the
second part of the ** Rights of Man," he found himself
received on his arrival at Calais with a royal salute,
entertained at a public dinner, and finally returned
by that town as deputy to the Assembly.
A few months later Lord Edward was once more,
under changed circumstances, under the same roof
as his political oracle in Paris, the consequences being
this time more serious, both to himself and to Ireland,
than those which had attended their former intercourse.
It was on the occasion of this visit to Paris that
two events, each productive of important results, took
place. He was cashiered and dismissed from the
army. He also became acquainted with Pamela.
CHAPTER VIII
Pamela— Her Birth and Origin — Introduced into the Orleans
Schoobroom — Early Training— Madame de Genlis and
the Orleans Family — Visit to England — Southey on
Pamela — Sheridan said to be engaged to Pamela —
Departure for France.
WHO was Pamela? It was a question often
asked during her lifetime, and which has
not unfrequently been repeated since she has gone to
a place where birth and parentage are of comparatively
small moment. The interest that has been felt in
the matter has been indeed altogether incommensurate
with its importance. But it is not uncommon for a
work to be the more successful by reason of its
anonymity, and to the mystery which veiled her
origin has been doubtless due part at least of the
curiosity testified for the last hundred years with
r^ard to Madame de Genlis's adopted daughter ;
the touch of romance belonging to her early history,
her beauty, and the tragic circumstances connected
with her marriage and widowhood investing her with
an interest scarcely justified by what is known of
her personality.
The theory which has found most favour, and which,
though discredited alike by fects comparatively recently
"5
ii6 life of Xord Edward fitseerald
come to light and by the distinct discl^mers of the
persons chiefly concerned, still widely prevails among
those who have in any way interested themselves in
the matter, would make her the daughter of Egalili^
Due d'Orl^s, by Madame de Genlis, his children's
governess — a lady in whose person qualities commonly
supposed to be antagonistic present a combination
which, other alleged facts of her history taken into
account, has not been considered such as necessarily
to give the lie to the surmise.
In support of this hypothesis the supposed likeness
of Pamela to the Orleans family has been cited,
together with the fact of the fortune settled upon
her by her reputed father. It should be remembered,
however, with regard to this last piece of evidence,
that, according to Madame de Genlis's own account of
the matter, this fortune was no free gift on the part
of the Duke, but was provided by the commutation
of monies due to herself, and would therefore afford
no proof of the recognition on his part of paternal
obligations.
To set against the arguments, such as they are,
based upon these circumstances, we have Madame de
Gcnlis's distinct denial, made in later years in the
presence of Pamela's daughter ; the equally explicit
contradiction of the Orleans, their conduct on this
occasion contrasting with the admission of the claims
of kinship in another case ; and the disbelief in the
story said to have been entertained by the FitzGerald
family themselves.
Xffe of Xotb £^wat^ f itsOetalb n?
The story told by her adopted mother has also
received the following curious corroboration in more
recent years, through the enquiries set on foot by
Mr. James Fitzgerald, magistrate in the island of
Fogo, Newfoundland, the place, according to Madame
de Genlis, of Pamela's birth.
In the marriage contract between the latter and
Lord Edward FitzGerald, the bride is described as
** Citoienne Anne Caroline Stephanie Sims, native de
Fogo, dans Tisle de Terre-neuve ; fille de Guillaume
de Brixey et de Mary Sims." ^ This account of her
birth and parentage has been very generally attributed
to the inventive powers of her guardian, but Mr.
Fitzgerald was informed by an inhabitant of Fogo
that a daughter of his grandfather's, Mary Sims, had
in fact sailed for Bristol at a date corresponding with
that of Pamela's birth, in a vessel commanded by
a Frenchman named Brixey, taking with her her
infant daughter Nancy. Mother and child had dis-
appeared, to be heard of no more till the appearance
of Moore's Life of Lord Edward FitzGerald had
seemed to furnish a clue to the subsequent history
of little Nancy Sims.
Except with regard to the name of the father —
whom Madame de Genlis, though not in the marriage
register, preferred to describe as an Englishman of
good birth of the name of Seymour — this story tallies
well enough with her account of the matter, to which
*Thc Tournay register, probably through carelessnesSt gives the
father's name as Berkley, and London as birthplace.
ii8 xtfe of Xord £^war^ fftsOenUd
independent corroboration is also aflbrded by an entry
in Southey*s Commonplace Book, where he gives the
result of certain enquiries he had himself instituted
at Christchurch, the place from which the child had
been despatched to France, no later than August, 1797
— a date at which the incident would still have been
fresh in the memory of the inhabitants of the Uttle
country town.
A woman of Bristol, he was informed — ^it will be
remembered that the destination of Mary Sims, on
leaving Fogo, had been Bristol— of the name of Sims
had resided at Christchurch with an only daughter,
a natural child of exceeding beauty and of about four
or five years of age ; of which child, in consideration
of a small yearly payment, the mother had consented
to relinquish the possession, allowing her to be sent
to France, to serve as companion to the daughter of
the Due d'Orleans. The affair, it further appears
from a letter of Southey's to Miss Bowles, was
negotiated by a clergyman of the same name as his
correspondent.
Thus, weighing all available evidence, it would seem
that the story by which royal blood was conferred
upon Madame dc Genlis's protegee must be dismissed
as, to say the least, improbable ; and that it is likely
that in this instance her guardian had for once adhered
to the approximate truth.
It might have been well for little Nancy Sims had
she been permitted to remain in the sleepy English
country town, with its grey old minster, and the
Xtfe of Xord EDwatt) f ft3®eral& 119
broad, green meadows through which the River Avon
passes to the sea ; but there is no indication that she
ever again revisited her early home.
In her capacity of governess Madame de Genlis
had conceived the idea of accelerating the acquisition
by her pupils of the English language by the intro-
duction of an English child into the Orleans schoolroom.
Having gained the consent of the Duke to her
project, she commissioned Mr. Forth, ex-Secretary to
the British Ambassador at Paris, to select, during a
vi^t to England, a litde girl suitable to her purpose.
It was upon the daughter of Mary Sims that the
choice of Mr. Forth finally fell ; and under the care
of a horse-dealer, entrusted besides with an addition
to the Duke's stables, the child was accordingly de-
spatched to Paris. ** I have the honour," wrote Forth
to the Duke, ** of sending your Serene Highness the
prettiest little girl and the handsomest mare in
England."
Pamela herself declared in after-days that she perfectly
recollected being delivered over to the Due d'Orlians ;
who, receiving her at a side door of the Palace,
took her in his arms, kissed her, and, carrying her
along some dusky passages, presented her to Madame
de Genlis with the words, " Voila notre petit bijou ! "
Whether implicit confidence is to be placed in
Pamela's reminiscences may be questioned. She was
one of those women to whom it is natural to view
themselves in the light of a heroine, and circumstances
had fostered the disposition. If one detects in her
I20 xffe of lord £&wat5 ftt5<Beral5
later recollections in particular a flavour of the melo-
dramatic, it is only fair to remember that her training
may have been partly responsible for the tendency.
Madame de Genlis herself had been almost from
infency a theatrical performer, and records in her
Memoirs that it had been at the early age of eleven,
and from a young man with whom she had played
comedy and tragedy for two years, that she first
received a declaration of the passion she had inspired.
No doubt Pamela enjoyed the full benefit of her
foster-mother's instructions in this direction as well
as in others. A scene is indeed described by the
Marquise de Larochejacquelin which throws a curious
light upon the species of training received by the
child at the hands of a lady who was considered so
great an authority on education that Southey re-
commended all who would study the subject to
acquaint themselves with her works.
Taken as a child by her grandmother, the Duchesse
de Civrac, to visit the Salon at an hour when only
privileged guests were admitted, a meeting took place
with the three little Orleans princes and their sister, also
studying art under the superintendence of their gover-
ness ; and Madame de Larochejacquelin, upon whose
childish mind the incident had made an evident
impression, relates how, struck by the unusual beauty
of Pamela, then about seven years old, her grand-
mother had made her compliments on the subject to
the little girl's guardian, receiving in reply to her
questions the answer, made "a mi-voix, mds je
%itc of Xotd EDwatd f ft3®etal& 121
I'entendis, *Oh, c'est unc histoire bien touchante,
bien interessante, que celle de cette petite ; je ne puis
vous la raconter en ce moment/ "
Further, with the object of proving that it was
not in looks alone that her charge excelled, Madame
de Gcnlis summoned the child, desiring her to
**act Heloise." Whereupon the little girl, plainly
accustomed to the performance and nothing loath to
display her talents, removed the comb by which her
hair was confined, and flung herself upon the ground
in an attitude expressive of an ecstasy of passion ;
while the little bystander remained ^^ stupe faite^^ and
the great lady, having expressed her appreciation of
the performance in terms that left nothing to be
desired, went her way to describe to her friends the
version she had witnessed of the " Nouvelle Heloise,"
and to mock at the system of education pursued in
the Orleans schoolroom/
'The opinion entertained by Lady Sarah Lennox of the great
educationalist is expressed in a letter written shortly after Lord
Edward's marriage, in which the following passage occurs: "Your
account of Madame Sillery and her ileves answers my idea of her —
all pleasing to appearance, and nothing sound within her heart,
whatever may be so in the young minds whom she can and does
of course easily deceive. I hope we have got our lovely little niece
time enough out of her care to have acquired all the perfections
of her education, which are certainly great, as she has a very
uncommon clever, active mind, and turns it to most useful pur-
poses, and I trust our pretty little Sylphe (for she is not like
other mortals) has not a tincture of all the double-dealing, cunning,
false reasoning, and lies with which Madame S. is forced to gloss
over a very common ill-conduct, because she will set herself above
others in virtue, and she happens to be no better than her neighbours"
(Life and Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox^ Vol. IL, p. 91).
■» XtCt of XocD Sdwacd fttjOerald
Under the guardianship of Madame de Genlis, and
receiving instructions from her in the performance
of other parts besides that of Heloise, Pkmda remained
until the date of her marriage with Lord Edward
FitzGerald.
Some months before the occurrence of that event
the Duchesse d'Orleans, unable any longer to endure
the position held by the gomvernante in her household,
had made strenuous efforts to effect her dismissal;
and though Madame de Genlis had at first refused
to be dislodged from her post^ she had been finally
compelled, by a threat of exposure, to submit. Such,
at least, is the account of the matter furnished by
the adherents of the injured Duchess ; that given
by the governess being naturally of a different nature.
According to the latter, the conduct of her mistress
having become such that she could no longer tolerate
it without injury to her self-respect, Madame de Genlis
herself sent in her resignation to the Duke, in a letter
of which a copy is inserted in her Memoirs. The
melancholy moment, she told him, had arrived.
Unless reparation should be made her within three
ilayM, she was compelled to claim her dimission. "You
know/* she adds pathetically, "whether I have been
Hrnflf, patient, and temperate ; but at last I am forced
tM lulopf a course which rends my heart."
I lowrvrr it had been achieved, the triumph of the
huilh^M \\\Vi of short duration. Madame de Genlis
s^.»«» «»ooti UH.illevi by the Duke, reinstated in her
ItMiMtt |to«>t, aiul presently, in consequence of the
life ot %ovb £^war^ f itsOetald 123
disturbed condition of Paris, was sent by him to
England in charge of his daughter, Pamela being also
of the party.
It was not the first visit of Pamela to England
since she and the mare had crossed the Channel in
each other*s company. Six years earlier, as a child of
twelve, she had accompanied her guardian, when the
honour of a Doctor's degree had been conferred upon
Madame de Genlis, and had on that occasion been
taken to the house of Horace Walpole, who has left
upon record his impressions of his visitors.
Walpole was not altogether an unprejudiced critic,
for it is clear from the terms in which he announced
to a correspondent the arrival in England of the
gouvernante that report had not disposed him favourably
towards the literary lady. There was a bourgeois
flavour about her which was not likely to incline him
to condone the faults with which she was, justly or
unjusdy, credited ; nor did he share Southey's admir-
ation for her educational theories.
Expressing his disgust at Rousseau's Confessions^
he went on to observe that Rousseau's hen, the
schoolmistress, Madame de Genlis, was said to have
arrived in London ; adding that the eggs that both
he and she laid would be ready to die of old age.
In a second letter, however, written after he had
made the personal acquaintance of the lady, he was
compelled, though somewhat grudgingly, to allow that
he had found her pleasanter and more natural than he
had expected ; while of Pamela he observed sardonically.
124 %Uc Of Xotb EDwaA) fft30eral&
finding no doubt what he expected to find, that
Madame dc Genlis "had educated her to be very
like herself in the face.'*
That visit had been paid in the summer of 1785,
It was six years later that, towards the end of 179 1,
Madame de Genlis and her adopted daughter, this
time accompanied by Mademoiselle d*Orleans, again
arrived in England, and after some short delay pro-
ceeded to Bath, where Mademoiselle had been ordered
for the sake of her health.
Madame de Genlis was certain, wherever she might
find herself, to utilise to the utmost the resources
of the place. During her stay at the fashionable
watering-place she combined education with amusement
by engaging a box at the local theatre, with the view
of perfecting herself and her charges in the use of
the English language ; and it was doubtless at this
time that Southey caught the glimpse of Pamela of
which he has given the account.
'* They who have seen Pamela," he says, ** would
think anything interesting that related to her. I once
sat next her in the Bath theatre " — he is writing some
six years later. '* Madame de Sillery " — by which
name Madame de Genlis was likewise known — " was
on the seat with her ; but with physiognomical con-
trition I confess that, while my recollection of Pamela's
uncommon beauty is unimpaired, I cannot retrace a
feature of the authoress."
The visit to Bath concluded, the travellers estab-
lished themselves at Bury, a place frequented by other
Xffe of Xotb £^wat^ f itsOetalb 125
French emigrants ; where the household set up by the
gouvemante is said to have been of singular composition,
having attached to it several men of anomalous
position, who were alternately treated as equals and
as domestics. The vagaries indulged in by the head
of the establishment during her residence at this place
were also reported to have been such as to attract a
d^ree of criticism which rendered her eventually
not unwilling to quit the neighbourhood.
She would seem, however, to have been still located
at Bury when, in September, 1792, the Duke of
Orleans, for reasons connected with the laws then to
be passed with regard to emigrants, wrote to recall
his daughter to France. It was probably under these
circumstances that her governess, terrified at the
prospect of a return to Paris in its present con-
dition of anarchy — a condition attributed in part
by the Due de Liancourt to the unfortunate in-
fluence she herself exercised over Orleans — sent a
frantic appeal to Charles James Fox for assistance
and protection.
To the English statesman she was personally little
known, though that one meeting at least had taken
place during her present visit to England is clear
from an account given by Samuel Rogers of a party
at which both Fox and Sheridan were guests, the
latter engaged in writing verses, in very imperfect
French, to Pamela, who, with her guardian and
Mademoiselle d'Orleans, was present.
However limited their intercourse had been, Madame
126 Xffe of Xorb £&wart> ^ftsGeralt)
de Genlis was not a woman to be deterred by the
slightness of an acquaintance from turning it to the
best account. Her appeal was couched in hysterical
terms. Dangers, real or imaginary, had pursued her
across the Channel. At all times prone to create around
her an atmosphere of romance, her excitable imaginft-
tion had now become possessed by the idea of a
conspiracy to carry off Mademoiselle. She represented
herself as environed by peril. Anonymous letters of a
threatening nature had reached her, in one of which
she was designated as a " savage fury," and her terrors
had now attained their climax.
" I am uneasy, sick, unhappy,'* she told Fox, " and
surrounded by the most dreadful snares of the fraud
and wickedness ! " After which she begged the states-
man to pardon her ** bad language '* — meaning, it is
fair to explain, her lack of conversancy with the
English tongue ; and concluded with entreaties that a
man of law might be despatched without delay to
her aid.
There was one other person, and one only, so she
told Mr. Fox, in whom she placed confidence. That
man was Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
Whether or not it was at the party already mentioned
that Pamela's first introduction to Sheridan took place
we have no means of knowing ; but some months
before Madame de Genlis's letter was written and
when his first wife, the beautiful Miss Linley, was
still alive, he had drawn so fair a portrait, for her
benefit and that of Lord Edward FitzGerald, who
Xife ot Xotd Edward f itsGetald 127
luj^ned to be present, of a young French girl
he had lately met, that Mrs. Sheridan, even then in
the grasp of the malady which was to prove fatal,
turning to the visitor with a melancholy smile,
observed, "I should like you, when I am dead, to
marry that girl.*' The girl was Pamela.
Sheridan, in his description, had dwelt upon the
likeness he had discovered in the stranger to his own
wife in the days of her early bloom. Whether or
not that resemblance was to blame for their infidelity,
it is a curious coincidence that, within the space of
litde more than a year, not one but both of her
hearers, husband and friend, are said to have laid
their hearts at the feet of the girl of whom she
spoke.
" When I am dead." The affection of Lord Edward
for the beautiful woman, some five or six years older
than himself, already marked for death, was only
likely to be misinterpreted by a mind such as that of
Madame de Genlis, who did not fail to put her own
construction upon it. That there should have been
mutual admiration, observes Moore, between two such
noble specimens of human nature, it is easy, without
injury to either, to believe, and he is doubtless
right.
Though remaining attached to his wife to the end,
the fervour of Sheridan's passion would seem to have
cooled before her death. Such at least is the inference
to be drawn from a speculation in which he was
overheard indulging, as to whether anything could
X.n: :t Lrcr g muLJ fXj»3caD
'— ^ ■:^v :> zr^ "r=:— zr? r:r "er, ucing
^-r ' -.:- . --r:c: v-ri-n ru:^ rci.- r:<rr frsc home
r~..' ^I.'■ jr : -^::-' "rri: j.-^t. _■: tre v-rr ict of
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^•- 1:-.-=^.'- •:: ::Tj.rr: t i ii^:cr;r which had
^•1-r. f •:-:-:.:. iz l' - -ir-. 1.1 =•:• jZz^ bar the
• ;- J-: ;. ; : * -^ ' ^J^T i ir. i fr.ini alike at
: Mxiame
:e. What
:;?s:r-ir. does not
. . r". n^T .e«*eT"~"
?7 r:7. r:a: the
; :j :hi uste of
-=i ^lr:cut celay
r^:::. in crier to
OjrcSir, of the
J.
■T. :'i: : r.r ::r.vi.-^ --:.. tr.e.r ^^porrare from
- :, t-.c". 11" fe-^r.f :: -.-ve :i.<er. the manage-
rs-.- ^f' ir^irr i-:: -:^ :-^n 'Ji-i^, Aner a brief
.r.r-;rv:i: :.;--.: 1: i:: h::-.", Mii^T.e de Genii s, still a
;ir';y •^ r.-r r'-i-, i:.i farther alar.T.ed by the proposal
:*'^orr.; u.ie:, if she is ro be credited, bv threats of
Xife of Xor& £dwar& f ft5(3erall> 129
violence — on the part of an Irish gentleman named
Rice to arrange for her safety and that of her charges
by their immediate shipment to America or by their
removal to his Irish estate, consented to accept
Sheridan's proffered hospitality under the roof of
a house at Isleworth which, according to Horace
Walpole, he had rented from a Mrs. Keppel at a rate
of four hundred a year, on being compelled to leave
his residence in Bruton Street through inability to
satisfy the claims of his landlord. " Almost the first
night he came to Isleworth," adds the distinguished
gossip, " he gave a ball there, which will not precipitate
Mrs. K/s receipts,"
So long as balls or other entertainments more suit-
able to the condition of the new-made widower were
to be enjoyed, Madame de Genlis was not likely
to feel an undue amount of solicitude concerning
her host's liabilities. A month was passed pleasantly
enough at Isleworth — an interval during which the
Due d'Orleans was fuming in vain at Paris over
his daughter's delay in yielding obedience to his
summons, and the not inconsolable Sheridan was
falling so deeply in love that — again on Madame de
Genlis's authority — he made Pamela, two days before
the date finally fixed upon for the departure of his
guests, a formal offer of marriage.
Whether the proposal is to be regarded In the light
of a serious one, or whether the whole afiair was
viewed by the playwright merely as a diverting
episode, remains a doubtful question ; nor does his
9
iio !tific or iMd B»«aO fit30ecal5
subsequent cosaduct xrre to docidatc it. Two days
after the offer h&i been nude and accepted, the party
set out for Dorcr, on the understamfing that Madame
de Genlis, after duly pbdng MademoiseUe in the
hands of her father, should return to England with
Pamela, and that the martiage should then take place.
Apparently, however, more anxious to secure the
present companionship of his betrothed than to hasten
his permanent possession of her, Sheridan contrived,
by means of what, in the opinion of his biqgnqiher, was
an elaborate practical joke, so to terrify her guardian
by the astonishing adventures encountered on the way
to the coast that, returning to London, she threw
herself once more, with her charges, upon the hoq>i-
tality of the comedian, to last until such time — it
proved to be no less than a month distant — as the
claims of business should permit of his giving die
travellers his personal escort to the coast The
journey on this second occasion was accomplished in
«afcty ; and, arrived at Dover, a tearful parting took
place, Sheridan, according to Madame de Genlis,
Uc'in^r prevented by his political duties alone from
attending the party to Paris.
I liu\ Mr. Sheridan seriously contemplated making
the little French adventuress his wife, he would have
iUmc well to disregard the claims of duty. That leave-
taking by the sea is the last occasion in which he
appears in the character of her affianced husband.
Whether the discovery of the unsatisfactory condition
of his finances led Madame de Genlis to entertain
Xife of Xor6 £5war6 f it5<Beral& 131
doubts of the pradencc of the arrangement ; whether
the young lady herself had already wearied of a lover
more than twice her age, Sheridan being above forty,
and Pamela not more than either fifteen or nineteen
according as we accept her own statement or that of
her adopted mother — there exists a discrepancy of
no less than four years ; or whether the appearance
of a more eligible suitor was sufficient to banish
the recollection of poor Sheridan's claims, it is clear
that no morbid sense of honour was permitted to
darken counsel, or to prove a hindrance to the forma-
tion of fresh ties. There is not so much as a mention
of the fact of her late host's dismissal ; he simply,
so far as Pamela is concerned, disappears from the
scene.
As for the dramatist himself, whatever may have
been his sentiments towards the pretty little French
girl — ^and one would be loath to believe that he
regarded her, by reason of her doubtful origin and
dependent position, as fitted to be cast for a leading
part in a farce — it does not appear that her infidelity
left him inconsolable. Four years later, turning his
back upon wandering heroines of romance, he married
the daughter of a Dean and the granddaughter
of a Bishop, possessed not only of the unsubstantial
advantages of youth and beauty, but of the more solid
recommendations of four thousand pounds.
Returning to Pamela, one of the series of episodes
which make up her history was concluded. Another
was promptly to begin, and that the one to which
132 Xife of XorD £5war6 f it5(3etal&
her interest in the eyes of English readers is chiefly
due.^
1 It is curious that in Sheridan's latest and fullest biography not
only is silence preserved as to this entire episode, but no mention is
made of the two months, more or less, spent by the foreign visitors at
Isleworth, Whether or not the statements of Madame de Genlis as to
the relations between her adopted daughter and Sheridan are allowed
to carry weight, that those relations were at least of a nature to
attract the attention of London society is plain from a letter written
in October, 1792, by Lady Elliot to Lady Malmesbury, in which an
assertion is hazarded to the efifect that Sheridan "is so much in love
with Madame de Genlis*s Pamela, that he means to marry her, if she
will have him"; while Sir Gilbert Elliot himself later on, after
announcing Lord Edward FitzGerald's marriage to " Pamela, Madame
de Genlis's daughter," goes on to add that " Sheridan is said to have
been refused by her."
CHAPTER IX
1792
Lord Edward in Paris — Spirit of the Revolution — Enthusiasm
in England and Ireland — Shared by Lord Edward —
Compromising Action on his Part — Meeting with Pamela
— The Due d'Orl6ans and Madame de Genlis — Marriage
of Lord Edward and Pamela — Lord Edward Cashiered.
WHEN Madame de Genlis and her charges at
length reached Paris, another visitor had
arrived there — a visitor who had already spent some
weeks in the French capital, and whose stay was now
drawing to an end. This was Lord Edward FitzGerald.
The course of events in France had been watched
with intense interest by lookers-on in England, by
whom they had been regarded with sentiments ranging
from the deepest distrust of the '^strange, nameless,
wild, and enthusiastic thing " which the Republican
Government appeared to Burke, together with horror
at the brutalities by which it had already been dis-
figured, to the most extravagant enthusiasm for what
was looked upon as the dawn of an epoch of justice,
liberty, and peace.
Among responsible statesmen, the unmeasured
admiration that had been entertained by Fox for the
133
134 Xtfit Of Xorb £^warb fttsOexaSb
principles which were now achieving their triumph
was so well recognised that even after the massacres
of September, 1 792, his refusal of the proffered honour
of French citizenship seems to have caused surprise
as well as disappointment to those employed to sound
him on the subject. When the Revolution Society
hired Ranelagh for the celebration of the anniversary
of the French Confederation, it was announced that
Sheridan would take part in the proceedings. While,
as an instance of the hopes which prevailed at the
time among less practical politicians with r^ard to the
new era which had been inaugurated, it may suffice
to quote the opinion gravely expressed by so un-
emotional a philosopher as William Godwin, who
asserted his belief that, granted a condition of
sufficient liberty — such as that now obtaining in France
— the existence of vice would be impossible.
The spirit of the Revolution was essentially a
proselytising one. Its emissaries were constandy
making their appearance, in London and elsewhere,
with the object of spreading abroad the principles
upon which it had been based, and of offering sympathy
and help to those suffering under injustice and wrong.
The disinherited of all nations were at length to be
put in possession of that which was theirs by right
The liberty which France had already made her own
was to be diffused over the entire face of the earth.
It was a dazzling dream, to which converts were
made every day ; nor was England slow to respond
to the advances she received. Every class which
%Mt or Xot& JEdwarb fft56eraI5 135
had, or conceived itself to have, a grievance^ looked
across the Channel for help ; English revolutionary
societies sent deputations to France to offer the
congratulations of those they represented at the bar
of the Convention. In an address to the latter put
forth by a large body of Englishmen, it was declared
to be the duty of all true Britons to support and
assist the defenders of the Rights of Man and the
propagators of human felicity, and to swear in-
violable friendship to France, the land which was
already what Britons were preparing to become —
free. It was hoped to establish a National Convention
on the French model; and, in the words of the
President, the festival which had been celebrated in
England in honour of the Revolution in France was
the prelude to the festival of nations.
It is difficult, now that more than a hundred years
has passed since that fever fit of hope and anticipation,
to realise the condition of excitement which so widely
prevailed. Some of the ideals then first heard of, at
least by the crowd, have been partially realised ; some
of the principles then enunciated have almost taken
their place as unquestioned truisms. And still sin and
misery are as rife as ever among us, nor are there
any indications that they are likely to cease to
exist. The results to be looked for through im-
provement in political institutions have been modified
and corrected by experience. But a century ago it
was a different matter. Nothing then appeared to
the devotees of the new faith impossible.
136 Xtfe of Xot& £&warb flt$OcaiJEb
The attitude of a large section of English democrats
has been described. It was only what was to be
expected that in Ireland^ where no traditional pre^
judice with regard to France had to be overcome
and where existing grievances were pressing with
incomparably greater weight than on the other side
of St. George's Channel, enthusiasm should have
risen to a still greater height. The absolute religious
equality, in particular, which formed a fundamental
principle of the Republic, was calculated to appeal
with special force to Irish sentiment at a time
when adherents of all creeds were to be found
combining in a common cause, and when a de-
termination on the part of the national party to sink
religious differences and to work together in harmony
was finding expression in the formation of that
" Plot of Patriots " — the Society of United Irishmen.
Although the Established Church maintained its opposi-
tion to the popular demands, such an amalgamation
of other religious parties had taken place as might well
cause disquiet to the Government. A new enthusiasm,
according to Grattan, had gone forth in the place of
religion, much more adverse to kings than Popery,
and infinitely more prevailing — the spirit of Re-
publicanism.
That this spirit should be vehemently enlisted on
the side of France, engaged almost single-handed in
her struggle with those pledged to the maintenance
of ancient rights and customs and privileges, was of
course inevitable ; nor was Ireland slow to give ex-
Xffe of Xotb £dwar& f itaOeralb 137
pression to her sympathy. On July 14th, 1792,
Belfast celebrated, in true Republican fashion, the
anniversary of the French Revolution ; and at
a dinner given a day or two later in honour of
the occasion, Catholic and Protestant Dissenter met
tc^ther in unity and friendship, the four flags of
America, France, Poland, and Ireland being displayed,
while that of England was conspicuous by its absence.
When such were the feelings called forth by the
Revolution amongst the men, both in England and
Ireland, whose opinions he shared, it was not to be
expected that Lord Edward would remain uninfected
by the contagion of the prevailing spirit. Nor was
he likely to be content to watch the progress of
events from afar,
** Is it not delightful ? " he had written to his
mother in October, referring to the "good French
news ** — doubtless the retreat of the allies and the
success of the Republican arms. " It is really shameful
to see how much it has affected all our aristocrats.
I think one may fairly say the Duke of Brunswick
and his Germans are bedeviled."
Unable to resign himself to remaining at a distance
from the centre of interest, by the end of the same
month he was making an inspection of French affairs
at head-quarters, and writes from Paris, dating his
letter the first year of the Republic, to reassure the
Duchess as to any possible risk to be incurred in his
present surroundings. The town, he tells her, is
perfectly quiet, and for him a most interesting
138 life or %otb Bdwatb fttKBetalft
scene, which on no account would he have missed
witnessing.
No doubty from his own point of view, he was
seeing Paris under favourable circumstances, for he
was lodging in the same house with Thomas Paine,
and liked his host better and better.
^* The more I see of his interior, the more I like
and respect him. I cannot express how kind he is to
mc. ... I pass my time very pleasandy — read, walk,
and go quietly to the play. I have not been to see
any one, nor shall not. I often want you, dearest
mother, but 1 should not have been able to bear
Tunbridge for any time. The present scene occufnes
my thoughts a great deal, and dissipates unpleasant
feelings very much."
Though it may have been true that Lord Edward
did not pay visits, it is to be inferred that Mr. Paine's
disciple did not wholly lead the life of a recluse ; since
it appears that, a little later on, the popular philosopher
found himself so overwhelmed with those who sought
his society that he was compelled to set apart two
mornint^s each week for the purpose of holding a
species of levee, from which it is not probable that
Lonl l^dward would be absent. Constant visits to
the Assembly also alternated with the playgoing ;
and there was no fear of time hanging heavy on the
hands of the young Englishman.
Not only was his interest in the events that were
going forward keen and alert, but his revolutionary
sympathies were strangely unaffected by any misgivings
Xtfit or %otb JEdwarb f it56eralb 139
as to the methods of the Republican leaders. There
are blanks in all histories — questions to which no
answer can be given. It will never be known how
to a nature as gentle and as compassionate as that of
Lord Edward, it was apparently possible to condone
those September butcheries, of whose victims the
blood was scarcely dry ; which had been cause of
alienation to so many well-wishers of the Revolution,
and were allowed by so violent a partisan as Fox —
while striving to exonerate the Jacobins from re-
sponsibiUty in the matter — to be crimes incapable of
extenuation.
Whatever had been the means by which he had
explained and reconciled himself to the past, it seems
clear that no recollection of the ghastly scenes en-
acted in Paris not two months previous to his
visit had availed to damp Lord Edward's spirits,
to have cast a shadow over his bright and sanguine
anticipations with regard to the future, or to have
mingled with the hopes to which the proceedings of
the Convention were adapted to give birth.
To a man of his nationality and opinions those
proceedings were likely enough to appeal with peculiar
force. The people that had sat in darkness were
seeing a great light, and nowhere was the gloom
deeper than in Ireland. What must therefore have
been the effect upon an Irishman, having the misery
of his country at heart, of the celebrated decree, passed
on November 19th, by which the revolutionary
Government of France made formal tender of
I40 Xife of Xotb £&warb fttsGecalb
fraternity and assistance to all nations, without dis-
tinction, desirous of r^aining their liberty ; directing
further the Executive to issue orders to the Generals
of the Republic to give efFect to the decree.
It was a declaration which, menacing all tyrannies
alike, might well have sounded significantly in the
ears of an Irishman, kindling within him new hopes
for the future of that " most distressful country **
he called his own. The action of the Convention
was well calculated to dispel any misgivings — were he
likely to have entertained such — with which Lord
Edward might otherwise have looked back upon
certain proceedings in which he had taken a promi-
nent part on the very day before the decree was
promulgated.
On that occasion he had come forward, whether
on a momentary impulse of reckless enthusiasm or
with deliberate intention, to make public confession
of his political faith.
*^ Yesterday " — so ran the announcement in the
newspapers of the occurrence which had so grave
an influence on Lord Edward's future — '' yesterday
the English arrived in Paris assembled at White's
Hotel [it was there that Paine lodged] to celebrate
the triumph of the victories gained over their late
invaders by the armies of France. Though the
festival was intended to be purely British, the meeting
was attended by citizens of various countries, by
members of the Convention, by generals and other
officers of the armies then stationed at Paris or visiting
Xfte of lor& Ebwar& f ft36eral& 141
it, J. H. Stone in the chair. Among the toasts
were, * The armies of France : may the example
of its citizen-soldiers be followed by all enslaved
countries, till tyrants and tyrannies be extinct ! ' . . .
Among several toasts proposed by the Citizens Sir R.
Smith and Lord Edward Fitzgerald was the following :
• May the patriotic airs of the German Legion (^a
Ira, the Carmagnole, Marseillaise March, etc.) soon
become the favourite music of every army, and may
the soldier and the citizen join in the chorus ! ' Sir
Robert Smith and Lord E. FitzGerald renounced
their titles ; and a toast by the former was drunk :
*The speedy abolition of all hereditary titles and
feudal distinctions.* "
Thus Lord Edward burnt his boats behind him
and finally surrendered himself to the current which
was carrying him along. That, though reckless, he
was not blind to the possible results of his conduct
is clear from a letter to his mother written about
this time, announcing his intention of returning to
England the following week, when he would settle
his majority, if he were not scratched out of the army.
The possibility, however, does not appear to have
weighed on his spirits ; and again his admiration
for the present condition of French sentiment finds
vent.
" I am delighted," he says, " with the manner
they feel their success : no foolish boasting or
arrogance at it, but imputing all to the greatness
and goodness of their cause, and seeming to rejoice
i4t Xife of %otb JEtwmH> fttsOexa^lb
more on account of its effects on Europe in general
than for their own individual glory. ... In the coffee-
houses and play-houses every man calls the other
camarade^frire^ and with a stranger immediately begins,
* Ah^ nous sommes tons frhres^ tons hommeSy nos vicmres
son/ pour vouSj pour wui U mondcy and the same senti-
ments arc always received with peals of applause.
In shorty all the good, enthusiastic French sentiments
seem to come out ; while, to all appearance, one would
say, they had lost all their bad.**
Notwithstanding, however, the confidence with
which he claims his mother*s sympathy for his political
interests, it was, one cannot doubt, the characteristic
conclusion of the letter that came nearest to the
Duchess's heart.
•* 1 long to see you," he wrote, " and shall be
with you the beginning of the week after next. I
cannot be long from you " ; adding, after the signature,
'* In the midst of my patriotism and projects, you
are always the first thing in my heart, and ever must
be, my dear, dear mother."
It was possibly the last time that such an assurance
could have been thus worded. Even at that very
moment, had the Duchess but known it, there was
another competitor — and one she might have con-
sidered more formidable than even his patriotism —
for the first place in her son's affections. In the
letter containing the expression of his unchanging
devotion he includes, amongst other items of intelli-
gence, the information that he was that day to dine
%Atc at %ovb Ebward |'ft36eral& 143
with Madame Sillery. It was a fact, thus baldly
stated, to which the Duchess was not likely to attach
the significance in truth belonging to it, until such
time as it should be explained to her, in somewhat
startling fashion, by the sequel.
It will be remembered that Madame de Genlis
and her two charges, Mademoiselle d'Orleans and
Pamela, had taken leave of Sheridan at Dover, the
latter returning, that parting over, to London ;
while the rest of the party were to proceed to Paris
with the object of consigning Mademoiselle to her
father's care.
Circumstances, however, had occurred during the
delay which had taken place in obeying his summons
now rendering the Due d'Orl6ans as desirous of
prolonging his daughter's absence from France as he
had previously been anxious to hasten her return.
A courier accordingly was despatched who, meeting
the travellers at Chantilly, was charged with instruc-
tions that, had their departure from England not
already taken place, they should remain in that country ;
and that in any case they should, after receiving the
Duke's orders, proceed no farther on their way to Paris.
If, however, the Duke had changed his mind,
Madame de Genlis had likewise altered her own ;
and finding herself so fer upon the road, she appears
to have determined to deliver Mademoiselle without
further delay into the hands of her father, and thus
to rid herself of an anxious responsibility and regain
her liberty to go where she pleased.
144 Xite of %otb lEbvoaxb fltsOcsOb
" I paid no attention to this order," she calmly
observes, describing the occurrence ; proceeding com-
posedly on her way, in defiance of the Duke's
injunctions.
At Belle Chasse the party was met by Egaliii
himself, accompanied by M. de Sillery and others ;
when Mademoiselle, weeping bitterly — it does not
appear for what cause — was duly given over to the
care of her lawful guardian.
**I told him,'* Madame de Genlis adds, "that
it was with sorrow I gave up this precious charge,
that I resigned my position as governess, and that I
should set out the next morning for England," taking
Pamela, no doubt, with her, with the object of
consigning her second charge to the expectant Sheridan,
according to the arrangement made with him before
her departure from Dover.
It appeared, however, that obstacles existed in the
way of the execution of her plan. The age now
reached by Mademoiselle, together with the delay
in reaching France for which Madame de Genlis had
been responsible, had brought her within the operation
of the laws recently passed respecting emigrants.
Feeling, it is clear, no great confidence in the behaviour,
under the circumstances, of his friends the Jacobins,
her father was therefore urgent in his desire that the
governess should continue, for the present at least,
at her post, and that, conducting the girl to some
neutral territory, she should remain in charge of her
until such time as her name should have been in-
%itc of %otb Ebwar& |'ft36eral& 145
eluded in the list to be drawn up of exceptions to
the operation of the new law — a matter he pledged
himself to arrange without loss of time.
Refusal on Madame de Genlis's part to comply with
his request would have been manifestly impossible.
It was accordingly settled — the governess giving her
reluctant assent — that the party should start once again
on their travels, after a delay of not more than a
couple of days,^ the stipulation being added by the
unwilling guardian that should it be found necessary
to prolong the absence of her pupil from Paris, a
remplafante should be despatched within a fortnight
to release her from the duties which — possibly owing
to the thoughts of Sheridan and England — had become
so suddenly irksome.
In two more days, therefore, Madame de Genlis,
with Pamela, would have been at a safe distance from
Paris, and the course of Lord Edward's domestic affairs
would have been a difl^erent one. But much may
happen in two days. That same evening M. de
Sillery, who seems to have been at the moment
assiduous in attendance, had the happy idea of escort-
ing his wife and her charges to the play, in order,
as Madame de Genlis explains, to dissipate their
* The account given by Toumois, in his Life of the Due d*Orl6ans,
of this episode does not agree in all points with that of Madame de
Genlis, the period for which he makes the travellers delay at Paris
being, in especial, a fortnight. Whether accurate in this instance or
not, his mention of Lord Edward as ^'Premier pair (Tlrlande,*" as well
as the further assertion that, condemned to death, he committed
suicide in prison, does not tend to place his reliability as an authority
beyond question (Toumois, Vol. IL, p. 296).
10
146 Xife or lor^ JE^ward fft9(BecalD
melancholy. During this visit to the theatre an incident
occurred which appreciably diminished Madame de
Genlis's impatience to return to England, and must
have been more efficacious than the performance they
had gone to witness in distracting tbe spirits of at
least one of the party.
Lord Edward had mentioned to his mother that
play-going formed one of his Parisian amusements.
Accordingly, on the same night that Madame de
Genlis and her pupils were seeking solace and refresh-
ment at the theatre, he had also resorted thither ; and
chancing to look up, he was struck by a face in one
of the boxes — a face which recalled to him, as it had
to poor Sheridan, that of Sheridan's wife, ax months
dead, and was that of the girl whom she had said
she would like him, when she herself should have
passed away, to marry.
Lord Edward was apparently in the company of the
Englishman, Stone, who had occupied the chair at
the meeting of his countrymen in Paris. This gende-
man was acquainted with Madame de Genlis. It was
probably at his house in England that her meeting
with Fox and Sheridan had taken place, and she
charged him some years later, truly or falsely, with
the embezzlement of certain money she had entrusted
to him. At the present moment he was at all events
in a position to effect the introduction of his com-
panion to the loge grillee in which the fair face was to
be found ; and the acquaintance was so successfully
inaugurated that by the very next day — so it would
%JU€ Of %otb E^war^ fits^erald 147
appear — Lord Edward had received and accepted an
invitation to dine with Madame de Genlis. Pamela's
guardian, to put the matter plainly, had made the
most of her flying visit to Paris, and had discovered
in Lord Edward FitzGerald a suitor for the hand of
her adopted daughter who was more likely to com-
mend himself to her ward than the impecunious and
middle-aged lover who had been left behind — in tears
or otherwise — at Dover.
The day between the meeting at the theatre and the
departure for Tournay, which place had been selected
as the destination of the travellers, was spent at Rainsy,
in company with the Duke, and, again, the attentive
SUery. The former was in no happy mood ; and
absent, impatient and careworn, continued to pace
up and down the room ; until, the winter's day being
unusually mild, and Pamela, Mademoiselle, and
M. de Sillery having discreetly betaken them-
selves to the garden, he took the opportunity of
informing Madame de Genlis that he had declared
himself on the side of the Republic ; and, in answer
to her protest, silenced his monitress by the remark
— not the more courteous when the profession of the
lady is taken into account — that, while she might be
worth consulting on history or literature, she was
certainly not so when it was a question of politics.
An effectual end having thus been put to the
discussion of his recent course of action, Madame de
Genlis, casting about for a fresh subject of conversa-
tion, put the pertinent question why, under the
148 %ttc Of %ot^ E^war^ fftjOeeald
circumstances, he continued to permit his house to
remain decorated by the forbidden emblems of the
Jkur-'Je^isi It appeared^ however, that this tofuc
was no more happily chosen than the last
** Because it would be cowardly to take them down,"
he returned roughly.
Conversation with a man in the temper in which
the Duke then found himself is not easy to carry on,
and poor Madame de Genlis adds that, later on,
she found M. de Sillery no more ready than the
Duke to accept the good advice she was prepared,
with a fine impartiality, to administer to him.
All things considered, she did not feel so much
regret, one may imagine, at her impending banish-
ment from Paris as she might otherwise have done.
At any rate, she made no further delay in obeying
the Duke's orders ; and the following morning — the
dinner to which Lord Edward had been invited
having taken place in the meantime — the travellers set
out on their journey to Flanders. The Duke's gloom,
it is recorded, was more profound than ever as he
took leave of his daughter ; and Mademoiselle, who
seems to have been addicted to weeping, was once
more in tears.
One member, however, of the party was, we are
justified in concluding, no victim to the general
dejection ; since at the first stage of the journey
Lord Edward FitzGerald joined the travellers, and
accompanied them on their way to Tournay.
The sequel may be given in Madame de Genlis's
%itc of %otb £t>war& |'ft3(BeraI& 149
own language — the language of the woman who, at
a later date, had her portrait taken with a copy of
the Gospels conspicuously introduced upon a table
at her side, that volume having furnished, as she
is careful to explain, the basis and foundation for
all her own literary productions.
" We arrived at Tournay," she relates, " during
the first days of December of this same year, 1792.
Three weelcs later I had the happiness of marrying
my adopted daughter, the angelical Pamela, to Lord
Edward FitzGerald. In the midst of so many
misfortunes and injustices. Heaven desired to re-
compense, by this happy event, the best action of
my life — that of having protected helpless innocence,
of having brought up and adopted the incomparable
child thrown by Providence into my arms ; and
finally of having developed her intelligence, her reason,
and the virtues which render her to-day a pattern
wife and mother of her age.**
Thus Madame de Genlls upon the subject of her
own good deeds and the success with which they had
been attended. Whether the direct interposition of
Heaven in the matter of the marriage was equally
patent to Lord Edward's relations may, it is true,
be questioned. One may permit oneself a doubt
whether, by birth, training, or possibly disposition,
Madame de Genlis's adopted daughter would have
been precisely the wife that the Duchess of Leinster
would have desired to see bestowed upon her son.
But, however that may be, there is no evidence that.
ISO TUtc or %otb SOwacd fttiOctaSb
during the short term, five years and a half, of their
married life, Lord Edward saw cause to repent of the
hazardous experiment upon which he had embarked
with such perilous haste. Gende, affectionate, and,
above all things, loyal in every relationship of life,
he was not likely to prove less so towards the girl
who — like a child caught and carried along in a funeral
procession — had been made his wife ; and if it is
probable that he found in her a companion rather
for the sunny hours of life than a comrade in the
darker paths he was destined later on to tread, no
word of complaint remains to record the fact.
Another change, besides that effected by marriage,
had taken place, by this time, in Lord Edward's
existence, present and future. When he had arrived
in Paris, only a few weeks earlier, he had been, so
far as domestic ties were concerned, a free man.
He had also held a commission in the British army.
When he returned to England, not only was he in
possession of a wife, but his name had been struck
off the list of English officers. On the ostensible
grounds of a subscription to the fund raised to enable
the French to carry on the war against their invaders,
but more probably owing to the publicity given
to those proceedings in Paris of which mention
has been made, Lord Edward had been cashiered.
On the very day that his marriage was taking place
at Tournay, Charles James Fox was lifting his
voice in the House of Commons in protest against
the action which had been thus taken in depriving
Xfte of lor& £t>war^ fft3(BeraI& 151
his cousin, as well as two other officers of similar
opinions, of their commissions ; and was challenging
the Gk)vemment to show just cause for the severity
displayed towards these men, of one of whom, being
his own near relation, he would say, from personal
knowledge, ** that the service did not possess a more
zealous, meritorious, and promising member."
The remonstrance was naturally futile. Lord
Edward remained — as he himself had foreseen might
be the case — scratched out of the army.
CHAPTER X
1792—1793
Pamela and Lord Edward's Family— Her Portiait — Effect
upon Lord Edward of Cashierment — Catholic Convention
— Scene in Parliament — Catholic Relief Bill — ^Lawlessness
in the Country — Lord Edward's Isolation.
MADAME DE GENLIS has distincdy stated
in her account of the marriage that she would
by no means have permitted the angelical Pamela — an
angel, by the way, cast in very terrestrial mould — ^to
enter the FitzGerald family without the consent of
the Duchess of Leinster, giving it to be understood
that Lord Edward had gone to England to obtain
that consent, and that it was not until his return,
successful, that the wedding took place.
Madame de Genlis should be a good authority,
but there are, nevertheless, grounds for believing it
at least possible that the Duchess's sanction to the
arrangement was somewhat belated ; and that, like
a wise woman, and a mother who wished to retain
her son, she had set herself after the event to make
the best of the inevitable. Whether her consent was
given before or after, it is possible that the recollection
of her own second marriage, in which there must have
152
Xfte of Xor& £t>war^ |'ft3(BeraI& 153
been an element of romance, strangely associated with
the excellent Scotch tutor, and which, in the eyes
of the world, must have appeared in the light of a
signal triumph of sentiment over sense — it is possible
that this, with the added memory of all the good years
it had given her, may have inclined her to take a more
indulgent view than she might otherwise have done
of her son's hasty marriage.
There is, at any rate, no symptom of any interrup-
tion in the tender relationship of the mother and son ;
and Lord Edward, writing to thank the Duchess
for the letter in which she had evidently bestowed
her blessing upon the match, told her that she had
never made him so happy.
" I cannot tell you," he added, " how strongly my
little wife feels it. . . . You must love her — she wants
to be loved."
There is no doubt that Pamela did want to be
loved. It was a want which she felt all her life ; and
which, it may be added, she probably took every
available means in her power — and they were not
few — to satisfy. In the case of women as well as men,
though she was not fond of the society of the first,
she had an exaggerated desire to please, born of the
innate coquetry which, one of her marked features,
lasted on even to old age. The Due de la Force,
who had exceptional opportunities of forming a
judgment, when asked if, at the age of sixty, she was
still a coquette, is said to have answered with a laugh,
*' More than ever ! " adding that when she found
154 Xife of lor& E^war^ fit5<BeniI5
herself deprived, in the solitude of his chiieau^ of
worthier subjects upon which to exert her powers
of fascination, she was wont to exercise them upon
the gardener.
And her powers of fascination were beyond question
great. Even when nearer fifty than forty we hear
of her, dressed in white muslin and garlanded with
roses, dancing at a ball and ensnaring the heart of an
Knglish lad of less than half her years. And if such
was her charm at an age when most women resign
themselves to be lookers-on at life, what must it have
been in the spring-time of her youth ? Lord Edward,
whatever may be thought of her in other respects, had
married a charming wife — upon this head at least there
cannot be two opinions. Years afterwards, when he
had long been in his grave, and Pamela, a poor little
wait on the waves of life, had been washed to and fro
at their will, a candid friend, giving an account of her,
and including in the description no shortened list of
her faults and failings, nevertheless concluded with
the acknowledgment that she was, in spite of all,
irresistible.
As one reads this lady's account in the light of the
tacts which are known to us, one acquires a clear
enough picture of the fair little figure, with the face
which so took the fancy of Robert Southey that,
lover of letters ;is he was, he forgot the authoress at
her side ; with her eyes of huu-vert^ her pretty brows
and dazzling complexion, the mouth the worst feature
in the face and spoilt by a habit of biting her lips ;
^
n
Xife of Xort) £&wart> f it36eralD 155
capricious and variable, assuming by turns the character
of a lady of rank, an artist of mediocre talent, a good
and graceful child ; brilliant, vain, gentle and quarrel-
some ; recklessly generous as to money ; easily amused,
yet subject to fits of melancholy ; slight, Ugire^ yet
always charming, — such was the child of the French
sailor and the Canadian mother, and the daughter-in-law
presented to the Duchess of Leinster by Lord Edward.
NobUsse oblige. Whatever may have been her
secret sentiments as to her son's choice, his mother
would seem to have kept them to herself, and not
to have taken the world into her confidence. But the
situation must have been a difficult one for all parties ;
though, during Lord Edward's lifetime at least,
those concerned seem to have come well out of it.
Lady Sarah Napier in particular — ^who had perhaps
the fellow-feeling for her new niece which, despite the
common belief to the contrary, one woman of excep-
tional beauty sometimes entertains for another — testified
a marked admiration and liking for her nephew's
wife.
" I never saw such a sweet, little, engaging, bewitch-
ing creature as Lady Edward is," she wrote a few
weeks after the marriage, " and childish to a degree
with the greatest sense. ... I am sure she is not vile
Egalite's child ; it's impossible."
In the first freshness of her grief after the final
catastrophe, the Duchess also expressed herself in the
warmest terms with regard to the " dear little interest-
ing Pamela, who must ever be an object dear, precious,
156 Xife of Xort) JE^warD fttsOctalb
and sacred to all our hearts/' adding that she was a
charming creature, and the more her real character
was known, the more it was esteemed and loved ;
" but even were she not so, he adored her : he is gone !
This is an indissoluble chain that must ever Innd
her to our hearts."
It is probably the last sentence which gives the key
to the rest. But it is not only in the case of Pamela
that the links of such indissoluble chsuns have fallen
asunder under the inexorable action of time. After
her first few months of widowhood Pamela and her
husband's family would seem to have litde to do with
one another ; the incongruous elements brought together
by accident had once more parted.
In Ireland itself and in Dublin society Pamela was
never popular ; a fact to which Lady Sarah Napier
is found adverting in a letter written from Ireland
shortly after her nephew's death to her brother the
Duke of Richmond, who had given shelter to the
new-made widow at Goodwood, and whose kindness —
of which his sister is warmly sensible — is reported,
though on doubtful authority, to have gone so far
as, later on, to have included an offer of marriage.
It is probable enough, for the rest, that the misliking
was mutual ; and it is certain that when at liberty to
choose her own place of abode, Pamela displayed
no disposition to fix it in her husband's country.
For the present, however, her home was to be
there ; and after a visit of three weeks to the Duchess
in England, the two proceeded to Dublin, whither
Xife of Xort) £&ward f ft3(?eralt> 157
Lord Edward was recalled by his Parliamentary
duties.
The companion with whom he had provided himself
will no doubt have done much on this occasion to
reconcile him to the necessary absence from his family ;
and there is a pleasant glimpse to be caught of him
about this time, driving his wife through the streets
of Dublin in a high phaeton, she beautiful, he re-
taining his boyish looks, wearing a green silk hand-
kerchief, and frankly delighted with the reception
accorded by the people to himself and his bride.
On other occasions it is narrated by a contemporary
that, retaining something of boyhood besides his
looks, he discarded, in honour of the principles of
the Revolution, every symptom of superiority in
point of dress ; and even went so far as to take his
wife, however wet and muddy the weather, through
the streets on foot, rather than indulge in the luxury
of a carriage. Whether or not Pamela altogether
approved of this object-lesson in equality does not
transpire ; one would, however, imagine that the
method of propitiating public sentiment to which
Madame de Genlis had had recourse, in sending her
beautiful foster-daughter to drive through Paris with
the popular Orleans liveries, would have been more
to her taste.
Lord Edward, in attention to details such as these,
displays the enthusiasm of a proselyte. He was,
in truth, rehearsing a fresh part. It was one,
partly at least, thrust upon him by the English
158 Xtfe of XotO E^warO fttsOenft
Government. In a sorrowful review of the past, his
mother was accustomed in later days to date the
misfortunes by which he was overtaken from his
summary dismissal from the army, declaring that
that event had left a deep and indelible imfMrsston
on his mind, and that a sentence of death, to a man
of his spirit, would have been in comparison an act
of mercy. Yet, while holding this as her own view^
and possibly finding consolation in thus ascribing to
others the responsibility for the disasters which had
followed, she was just enough to add that he had
never himself admitted that the action of the Govern-
ment had exercised any influence upon his conduct
Looking at the matter impartiaUy, it is possible
that both were in a measure right. The step taken
by the authorities — perfectly justifiable under the
circumstances and from their point of view — while
in no way affecting his convictions, may, likely enough,
have burnt in upon him the importance of principles
originally perhaps adopted after a light-hearted and
boyish fashion, and of which the full logical signifi-
cance might have escaped him had not his attention
been directed to it by the course pursued by a
Government whose special creative talent appeared
to lie in making rebels. By this means the creed
which might otherwise have remained — as how many
creeds do^a sleeping partner in the business of
life was transformed into a practical, working faith,
dictating his conduct and ruling his actions. We are
apt to prize a possession by what it has cost us.
%JU€ Of Xor^ S^warD ^it3(9etaID 159
He had been proud of his profession, and to find
himself suddenly thrust out of it would naturally
accentuate the importance of the cause in which it
had been forfeited.
Had he been disposed to overlook that importance,
afEurs in Ireland were not likely to allow him to do
sa Much had taken place there whilst he had been
engaged abroad in getting himself cashiered and
married ; and amongst the most notable events of the
past months had been the meeting of the dtholic
G>nvention in Dublin.
The summoning of an assembly to consist of
delegates from all parts of the country, had not
only marked a fresh departure on the part of the
Catholic population, a new stage in their agitation,
and a strengthened determination to push their claims,
but had also been the signal for an outburst of that
smouldering religious animosity on the part of the-
dominant faction which it was always the interest of
the Government to keep alive.
The Presbyterians of the north remained indeed
undismayed and staunch to their new alliance with the
Catholics ; and the United Irishmen only abstained
from sending a deputation to the Convention because
such a proceeding was judged inexpedient by those
who were responsible for its management ; but the
partisans of the Protestant Establishment and the
upholders of religious and political monopoly took
fright at once. Meetings were held in various parts
of the country, at which violent language was used,
i6o Xffe of XorD £^war^ fitsOecal^
pledging the speakers to maintain, against no matter
what authority, a Protestant King, a Protestant Parlia-
ment, a Protestant hierarchy, and Protestant electors
and government, in connection with the Protestant
realm of England.
The public excitement was sedulotisly fostered and
encouraged by Government ; and, according to Richard
Burke, every calumny which bigotry and civil war had
engendered in former ages was studiously revived by
those in authority. Whether or not the state of
public sentiment was, purposely or otherwise, exagger-
ated by the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Westmorland,
himself an uncompromising opponent of the Catholic
claims, in the accounts forwarded by him to England,
there can be no doubt that considerable alarm actually
did prevail in the country. The virulence of the
hostility displayed towards the Catholics is the more
remarkable owing to the fact that there had been, up
to this time, a singular absence of disaffection on their
part, together with, so far as the priesthood and upper
classes were concerned, a distaste for the principles of
the Revolution presenting a marked contrast to the
enthusiasm excited by it in other quarters.
On December 3rd the Catholic Convention had
met ; nor had it lost any time in proceeding to
business. The petition presented by the Catholics to
the Irish Parliament during the preceding session had
been allowed to lie upon the table and had then been
rejected. In the case of that now drawn up, setting
forth the grievances of the Catholic population and
Xife of Xort) £&ward f it36eralt> i6i
commending to the King the consideration of their
situation, the step was taken of ignoring the Lord
Lieutenant and the Irish Government — their recog-
nised foes— and of sending their petition by the hands
of delates of their own to head-quarters.
With the Protestant Wolfe Tone acting as secretary,
the five chosen delegates proceeded to execute their
mission, receiving an ovation at Belfast on their way,
and delivering the petition to the King in person, by
whom it was graciously received. When Parliament
reassembled in January, 1793, it was found that a
marked change had taken place in the tone adopted
by the Government, the spirit of conciliation which
was at once apparent being due partly, no doubt, to
the recent French victories, but partly to the condition
of Ireland itself.
Side by side with the agitation for Catholic en-
franchisement had gone a demand for the reform
of a Parliament in which, out of three hundred
members, one hundred and ten were either placemen
or pensioners, and of a system of Government character-
ised by Grattan as ^* a rank and vile and simple and
absolute Government, rendered so by means that
make every part of it vicious and abominable."
A new military movement had been initiated, and
a National Guard on the French pattern had been
organised in Dublin by the popular leaders, bearing
as its emblem the harp, surmounted, in place of the
crown, by the cap of liberty — a defiance much regretted
by Grattan. It was, however, no longer in the power
II
i62 life of Xor5 lEbfWKb ftts^etaXb
of the Whig Parliamentary party to direct the agitation
or to fix its limits. The Volunteeis, too, had passed
beyond the control of Lord Charlemont, still their
nominal chief. They not only declined to perform
their annual parade at the statue of William III., but
discarded their orange badges, and even in some
cases replaced them by the national green.
In connection with this new *^ National Battalion*'
occurred a scene too characteristic of the chief actor
in it to be omitted here ; more than a suspicion of
laughter running through what was, nevertheless, to
him as to others, a serious matter.
Notwithstanding the hopes which the opening pro-
ceedings of Parliament had been calculated to inspire,
the Mouse had scarcely been sitting three weeks before
Lord Edward had occasion to make the protest which
has been always remembered by his countrj'men.
In the month of December the newly organised
milit:iry body had issued summons to its members to
iiK'ct and parade ; but on the day preceding that on
which the demonstration was to have taken place,
a proclamation of the Government forbade it. It
was upon a motion, taking the shape of an address
to ilie Lord Lieutenant, approving of this proclamation
and intended to extend the prohibition it had cont^ned
to other meetings of a like character, that Lord
Idw.uil stood up, not only in opposition to the
(imcinmerit, hut to many members of his own
|Mit\, mcKuiini: Cirattan, to give *^ his most hearty
ilisapprolution *' to the proposed address; **for I
Xffe of Xott) £&wart> f ft3(9eralt> 163
do think," he added, ** that the Lord Lieutenant and
the majority of this House are the worst subjects the
King has."
So far the incident rests upon the authority of the
Parliamentary record. At this stage, however, the
House was cleared, remaining so for the space of three
hours ; during which time, if rumour is to be believed,
the only apology which was elicited from the delinquent
was framed in terms so ambiguous as, not unnaturally,
to leave the offended dignity of the assembly unsatisfied.
** I am accused," the culprit is reported to have said,
"of having declared that I think the Lord Lieutenant
and the majority of this House the worst subjects the
King has. I said so, 'tis true, and I'm sorry for it."
On the following day, again summoned to the Bar,
he appears to have made some less equivocal excuse ;
and, though with a dissenting minority of fifty-five,
the explanation was accepted.
Three or four days later the Catholic Relief Bill,
in accordance with the new English policy, was in-
troduced; the Irish ministers being compelled by
the London authorities to give their unwilling support
to a measure directly opposed to all the articles of
their political faith.
The situation had changed with strange rapidity.
Only the previous year the petition presented by the
Catholics had been unconditionally rejected by the
Irish Parliament. Now, in little more than five weeks,
the present Bill had practically passed. In the month
of April it received the royal assent ; Catholics were
i64 Xtfe of %otb £^war^ fit30etal5
admitted to the franchise on equal terms with their
Protestant fellow-subjects, and were relieved of most
of the disabilities under which they had hitherto
laboured.
Yet it was, in fact, but a very incomplete measure
of reform. By their continued exclusion from Parlia-
ment, the educated and wealthy among the Catholics
were denied participation in the redress accorded to
the grievances of the poorer and more ignorant classes ;
and the foundation was laud for the long period of
agitation and discontent which was to precede com-
plete emancipation. How far the more acute of the
party of which Wolfe Tone was one of the ruling
spirits were from feeling satisfied with the concessions
obtained can be read in Tone's own words. In
his opinion the Bill had the radical and fundamental
defect that it perpetuated distinctions and, in conse-
quence, disunion. " While a single fibre of the old
penal code, that cancer in the bosom of the country,
is permitted to exist, the mischief is but suspended,
not removed, the principle of contamination remains
behind and propagates itself. Palliations may, for
a time, keep the disease at bay, but a sound and
firm constitution can only be restored by total ex-
tirpation."
As far as it went, however, the Bill was a signal
triumph to the popular party, and was regarded
as such, alike by the Ulster Presbyterians and by
those who more immediately profited by its provisions.
The Catholic Convention was dissolved, with a parting
Xife of Xott) £&wart> f it3(?eralD 165
exhortation to all Catholics to unite with Protestants
on the question, still almost untouched, of Parlia-
mentary reform, and general satisfaction prevailed. It
was, nevertheless, a fact significant of the consciousness
on the part of the victors that the concessions granted
had been the result of necessity rather than due to
any more generous motive, that an address of gratitude,
effusive and cringing in tone, which had been clan-
destinely prepared and secretly presented by the
Catholic Bishops, was so offensive to their flocks that
it is said that their action put an end for the time to
all confidence between the hierarchy and the laity.
The boon to the Catholics, fi-om whatever motives,
had been granted. One sop had been thrown to the
wolves who were threatening the Government car.
But in the direction of reform it was soon evident
that no step was to be taken. A change had come
over the condition of public afiairs since the meeting
of Parliament. War had been declared with France ;
and the revulsion of popular feeling in England which
had followed upon the revolutionary excesses on the
other side of the Channel had been marked and
extreme. Public sentiment in London was strongly
excited by the execution of Louis XVI., upon which
Wolfe Tone made his significant comment, '^ I am sorry
it was necessary." The theatres were closed, the
mob clamoured for war, and mourning was worn by
the entire population, including, with a single exception,
the whole House of Commons. All this, together
with the condition of Ireland itself, had emboldened
i66 life Of Xocb E^«■cb ftaSeaOb
the Govemmcnt to ibtndon much €)f the tone of
conciliation they had been driven to adopt, and to
introduce fresh and stringent measures of coerdon.
The Irish ministers were, as was to be expected,
ready and eager instruments in putting into force
the change of policy on the part of their masters
at home, and even among members of the Opposition
there was little dispoation to stand out against the
measures proposed. While leaving the real question
of substantial reform untouched, certain other con-
cessions had been granted, with regard to the pension
list, hereditary revenue, and placemen in Parliament ;
and the confidence engendered by the late attitude
adopted by the Government combined with anti-
revolutionary spirit, strong amongst all parties in the
House, to minimise the opposition to the present
coercive measures.
Besides the reasons enumerated, the lawlessness
which was gaining ground in some parts of the
country was calculated to alarm the National party
itself. With the decline of the Volunteer movement
there had taken place a revival of the traditional
feud between the Catholics and Protestants of the
North. In the county of Armagh especially this
hostility had developed into a species of petty war-
fare, carried on between the Pcepno'-Day Boys on
the one side, and the Catholic peasantry, banded
together under the name of Defenders, on the
other. These last organisations had, moreover, rapidly
spread to other districts, where, in the absence
life of Xx>rt> £&wart> ^it36erald 167
of their Protestant foes, they assumed the character
of a Catholic peasant association designed to enforce
the redress of certain practical grievances, notably that
of titheSy and plainly looking to violence as the
surest means of attaining their object. Constitutional
methods of agitation were fast going out of fashion.
It was with the state of things thus summarised
that the Government was setting itself to cope by
means of enactments of increasing severity. In his
resistance to these bills it not unfrequently chanced
that Lord Edward, the solitary representative within
the House of the opinions which prevailed so widely
outside its walls, stood nearly alone. Thus it was
almost single-handed that he opposed the Gunpowder
Bill, a measure chiefly directed against the Volunteers ;
while with regard to the Convention Act, another
coercive measure, he formed, this time associated with
Mr. Grattan, one of a minority of twenty-seven.
To a man of Lord Edward's temper, with nothing
about it of the assertive arrogance or noisy self-
sufiiciency of the vulgar demagogue bidding for the
suffrages of the crowd, there must have been no
little pain in the sense of isolation, not only from
his natural associates, but from those with whom
he had at other times acted, whose devotion to
Ireland and to her cause was as true and loyal as
his own. Yet what real community of sentiment
could exist between the man whose sympathies were
more and more passionately engaged on the side of
liberty — ^liberty as interpreted by the Revolution and
i68 xffe of Xorb B^watb fttiOenlb
its principles— whose only hope for his country was
becoming gradually connected with the idea of
separation, and to whom England was more and
more an alien and tyrannical power, to be resisted
if needs be by force, — what cordiality or union could
there be between such a man as this and statesmen
like Grattan, who, in January, 1794, while declining
to enter into the causes of the war which England
was carrying on against the propagators of those very
revolutionary principles, professed himself to have only
one view on the subject — namely, that Ireland should
be guided by a fixed, steady, and unalterable resolution
to stand or fall with Great Britain ?
CHAPTER XI
1793— 1794
Social Position affected by Political Differences — Married Life
— Pamela's Apparent Ignorance of Politics — Choice of a
Home — Gardening — Birth of a Son — Letters to the
Duchess of Leinster — Forecasts of the Future.
IT was not in the field of politics alone that the
dividing line which separated Lord Edward from
his surroundings was widening.
" My differing so very much in opinion," he wrote
to his mother, ** with the people that one is unavoid-
ably obliged to live with here does not add much, as
you may guess, to the agreeableness of Dublin society.
But I have followed my dear mother's advice, and do
not talk much on the subject, and when I do, am very
cool. It certainly is the best way ; but all my
prudence does not hinder all sorts of stories being
made about both my wife and me, some of which, I
am afraid, have frightened you, dearest mother. It is
hard that when, with a wish to avoid disputing, one
sees and talks only to a few people, of one's own way
of thinking, we are at once all set down as a nest of
traitors. From what you know of me you may guess
that all this has not much changed my opinions ; but
X69
I70 xtre or %otb £&war5 ftts^etaXb
I keep very quiet, do not go out much, except to see
my wife dance, and — in short, keep my breath to cool
my porridge/*
With his family, indeed, the cordiality of his rela*
tions remsuned unimpaired. Of his brother the Duke,
who, since his temporary aberration, had continued
staunch to the more moderate section of the National
party, he went so far as to say — with a touch of
fraternal partiality — that he was the only man among
the leaders of the Opposition who seemed fair and
honest and not frightened ; adding, however, that as
he was not supported by the rest of his party, and
did not approve of their ways of thinking, the Duke
intended to keep quiet and out of the business. For
his aunt's husband, Mr. ConoUy, he entertained an in-
dulgent and tolerant affection. ** ConoUy," he observed,
" is the same as usual — both ways ; but determined
not to support Government. . . . He concludes all his
speeches by cursing Presbyterians. He means well
and honestly, dear fcUow, but his line of proceeding
is wrong."
During the first year or two of his marriage
even his family, however, always counting for much in
his life, must have been of secondary importance ;
and politics, though a disquieting element always
present in the background, had no power to over-
shadow the brightness of his home life. There is an
indescribable atmosphere of freshness and youth and
gaiety about the account he gives of that home to his
mother. It is like an idyll of peace and sunshine, to
X4fe of %ovb £5wat6 fttsOenOb 171
which the catastrophe which was to close it — now so
near at hand — lends a poignant touch of pathos.
Lord Edward, it is probable enough, was one of those
men who, from one cause or another, keep their public
and private lives in great measure apart ; nor was a
little feir-weather sailor like Pamela the confidant to
whom he would be disposed to point out the chances
of the gathering storm. Life had not been without
its discipline, gently as he had met it, and his dissocia-
tion in point of views from those he loved best would
have already taught him the lesson of silence where
opinions clashed. Even with regard to his mother
he was gradually learning to be reticent as to what
it might trouble her to know. "I won't bore you
any more with politics," he says in one of his
letters, "as I know you don't like them." The
Duchess^ as well she might, was probably growing left
and less fond of them ; and in Pamela's case, in-
capable of reflection as Madame de Genlis allowe^^l
her to be, the very lightness of her character, ntji
without its charm to a man of Lord hAw'dr4*%
temperament, would have facilitated the Mrparation of
public and domestic interests. Political women were
rare at the time, at least in Ireland, and he wa% t$/4
likely to desire that his wife should \)c one t/f thern.
It is true that a description given 1/y a man j^r-
sonally acquainted with the FitzTjcraJd* ' in th^ 'ijfkfrr
days which were approaching c/j»nvcy^ a 'l#ff^r^nt
impression. Ireland, according Uj tht% MX4junt, wa^
m life or Xoc5 BmmcD ffl30eraifr
P^unela*s constant theme, and her hiidxuid*s glory
the darling olject of her ambition ; wlubt, when
anxiety for his safety got the upper hand, she would
entreat, in her sweet foreign voice and broken English,
his friends to take care of him. ^ Tou are all good
Irish,'* she would tell them on these occasons,
** Irish are all good and brave ; and Edward is Irish
— ^your Edward and my Edward."
It may be true that when the cri«s was obviously at
hand, when he was committed beyond recall to the
perilous course he was pursuing, and when the danger
attaching to it could no longer be ignored, she ceased to
avoid a subject which could not but for the time throw
all others into the shade. It would have been strange
if, devoted to her husband as there is no reason to
doubt that she was, it should have been otherwise.
But from her own account, given at an earlier date,
it is no less clear that while the avoidance of them was
possible, she preferred to keep herself apart fi-om
politics ; electing, with a shrewd instinct of prudence
which does more credit to her head than to her
heart, to remain in ignorance of the schemes in
which her husband was implicated.
** I perceived," says Madame de Genlis, describing
her meeting with the F'itzGeralds at Hamburg some
three and a h;ilf years after their marriage — ** I perceived
that Lord Edward had imbibed very exaggerated
\ icws concerning political liberty, and was very hostile
to his own Government. I was afraid that he was
embarking in hazardous enterprises, and spoke to
%Atc Of %ovb £5watb f it3(Betalb 173
Pamela to advise her to use her influence over him
to dissuade him from them, when she made me
an answer worthy of remembrance. She told me
that she had resolved never to ask him a single
question relative to his afiairs, for two different
reasons: first, because she would have no influence
over him upon such a subject ; and secondly, in
order that if his enterprises were unfortunate, and
she were examined before a court of justice, she might
be able to swear on the Gospel that she knew nothing
about his aflfairs, and would therefore be exposed to
neither of the shocking alternatives of bearing witness
against him or of swearing a false oath."
Men marry for different reasons. If it may be
doubted whether Lord Ekiward had gained, in his
wife, a comrade for the more serious business of
life, he had at least acquired a charming playmate
for its lighter hours ; nor does the record of the
halcyon days which followed their marriage contain
any indication of a sense on his part of anything
lacking.
The first question by which they had been con-
fronted on their arrival in Ireland was the choice of
a home. On Lord Edward's own small estate,
Kilrush, there appears to have been no available
house ; and until the diflicult matter of the selection
of a permanent residence should be settled, their time
was divided between Dublin and Frescati, now vacated
by the Duchess of Leinster. Of this place, so long
her home, it appears that Lord Westmorland had
174 itre or Xorb £^war5 ffts^caOb
entertained the idea of becoming the tenant ; since
a year later Lx>rd Edward, who had, as he expressed
it, got an under-gardener to help Tim — ^thc ssdd
under-gardencr being himself — gave up his labours
in disgust, reflecting that they would only benefit
** that vile Lord W., and the aide-de-camps, chaplains,
and all such followers of a Lord Lieutenant"
For a year, however, Frescati continued to be
available as a place of resort whenever Dublin or
Dublin society proved wearisome. Lord Edward and
his wife were meantime weighing the rival merits
of the >-arious residences which were competing for
the honour of becoming their permanent home.
A small house in the county of Wicklow, in the
midst of beautiful country, and oflfering the advantages
of trees and sea and rocks, presented at first most
attractions. But alternatives were not wanting.
Lciiistcr l^dgc was at their service ; and Mr.
Conolly, to whose trimming policy Lord Edward
had adverted, was desirous of presenting a small
house possessed by him at Kildare, ready furnished
for use, to his wife's favourite nephew.
Lord Edward, hesitating to accept a gift of such
magnitude, also confessed that Wicklow offered other
advantages beside those of beauty over either Kildare
or Leinster Lodge.
** I own,'* he said impatiently, " I like not to
be Lord Edward FitzGerald, * the County of Kildare
member,' — to be bored with * this one is your
brother's friend,' ' That man voted against him.*
X4fe of %ovb £^warb f it3(BetaIb 175
I am a little ashamed when I reason and say to
myself Leinster Lodge would be the most profitable.
Ninety persons out of a hundred would choose it,
and be delighted to get it. It is, to be sure, in a
good country ; plentiful, affords everything a person
wants ; but I do like mountains and rocks, and pretty
views and pretty hedges and pretty cabins — ay, and
a pleasanter people."
It was more than a year before it was finally decided
to accept Mr. ConoUy's offer of Kildare Lodge, and
in the meantime life went on pleasantly at Frescati.
There was no time for writing letters, so he tells
his mother ; it was all occupied by talk, and the day
was over before they knew where they were. Pamela
had taken a fit of growing — ^was she, after all, right,
and Madame de Genlis wrong, and had Lord Edward
married a wife of fifteen ? She dressed flower-pots
besides, and worked at her frame, while the birds
sang and the windows stood open and the house was
ftiU of the scent of flowers, and Lord Edward sat
in the bay window writing to his dearest mother,
with her last dear letter to his wife before him,
" so you may guess how I love you at this moment."
Picture after picture gives the same description of
the life that went on at quiet Frescati, as if no such
things as politics and fierce clashing passions existed.
*' I am amusing myself dressing the little beds about
the house. . . . The little mound of earth that is
round the bays and myrtle before the house I have
planted with tufts of gentianellas and primroses and
176 Xife of Xorb £&warb fit3(BeraIb
lily of the valley, and they look beautifiil, peeping
out of the dark evergreen : close to the root of the
great elm I have put a patch of lily of the valley."
So the letter proceeds, with the trivial details that
go to complete the picture, and the fond personalities
of perfect familiarity. There is to be a meeting at
Malvern soon, but not yet, and a sketch of the
Duchess herself is introduced, tenderly touched in.
He wants to be with her, but particularly in the
country. ** I long for a little walk with you, leaning
on me, or to have a long talk with you, sitting out
in some pretty spot, of a fine day, with your long
cane in your hand, working at some little weed at
your feet, and looking down, talking all the time.
I won't go on in this way, for I should want to set
out directly, and that cannot be," So it goes on,
till love from " the dear little pale pretty wife "
(Pamela had not been well), ends the letter of the
future leader of a conspiracy which might, but for
his death — such is the opinion of one well qualified
to pronounce upon the subject ^ — have involved the
greater part of Ireland in bloodshed. Close upon
thirty as he was, he was still a boy at heart, with
not a little of the winning grace of childhood, the
childhood that to some favoured natures adheres
through life, clinging round him.
It was not tiU the summer of 1794 that the
household was finally established in the cottage given
by Mr. Conolly, It was in every way conveniently
» W. E. H. Lecky.
%Atc Of %ov^ £&watb f it5(^ralb 177
situated, within easy distance of Dublin, and not more
than six miles from Lord Edward's own estate, across
the Curragh — a vicinity which had perhaps suggested
to him the plan he entertained of turning farmer on
his own land, though not on so large a scale that
business should oblige him to remain too long absent
from his mother. The small dimensions of the house
was another of its advantages in his eyes — he liked a
smaU place so much better than a large one. Alto-
gether his satisfaction in his new acquisition seems to
have been complete ; and writing to the Duchess in
the middle of the business of settling in, and describing
the house in detdl, he tells her that he feels " pleasant,
contented, and happy, and all these feelings and sights
never come across me without bringing my dearest
mother to my heart's recollection."
Pamela, for her part, is already planting sweet peas
and mignonette ; and some tiny caps are lying, with
her workbox, on the table — preparations for the " little
young plant that is coming."
Lord Edward's eldest son, the son he was never
to see grow up, was born in Dublin in the autumn
of 1794. It had been decided to migrate to Leinster
House for the event — the FitzGeralds seem, as a
femily, to have had their homes much in common —
but it was not without regret that Kildare Lodge had
been temporarily abandoned. To Lord Edward's
mind his brother's great house was melancholy in
comparison, and the country housemaid cried for two
days when brought there, and thought herself in a prison.
12
ir^^ Xifc of XorD EdwarD fitjOcraU)
The baby's arn\-al brightened the aspect of aflairs,
ir.l "::s tarhcr was e\'idently delighted with his new
possession. Lirtle Edward Fox was a success in every
way. He had Pamela's chin and his father's mouth
and nose, and blue eyes that were like nobody else's,
A: present i: was indeed difficult to form any opinion
of rhem, as they were seldom open. He was, at all
evLnt<, everything that couid be wished, and was to
have tor sjx)nsors his grandmother, his uncle the Duke,
and his cousin and namesake, Fox.
K:Ki.ire Lodge, too, was rapidly improving. " I
think," wrote Lord Edward, '* I shall pass a delightful
winter there. ... I have paled in my little flower
garden before my hall door, and stuck it ftill of roses,
sweetbrier, honeysuckle, and Spanish broom. I have
got all my beJs ready for my flowers, so you may
guess how 1 \or.j: t«> be down to plant them. The
l;::le tVU w will b^- a grc.ir .uidition to the party. I
trii^k, \v::cn I .im vi.nvn ::KTe with Pam and child, of
a l^lii^tLTv evc!v.ng, with .i j^o.»J :urf tire and a pleasant
biH'k— coming in, after seeing my poultry put up, my
garvie:': >vitleJ, flower bcvis :\nd plants covered for fear
of fro>t — the place looking comfortable and taken care
ut I shall be as happy as possible ; and sure I am I
shall regret nothing but not being nearer my dearest
neither, anv! her ntn being of the party."
The realisation u( this forecast of a home full of
happiness an.l serene content was destined to be but of
short duration.
CHAPTER XII
1794—1795
Failing Faith in Constitutional Methods of Redress — Lord
Edward's Relations with the Popular Leaders — His Quali-
fications for Leadership — Jackson's Career and Death —
Ministerial Changes — Lord Fitzwilliam's Viceroyalty —
And Recall — Lord Camden succeeds Him — ^Arthur
O'Connor.
WHATEVER may have been the case with
regard to his wife, it was impossible but that
the subject of politics, occupying so large a space in
his life and one of growing importance, should have
found at times its way into Lord Edward's letters to
his mother. A life-long habit of confidence is not
lightly broken ; and though silence on a topic which
must have been an ever more disturbing one to the
Duchess may have been gradually facilitated by the
increasing infrequency of meetings between mother
and son, his allusions to the future, if vague, were
not without significance.
In spite of the rumours which began to circulate
during the summer of 1794 as to the change likely to
be effected in Ireland by the proposed coalition of
the Duke of Portland and the more moderate Whigs
179
i8o Xife of %ov^ E^watD f it5(Betal^
with the Tory ministry, it is evident that Lord Edward
entertained little hope of substantial benefit to Ireland
to be obtained from any English party. He was
anxious that, in any case, his brother should keep clear
of the Castle. But one thing at least was now certain
— that, whatever might be the course the Duke saw
fit to pursue, the views formerly entertained by Lord
Edward with regard to his own duty, as occupying
the position of his brother's Parliamentary nominee,
had undergone a radical change.
'' When I see Leinster," he wrote to his mother,
" I shall soon find how the wind sets in his quarter.
I trust, though, he will be stout, and have nothing to
say to any of them. I know if he goes over, I shall
nof go with him ; for my obstinacy or perseverance
grows stronger every day, and all the events that have
passed, and are passing, but convince me more and
more that these two countries must see very strong
changes, and cannot come to good unless they do."
It was evident that repeated disappointments had
done their work with him, as with the nation at large.
His lingering faith in the efficacy of constitutional
methods of obtaining redress for the grievances of
the Irish people was dying out during the months
divided between the more satisfactory occupation of
cultivating his flowers and that of making passionate
and futile endeavours in Parliament to stand between
the people and the governmental system of oppression.
As early as January, 1794, signs were apparent of
the possibility of his deciding to absent himself
life of %ovb £5watb f ft36etal& iSi
from debates in which his sole part could be to
raise an impotent protest against a policy equally
abhorrent to him whether in its foreign or
domestic aspect ; and although it was not until more
than two years later that he finally determined to give
up Parliament and associated himself definitely with
the United Irishmen, there can be no doubt that his
opinions, during the interval, were steadily approxi-
mating themselves both to the views held by that
organisation and to the fhethods it advocated ; while
his sympathies had long been engaged on the side of
the struggle of which it was representative.
With regard to the date of the commencement of
a personal or intimate connection on his part with
the leaders of the advanced National party, it is difficult
to form any definite conclusion. The slightness of
his acquaintance with so prominent a member of the
United Irish Association as Wolfe Tone, who remained
in Ireland until May, 1795, would seem to give a
direct denial to the existence of any close intercourse
before that date with the chiefs of the organisation.
At the same time, the fiict that a French emissary,
sent over in the year 1793, after war had been declared
with England, for the purpose of ascertaining the
views of the popular Irish leaders and proffering
French aid towards the fiirtherance of their objects,
presented a letter of introduction to Lord Edward,
and was by him made known to certain prominent
members of the party, goes to prove that he was on
confidential and trusted terms with the men who were
»:'*tti'V '^ ■■'.■ ■="'"^'« *■
Irish movement had
Tone was the mn of m
(who had, however, doc je( become a
association) of a doctor, the fioher of tlie two
was a banker at Cork, NciIson*s a
Bond was a woollen draper. It
between these men and Lord Edward there
have been wanting the starting-potnt of
intercourse, and that a certain distance^
in days when differences of birth and
for far more than at present, should
him from them, until such time as the
of a supreme and absorbing common
atcd all adventitious lines of diviaon.
day came, nothing is more remarkable duu
absence of any trace of jealousy on the part of
earlier leaders of the movement with
Wiien dwt
tke
%itc of Xorb Bbvrarb f it5(^etalb 183
the man who was then placed at the head of the
enterprise.
Lord Edward has been called a weak man. In
some respects the charge may not be wholly unfounded.
But in estimating his character, it should be borne in
mind that in his adoption of the national cause, not
as it was understood by Grattan and his friends, not
as it was understood by the brother he loved and
respected, or by the mother he adored, but as it was
understood by men to whom he was bound by nothing
but a common pity for the wronged and the oppressed,
and a common enthusiasm for the rights of a nation
whose grievances were crying for redress, he acted, so
far as party, family, and class were concerned, almost
alone. Singly he defied their traditions and identified
himself with a cause in which he had everything to
lose and nothing to gain. And to choose such a
course of action and to carry it through with con-
sistent loyalty is not altogether the act of a weak
man.
Of force of intellect, or of that strength of
will which consists in deciding, calmly and dispassion-
ately, after a review of all contingencies and with a
full appreciation of all side issues and each possible
result, upon the course to be pursued and in steadily
adhering to the decision thus reached, he had
probably but litde. But a strength of his own he
did possess — the strength that belongs to a great
simplicity and to a perfect rectitude, to a single-
minded purpose, to a disregard of side issues and a
:i T^i -.ir -:vir^ r^-i licsc rf rre A=cricL=. Civil
:■: -.": :.— :- T-_..---r- •.^i rerrs— i rjsc =xsc*r« of
v.:--:.-r: :: r r— r'^r^ :r ::Tir rrat r:-T jiii
r^. Ncr
Xife of Xorb Bbwarb f it3(^etal& 185
his mother power to withdraw him from the dangerous
course upon which he had embarked. But his nature
was gentle and yielding to an uncommon degree,
and it was admitted by one who knew and loved
him ^ that he might be led to concede his own judg-
ment to inferior counsels.
" The only measure," adds the same writer, " which
perhaps he was ever known to combat with the most
immovable firmness, in spite of every remonstrance
and the kindest solicitude on the part of his friends,
was on the expected approach of an awful event, when
failure was ruin and success more than doubtful.
* No, gentlemen/ said he ; * the post is mine, and
no man must dispute it with me. It may be com-
mitted to abler hands, but it cannot be entrusted to
a more determined heart. I know the heavy responsi-
bility which awaits me, but whether I perish or
triumph, no consideration shall induce me to forego
this duty.' "
Writing at a time when it might still have been
desirable to avoid entering into details, no further
indication is given by the narrator of the nature of the
enterprise of which Lord Edward thus refused to
relinquish the leadership. Circumstances, it is simply
added, changed, and the proposed measure was
abandoned.
The counter accusation of obstinacy has been brought
against Lord Edward.
** I knew Lord Edward well," said J. C. Beresford,
» Tecling.
i86 %itc Of Xor^ £bwarb f it5(^etat5
in the course of Emmet's examination before the Secret
Committee of the House of Lords, in the autumn
which followed his death, " and always found him very
obstinate."
" I knew Lord Edward right well," retorted Emmet,
** and have done a great deal of business with him ;
and have always found when he had a reliance on the
integrity of the person he acted with, he was one of
the most persuadable men alive, but if he] thought a
man meant dishonestly or unfairly by him, he was as
obstinate as a mule."
It was perhaps natural that Beresford and Emmet
should have regarded the subject of their criticism
from varying points of view.
To sum up. There was, whatever other qualifications
for leadership might be wanting in Lord Edward
FitzGerald, one possessed by him to a marked
degree. He was absolutely to be trusted. Nor is
that qualification a small one.
Returning to the course of events, it has been seen
that he had as yet taken no definite step in the direction
of active co-operation with the party of extremists ;
nor did his views, so far as his biographer was
able to ascertain them from those who had been
personally acquainted with him at the time, yet include
total separation. Though numbered amongst the
men who had incurred the suspicion of the Govern-
ment, he does not appear to have taken any share in
the negotiations set on foot in the course of 1794
between the United Irish body and the French
Xife of Xord £bwar& f Itsderalb zs?
Directory, in which William Jackson acted as inter-
mediary.
As the first serious endeavour to establish relations
between the disaffected Irish and the French Republic
— an undertaking subsequently brought to so practical
though fruitless an issue, and in which Lord Edward's
own part was a prominent one — this preliminary and
abortive attempt deserves further mention here.
Jackson, for whom it ended so disastrously, was
an Irish Protestant clergyman, his ecclesiastical duties
seeming, however, to have occupied a subordinate place
in his career. He had passed much of his time out of
Ireland ; and, though in what precise capacity does
not appear, had formed for some years one of the
household of the Duchess of Kingston. In the absence
of more precise information, the letter of a corre-
spondent of her Grace, enquiring whether her ** female
confidential secretary " was not named J n, and
adding a hope that she might never find herself
without benefit of clergy, may be taken as pointing
to the fact that his duties were of a somewhat
ambiguous character.
Drawn, like other restless spirits, to the scene of
action, Jackson resorted to Paris at the time of the
Revolution ; and thence proceeded, as emissary of
the Republic, to Ireland. The sequel to his mission
presents one of those sordid tragedies of which the
history of the time is full. Betrayed by a confederate,
he was arrested and thrown into prison, where he was
detained for a year while his trial was pending, an
i68 life of %otb Edward fltiOcnVb
intcr\'al spent by him in composing, probably with a
view to the propitiation of the authorities, a refuta-
tion of Faine's work on The t/fge of Reason.
One imagines him to have been an intriguing
ailvcnturer, of no high or admirable typ^c ; yet there
is recorded of him one trait not wanting in courage
and generosit)-. Unusual lenity having been shown
him during his captivity, his friends had obtained
permission to visit him in jail ; and on one occasion
a guest had remained to so late an hour that on
Jackson's accompanying him at length to the place
where the jailor was used to await them, the man
w;is found overcome by sleep, his keys beside him,
'* Poor fellow ! " observed the prisoner, possessing
himself of the emblems of office. *• Let us not wake
him — 1 have already been too troublesome to him
in this way/'
L-shcrinu^ his frieiul to the outer door, he 0[>ened
it ; then, as tlic temptation to sci/e the opportunity
of niakiiiL; l^oovI his own escape assailed him, he stood
hesitating. Hut not lor lon^i:.
** I couKi vio it," he saiJ ; '' hut what would be the
consequences to you and to the poor fellow who
has heen so kifid to me?" And, locking the door
once more, he went hack to await his doom.
It is a siLjnihcant ».ommentary upon the man and
upon tlie opinion entertained of him by his friend,
that tlie visitor, aware of the consequences to himself,
should he he convicted of having aided in the escape
of a captive in confinement on a charge of treason,
Xffe of Xort) £bwarb jfitaOeralb 189
felt so little confidence in the permanence of the
impulse of generosity by which Jackson had been
actuated that he remained all night watching the jail,
in order that, should the prisoner after all effect his
escape, he himself might fly the country.
The final scene is a ghastly one.
•* I always knew he was a coward," said some one
contemptuously, who, meeting him on his way at
last to receive sentence of death, had formed his
conclusions from what he had seen ; " and I find I
was not mistaken. His fears have made him sick."
He was not only sick ; he was dying. Unable
to face his certain fate, he had stolen a march on
his judges and had taken poison. The account of the
scene in court reads like the closing act of a tragedy.
While Curran and Ponsonby, his counsel, were raising
technical questions of illegality in the attempt to arrest
judgment, the prisoner stood in the dock, scarcely
able to keep on his feet, death written on his face.
Before sentence could be pronounced, he fell insensible
to the ground. Could he still hear ? questioned
Lord Clonmel, before whom the case had been
tried ; and on being answered in the negative, he
deferred pronouncing sentence of death on a man
incapable of understanding it. But that sentence had
already been not only pronounced elsewhere, but
executed ; and presendy the Sheriff made the
announcement of the prisoner's escape. So ended
Jackson's mission to Ireland, a year after it had
begun.
lite of lor& C^war^ jf it30eral&
X'.'.:; rr-.e-x^urcs of the Government had
. : *-j f.e.r work in at least driving dis-
• .-^:^- :, ini the United Irish Assoda-
- ,: •.«. V •'rr'-i'i. had practically ceased to
-, . V.:-. . " t'":-* more formidable shape of
-^-.•' ^\:. with elaborate skill, with a
. - ,: :"* .*?^crvat:on of the authorities.
•.-.*•. ' .^i-.ir. the latter congratulated
.-. . ••• -'. -«::e>> that had attended the
• ..* .^ ■•.'. -i.: taken to suppress disturb-
'. . . -".-«'< /.id :r:to sullen and gloomy
• ., --i: t-e expected coalition of
. ' • ^-^ . . :"^' Tories took place, and
V, .-".*., Lord Spencer, Lord
\ V ..-.;••': w-re admitted into
\.,- •.- -' -v..: I.^rd Westmor-
:. . .• y the fruits of
.-. : — • .: v: Jar.uary 4th
V * .'.>.- I. -d Lieutenant
...':;. were the last
. • . .N J or' the storm.
• - k • w:: that he
•. -.to:-:': ; rumours
. ,:.- 'i' had written
. . ..^ A.:^.:st, stating
ur that, in coming
• V * .>^ -:..'je ir. his labours
. , ., . r,.^ vvtrc coririrmed, on
xtfe of Xor^ B^war^ jfit30etal^ 191
the meeting of Parliament, by the presence, on the
Treasury Bench, of Grattan himself, the two Ponsonby
brothers, Curran, Hardy, and Parnell. Petitions
poured in from the Catholics ; a Bill for their relief
was to be brought in without delay ; and the repeal
of the Dublin Police Act was to be moved.
But Lord Fitzwilliam had exceeded his instructions.
He had dismissed Beresford, the Chief Commissioner
of the Revenue — called the King of Ireland — and he
was n^otiating the retirement of the Attorney-General
and Solicitor-General, with the object of making way
for the Ponsonbys. To remonstrances from head-
quarters he replied by a demand to be supported in
his dismissal of Beresford, or else recalled. The latter
alternative was accepted by Pitt ; and on March 25 th
he quitted Ireland, not three months after his
arrival, amidst signs of universal mourning. Five
days later his successor, Lord Camden, had arrived
in Dublin. The hopes of the people had been
excited only to be dashed to the ground.
Had the intention of Government at this juncture
been that to which Lord Castlereagh's words pointed
when, in the course of McNevin's examination before
the Secret Committee, he confessed that '' means
were taken to make the Irish United system explode,"
no course of action could have been better calculated
to attain that object. Popular anticipation had been
raised to fever heat only to find itself deceived in every
hope that had been held out. It was no wonder if
the people were irritated to the point of madness. *' It
i»ard% * Ir were to be wished thmt they would
rebeL* Good Godl—wisbed thej would rthdlj
Here b the tjrstcm^ and the priodpJe of the sYftem.*^
_ The Citbolsc Emancipation BUI, w^-^ ^id
BbiwiBm remained in ofEc^ would ics havcj
pMwed witboot diffiodty^ was thrown out ; aad
^ne the events iession came to an emL
'lo the iMMiifiie^ in the absence of mformaiic
lim whyact; we may conclude that the
Kildiie Lodge went on as before. The master]
^f the house continued to cUvide his dayi bctwcaen the
rutthralioii of his iowers^ the society of his wife ani}
at little Edward Fa3c«— cbubtl^s an incr^isingly
iddition ** to the par^f^^and the gradual devclof
of the political coovicrions which, rarly in the followingl
year, led him to take Ac delinitc step of
him^tf practically, if not yet formally, with the Unif e
Irishmen,
With one Parltamcntary coUeaguc he had by thil
time fornied a close intimacy. This was with Arthi
O'Connor,
Kcturncd, it will be rcmembCTtd* to Parliament
in the year I79t» O'Connor had b<^un his politico
career as an adherent of the Casde, and with pr
of Lord WcstmurUnd, By the do^ of the session]
of *95, however, his opinions had undergone so mdic
1 change that, in direct opposition to the views of
uncle, he made a brilliant detbice of the Cathc
Xite of XocO £^«■c^ fttsOeaSb 195
Emancipation Bill ; cooccnring hiixise}f in oKisequctKr
bound in honour to relinquish the sen he owed to
Lord Longueville, and forfeiting besades a j € o^ ^ :>
he had expected to inherit. An able man, and not
devoid of personal attraction, he docs not appear, in
qnte of his sacrifices to the cause he had aiopred,
to have been wholly liked, or altogether trusted,
by his new comrades; while he, for his part, is
ssud to have surveyed with supercilious didike almost
every Irish patriot with whom he was brought
into contact.
Educated to be a clergyman, he had gone so far
as to receive deacon's orders ; but had then thrown
up the ecclesiastical career^ bringing away from his
apprenticeship nothing but a bitter hostility towards
all Churches alike. A story is told of a dinner at
the FitzGeralds', when the violence of the invectives
directed by him against hypocrisy, superstition, and
finally Christianity itself, unrestrained by the presence
of his hostess, was such as to call forth the indignant
protest of a noted preacher, who chanced to be his
fellow-guest. Waiting, with better taste than the
layman, till Pamela should have left the room, the
priest turned to Lord Edward, who had listened to
O'Connor in dissenting silence. ** My lord," he
began, " I have sat in silence as long as 1 could remain
silent " ; and it is added that in the denunciation
which followed he so maintained his reputation for
eloquence that the delinquent was reduced, if not to
penitence, at least to speechlessness.
13
I i4 xtre or Xor^ £^war^ fttsOctaXb
On political matters O'Connor's opinions were
!Ti ^v\ny in a parallel direction to Lord Edward's own,
\\ th the result that, at a slightly earlier date than
h-N tricnJ, he also became a member of the United
AsNiviation.
The two were in constant intercourse, and it was in
the company ot* his new companion that an occurrence
tiv^k plu'c to which the undue and disproportionate
iinport.iricc .icci^rJcd by Lord Edward*s biographers
affords a sii:n.il illustration of their determination to
view .i:iy incident connected with him, of no matter
hi>w sl-.^h: .1 nature, in a serious light.
I he story is well known which recounts how,
T\.\:r.j: with O'Connor across the Curragh, where races
were ^oir^^ on, the two were encountered by some
tc?i or twelve mounted draijoon officers. Taking cx-
vL/: v^ : > :"".e cv^;;:* o{ the green neckcloth worn
•n l..'-: 1- .i'A.-'-x:, :*^.L\ S.irreJi his passage with the
.ie'\L": — ■ ^ .:.»v:"^; \\'kv.t!\ enough expressed — that
!u- --''. m1.: :-e:':.'\v- t'le o^nc^xious article of dress.
*• Hv;:/' prMvee.:-- V\c wtll-nuMning but ponderous
M.i.ivie?!, *' t'u- j^HV", wiHi].!-Se hero little knew the
stutV o\ \s'y./'i [lu- VAA'A was made whom he had
uiit'o!-tLi!M:e!y ^::i^k-.: (uit for his experimental exploit."
Remaining ^.i1:m aiui 1.00K and "in that peculiarly
i|uiet tone in wiiiJi he was wont to speak whenever
his niiiu! was ma^le up that a thing of impK)rtance was
to be J.one," I .oivi Iviward replied by inviting the
critic \o conu- and remove his neckcloth if he dared ;
while O'Connor, smoothly interposing, suggested the
Xffe of Xord £&ward f ftsOerald 195
alternative of a more regular trial of strength, under-
taking that he and his companion would await at
Kildare any message which might reach them there.
The young officers, however, seem to have thought
better of the expediency of pushing matters to ex-
tremities, and nothing jfurther came of the incident,
except that it is said that, whether because it appeared
to the feminine mind that they had gone too far, or
possibly not far enough, the aggressors found them-
selves, at a ball which shortly afterwards took place,
left by common consent partnerless.
It would have been interesting, had Lord Edward's
light-hearted account of the occurrence been forth-
coming, to have contrasted it with that of his historian.
Whatever might be his errors of judgment, they did
not lie in the direction of manufacturing a tragedy
out of a farce.
CHAPTER XIII
1796
Dangerous State of the CountiT— Protestants and Catholics —
Savage Military Measures — Lord Edward joins the United
Association— Its Warlike Character— The « Bloody Code"
— Lord Edward's Speech on Insurrection Act — Mission
of Lord Edward and O'Connor to French Goyemment —
Meeting with Madame de Genlis — Hoche and Wolfe Tone
— Failure of French Expedition.
WHEN Parliament reassembled in January, 1796,
the condition of the country was such as
might well cause the Government uneasiness.
The natural results had followed upon Lord Fitz-
william's recall, and the consequent reversal of the
policy he had inaugurated. The patience of the people,
together with their hopes, were exhausted ; repeated
disappointment had done its work, and they were ripe
for insurrection.
The story has been told too often to need detailed
repetition here — outrages followed by retaliation where
retaliation was possible, the one as brutal as the other ;
the Protestants of the north leagued together with
the object of ridding the country of its Catholic
population, and offering to the latter the sole alternatives
196
%Atc Of Xord £dward jfft3(^eralb 197
of banishment — penniless and without means of gdning
a subsistence — " to Hell or Connaught," or of having
their homes destroyed and being themselves murdered.
The Catholics, for their part, in districts where they
preponderated, had set themselves, in despair of the
efficacy of other means, to acquire by force that which
more legitimate methods had failed to obtain ; and
iinaUy the country had been delivered over to a savage
military despotism, by which punishment was awarded
of such a nature and with so reckless a disregard, not
only of law but even of the forms of justice, that it
was found necessary, on the meeting of Parliament, to
pass an Act of Indemnity covering whatever illegalities
might have been committed by the local magistracy.
Lord Carhampton, of notorious memory, had been
despatched to the west to quell disturbances, and
as an illustration of the spirit displayed throughout
the country with regard to such persons as it was
deemed expedient to remove, it may be sufficient to
cite the treatment accorded, though at a later date,
to the rebel leader Keugh. In this case the very fact
that, at the risk of his own life, Keugh had interposed
to save that of Lord Kingston was held, at his trial,
to constitute a damning proof of his influence with
the insurgents, and was accepted as evidence of his
guilt. The man whom he had saved acted as witness
for the prosecution. It was no wonder, under the
circumstances, that when sentence of death was passed
upon the prisoner, a gentleman in the crowd should
have lifted up his voice to thank God that no person
iqS xtfe of Xor^ C^war^ fttsOenXb
couKl prove him to have been guilty of sa\"ing the
life and property of any man !
Such was the spectacle presented by the unhappy
country. It was one which was rapidly tiirning Edward
Fit/GcralJ into a rebel ; which was sending a man
like O'Connor, cool-headed and little inclined to be
sw.iycJ by passion or emotion, to recruit the ranks
of the United Irishmen ; and was making the
younger and more enthusiastic of the National party
decide, in impotent anger — as was done by some of
the guests at a '* confidential party" of Lord Edward's
— that the Knglish language should be abolished, setting
themselves forthwith to the study of the Irish tongue.
It does not appear at what precise date O'Connor
;uul l.-ord Kdwiird took the definite step of becoming
enrolled as members of the United Association. Nor
docs it seem certain that in their case the customary
r»:ith \v;is avlmiiiistcrcJ. There can, however, be litde
Jnuht th.it by the early part of the year 1796 both
had, to all practical intents and purposes, joined the
organisation.
In the new association, constructed upon the ruins of
that which had been crushed by the coercive measures
of (lovcrnnunt, there was much that would attract Lord
l\dward, soldier as he always remained at heart. For
it was a !>ody, if not distinctly military in its original
franiiniJ[, eminently adapted to become so ; and which,
as it grew evident that by peaceful agitation no
remedial measures were to be obtained, was assuming
daily a more warlike character.
Xfte of Xord £&warb f ftsOeralb 199
For the present, however, its new recruit still con-
tinued to attend the sittings of Parliament, for the
purpose of making his futile and despairing protests
against the proceedings which were there taking place.
They were such as might well call them forth.
The policy of conciliation having been finally
abandoned, the only alternative remaining open to the
Government was that of attempting, by means of in-
timidation and severity, either to terrorise the country
into submission or to provoke an open outbreak. It
was an expedient which the ministry lost no time in
adopting. A series of measures was introduced,
designated by Curran as *' a bloody code," and as
introducing " a vigour beyond the law " into the
administration of what still went by the name of
justice. It was these Bills which Lord Edward still
attempted to oppose.
In the debate upon the Insurrection Act he once more
found himself acting alone. Grattan had, indeed, com-
bated the measure with aU the force and vehemence
at his command ; but, in despair of success, he would
have finally permitted it to pass without a division.
One solitary voice was lifted against it — the voice of
the people's champion.
" The disturbances of the country," Lord Edward
warned the Government, " are not to be remedied by
any coercive measures, however strong. Such measures
will tend rather to exasperate than to remove the evil.
Nothing can effect this and restore tranquillity to the
country, but a serious and candid endeavour of
100 life of Xocb SMmrD lft30e^d^
Government and of this House to redress the griev-
ances of the people. Redress those, and the people
will return to their allegiance and their duty. Suffer
them to continue, and neither your resolutions nor
your Bills will have any eflfixt"
It was not the language of an incendiary. Even
the boyish violence which had marked other and earlier
utterances of the speaker had died out, banished by
the supreme gravity of the situation. It was a pbun,
unvarnished statement — a warning of what would
follow should the Government pursue their present
course unchecked.
** While you and the executive were philosophising/*
saivl Sir Ji^hn Parnell, with a sneer, to Emmet, during
the examination of the latter before the Committee
of Secrecy, " lx>rd Kdward was arming and disciplining
tlic people."
** Lord luiward was a military man," was the loyal
reply, '^arui if he was doing so he probably thought
that was the way in which he could be most useful
to the eouiitrv ; but I am sure that if those with
whom he aeted were ccMivinced that the grievances of
the people were redressed, he would have been [per-
suaded to drop all arming and disciplining."
The time was rapidly approaching when, despairing
of any change of policy on the part of the Govern-
nunt. Lord Mdward was indeed to set himself to arm
and discipline the jx-ople. But Emmet was right. It
was an alternative which, mistakenly or not, he be-
lieved to he forced upon him, and to which he only
Xtfe of Xorb £&warb f itsi^ralb ^oi
resorted when all other methods of resistance had
failed.
In the May of the year 1796 the important step
was decided upon of despatching agents from Ireland
for the purpose of reopening negotiations with the
French Government, and of ascertaining to what extent
its assistance could be counted upon in the attempt to
effect the enfranchisement of the Irish people. Wolfe
Tone, who had been too deeply compromised to
allow of his remaining in safety in Ireland, had,
during the summer of 1795, betaken himself to
America ; but, too restless to remain for any length
of time at a distance from the scene of action, the
banning of the following year found him at Paris,
using his utmost endeavours to stir up the Government
there to active measures.
His representations of the condition of the country
and of the extent of the prevailing disaffection had the
effect of inducing the Directory to intimate to the
United Irishmen that France would be prepared to
lend her assistance to an attempt to shake off their
fetters and to establish, in the place of the present
tyrannical Government, an Irish Republic. To this
offer a qualified acceptance was returned by the Irish
Executive, coupled with the stipulation that the French
forces to be employed should act in the character alone
of allies, and should receive Irish pay. These
conditions having been readily accepted by the
Directory, and the promise of assistance being
reiterated, it was decided to send accredited envoys
«M IfleoCXoit
fron Irduid to tettfe tne flrtMli of llic prapwod
alliance, and to arrange a plan of invHion. Laid
Edward FitzGcrald and Arthur
adected aa dd^gatea whoac poaition and
knd weight and importance to the naanc
they were to be entniated.
It has been denied that Lord Edward and
occupied, on thia occaaon, the pontion of andwraad
agents of the United Association ; and in support of
this statement might be dted O'Gmnor'a ofwn diadnct
declaration that he had not been at tlua. date a
member of the aodetjr. But though hia assertion
was no doubt technicaUy true, it can scarody be less
than certain that the two were in fiict dq)utBd by
the United party to enter into negotiations on their
behalf with the Republican Government As indi-
viduals they would have carried little weight ; irfiik,
besides, the language of Reinhard, in denying to
Lord Edward the qualities necessary to fit him for
the command of an enterprise or the leadership of
a party, must be taken as pointing distinctly to the
fact that he held the position he was thus pronounced
incapable of filling satisfactorily.
It had been determined that the envoys should
proceed in the first place to Hamburg, to open com-
munications with the French Government through
the minister by whom it was there represented. Lord
Edward, therefore, set out for that town, being accom-
panied by his wife, with the object of lending to the
journey the complexion of one taken for private reasons.
life of Xor^ £5warb fltsOcxalb 203
Passing through London on his way, he met at
dinner his cousin Charles Fox, with Sheridan and
others of the Whig leaders, to whom it does not
appear whether or not he confided the nature of the
business he had in hand. Thence he proceeded,
with Pamela, to their destination ; where, being joined
by Arthur O'Connor, the envoys lost no time in
setting on foot the n^otiations they had come to
conduct.
At Hamburg a meeting likewise took place between
Madame de Genlis and her adopted daughter, which
seems to have given general satisfaction. Pamela
had been, so far, a success ; and it was not surprising
that when her guardian called to mind the little
foundling who had been surrendered to her care, she
should have experienced some gratified pride in the
results of the arrangement. The opinion she enter-
tained of the position held by her former ward in
Ireland — based, no doubt, upon data furnished by
Pamela herself— was such as might well afford her
satisfaction. Amidst all the gaiety of youth and the
splendour of beauty — so the record runs — she had
acted with the most exemplary propriety ; and, four
years married, was adored by her husband and his
family — one cannot but perceive a touch of exaggera-
tion here — and even by one of his uncles, who had
made her personally a present of a fine country seat,
for to such dignity is exalted the tiny cottage at
Kildare, valued by Lord Edward, when it was a
question of accepting the gift, at the figure of three
104 Xite of locb £Dwarb jfttjGecalb
hundred pounds! And added to all, Pamela herself,
the heroine of the romance, was more charming
than ever. Truly Madame de Genlis had cause to
congratulate herself once more upon the success which
had attended " the best action of her life ** ; and in
the preface to a work published in Dublin during this
same year — the FitzGeralds probably acting as inter-
mediaries between author and publisher — she declared,
having no doubt Pamela in especial in her mind, that
she consented to be judged by the results of her
teaching as exemplified in her pupils. It is a curious
comment upon the blindness of affection that in the
very volume in which the boast is made a tale is
included having for its object "de preserver les
jcuncs pcrsonnes de I'ambition des conquetes " ; for
one is justified in doubting, remembering the character
borne by her foster-daughter in after-years, whether
this particular lesson had taken its full effect upon one
at least of her scholars. Madame de Genlis was,
however, by her own showing, careful to preserve a
distinction between theoretical and practical morality.
^* On ne compose pas avec sa conscience," she observes
loftily, '* et nul respect humain doit empecher de con-
damner formellement ce qui est vicieux " ; yet when
it becomes a personal question, she is anxious to point
out that indulgence should find a place. It is un-
doubtedly good doctrine, but, like others, capable of
abuse, and, carried out, explains much discrepancy
between a creed and a life.
In later years the relations between guardian and
Xtfe of Xord £^war^ f ft3®erald 205
pupil underwent various vicissitudes, and on one
occasion the first regretfully observes, throwing the
blame, somewhat strangely, upon political convulsions,
that it had taken two revolutions to prevent Pamela
from fulfilling aU the promise of her youth. For the
present, however, she had no fault to find with her.
She was under the erroneous impression, which, one
may be sure, the FitzGeralds were at no pains to
disturb, ,that the visit to Hamburg had been under-
taken with the sole object of effecting a meeting with
herself; and gratification at such a proof of devotion,
offered, moreover, at a time when Pamela was not in
a condition favourable to travelling, may well have
contributed to enhance the affection with which she
r^^arded her. Lord Edward, too, comes in for his
full share of praise. In contrasting the conduct of
both husband and wife with that of others from whom
gratitude might likewise have been expected, she
observes that, knowing Pamela's heavenly soul, she
had felt no surprise at her behaviour; but to Lord
Edward's constant kindness she pays an enthusiastic
tribute.
While Pamela and her former guardian were enjoy-
ing each other's society, the two colleagues were
busily engaged in pursuing the objects of their
political mission, and negotiations were being carried
on through Reinhard with the French Directory.
The results, however, were not commensurate with the
expectations which had been indulged, and were neither
satisfactory nor decisive. Furthermore, while Reinhard
«o6 StftoClMOaMMKb
entertuned doubts of the fitneat of Laid EdMord iat
the ptrthe had been chosen to fill, the ddqgMes had in'
return concaved mi^vings as to die tr usmwlM Mtta of
the minister himsdf. Whether ornot sodi a s us pkkMi
of bad faith was wdl founded, which seems uaHkdjry
the object of it can scarcdf be acquitted of aolne
culpable carelessness, since the Eng^sh Govemniedt
was furnished by its own consul at Ibmbufg w^
copies of certun letters addressed by Reinhard to the
French Minister, De La Croix. It was, at aD evefita^
decided by the Irish envoys to proceed to Bade, and
to conduct their further negotiations from that plaoe—
a plan which they accordingly carried out, Pamda akme
of the party remaining behind in the care of Madame
de Genlis at Hamburg, where shordy afbrwards her
little daughter and namechild, Pkmela, was bom.
Lord Edward and his companion meanwhile spent
a month at Basle ; after which, arriving at the
conclusion that it was of importance that personal
communication should be established between them-
selves and the French General, Hoche, to whom the
command of the expedition to Ireland was to be en-
trusted, they determined to proceed to Paris itself.
The French Government, however, had its own objec-
tions to oppose to the plan, showing itself unwilling,
in view of Lord Edward's connection, through his
marriage, with the Orleans family, to treat with him
at headquarters. Ultimately the capital was visited
by neither delegate, O'Connor having instead an
interview elsewhere, with " a person high in the confi-
Xffe of Xord £&ward f ft3®erald 207
dence of the Directory," while Lord Edward returned
alone to rejoin Pamela at Hamburg.
It was on this return journey from Basle that an
incident occurred which gives singular corroboration
to the criticisms made by Reinhard, and bears witness
to the absolute unfitness of the subject of them to
be entrusted with the conduct of a conspiracy.
Chancing to have, as his travelling-companion for
a part of the journey, a lady between whom and one
of Mr. Pitt's colleagues there had in former times
existed some connection, the young Irishman — in
ignorance, of course, of this circumstance — allowed
himself to be led into communicating to her, with his
accustomed frankness, not only his own views and
opinions concerning political questions, but was so
strangely incautious as to permit his fellow-traveller to
obtain a clue as to the objects of his present mission,
aU of which information she naturally forwarded without
delay to her friend in the Government.
It was one of those indiscretions — almost incredible,
when the circumstances are taken into account — which
justified a friend of Fox's, meeting Grattan a year
later, on the occasion of the trial of Arthur O'Connor,
in observing to the Irishman that if he, the speaker,
were to rebel, it would not be in company with
Grattan's countrymen, " for, by God, they are the
worst rebels I ever heard of ! "
Whether or not, as a general indictment, the charge
was true, or whether, at any rate, the Irish might
not have exhibited in the field such counterbalancing
3o8 xtfe or Xord SbwBtb #tt5<BenU5
gifts as to vindicate their character in this respect,
there can be no doubt that in regard to some
not unimportant qualifications for rebellion Fox*s
friend was right. In the matter of preparation and
preliminaries they combined with extraordinary energy
and zeal, and with the possession, to an uncommon
degree, of the power of organisation, an equally
astonishing lack of some of the qualities most necessary
to carr)- an enterprise of the kind to a successful
issue ; and in such qualities — the qualities of the
conspirator — none was more deficient than the man
who was to conduct it.
At Paris, meanwhile, General Hoche was giving
evidence of a discretion which presents a marked
contrast to Lord Edward's reckless neglect of the
commonest precautions.
Wolfe Tone's first meeting with the General who
was expected to play so important a part in Irish
affairs took place in July, when a "very handsome,
well-niavie youiiL: fellow " — they were all young together
in those J»ays, from Napoleon downwards, and the
veteran among French generals only counted some
si\-and thirty years —accosted him with the remark:
*' \'()us etes le citoyen Smith ?"
'" I thought," ol^serves Tone, '* he was a chef de
burciiu^ arul replied, * Oui, citoyen, je m'appelle Smith.'
'' ' \'ous vous appele/ aussi, je crois, Wolfe Tone ?*
** I replied : ' Oui, citoyen, c'est mon veritable nom/
''* l\h l)ien,' replied he, * je suis le General Hoche/"
len (lays later Hoche, whom Tone, now chef de
!I4fe of %ovb £&ward f ftsOeralb 209
brigade and soon to be nominated Adjutant-General,
was visiting in bed, took the opportunity of sounding
the Irishman on the subject of the two delegates who
were already in communication with his Government,
carefully avoiding any reference to the n^otiations
which were in progress, and giving no indication
of any personal acquaintance on his own part with
their views and intentions,
" Hoche asked me," relates Tone, " did I know
Arthur 0'G>nnor ? I replied that I did, and that
I entertained the highest opinions of his talents,
principles, and patriotism, ... * Well,* said he, * will
he join us ? * I answered I hoped, as he was fonciire--
ment IrlandaiSy that he undoubtedly would/'
Hoche then proceeded, still with the same caution,
to make further enquiries. There was a lord, he
observed tentatively, in Tone's country — the son of
a duke — ^was he not likewise a patriot ? After a
moment's bewilderment his visitor recognised in the
description Lord Edward FitzGerald — the fact of even
that momentary bewilderment on his part pointing
to the recent character of Lord Edward's prominence
in the movement — and "gave Hoche a very good
account of him."
What came of this summer's work, of Tone's
intrigues at Paris, of the mission of Lord Edward
and O'Connor, and of the attempt of the French
Republic to further the cause of Irish liberty, is too
well known to need more than . a brief summary here.
On December 15 th, after manifold delays, a French
14
2IO Xife of Xord £t>warb f fts^^etaO)
fleet actually set sail, with the object of effecting the
deliverance of the Irish people. If the Directory had
been slow in arriving at a decision, now that the
enterprise was actually undertaken, it was done on
no niggardly scale. Not less than seventeen sail of
the line, thirteen frigates, and the same number of
transports set out from Brest, to fulfil the engage-
ments of the French Government. Everything
promised success : the coasts of Ireland were strangely
undefended ; no troops were at hand to repel the
foreign allies, should they effect a landing ; over large
portions of the country the population was in a
condition already bordering upon open resistance ; the
Habeas Corpus Act had been suspended two months
earlier, and the people, delivered over to a military
despotism of unexampled severity, were ripe for
revolt. All seemed to presage an easy triumph.
But the stars in their courses fought against the
cause of Irish liberty.
On the very night the squadron set sail from Brest
one ship struck on the rocks and was lost. By a
more fatal disaster the Fraternitey the vessel which,
by strange mismanagement, carried on board both
Admiral and General-in-Chief, was separated from
the remainder of the fleet ; and when at length the
squadron was permitted by storm, fog, and tempest to
reach Bantry Bay, it was found that it only counted
sixteen sail instead of the forty-three it had numbered
at starting, and that what remained of it carried no
more than 6,500 troops.
life or Xocd £^warl) ftt30ecai5 211
Tone, eating his heart oat on boaxd one of the
ships which lay off the Irish coast, was in fitvour,
in spite of the disasters which had bcfidlen the ex-
pedition, of attempting to effect a landing, trusting
to the native population to recruit the invadii^
forces. In the absence, however, of the OHnmander*
in-Chief more prudent counsds won the day ; and
after the remnant of the fleet had been <moe more
scattered by the winds, it was determined to set sail
and to return to Brest.
Thus ended the first attempt, upon whidi so many
hopes had been built, to establish freedom on the
French pattern in Ireland.
CHAPTER XIV
1797
Effects of the French Fmiluxe— United Irithmen and Pkrli»-
mentary Opposition — Attitude of Grattan — ^Lord Casde-
leagh — Govenunent Brutality — Lord Moira'« Denttada-
tion — Lord Edward and his Family — Charge against biai
— Meets a French Envoy in London — Insurrectionaiy
Projects.
THE disastrous failure of the French expedition
took effect in various ways upon public o[nnion
in Ireland, and in more quarters than one the whole
affair gave cause for reflection.
Even to some of the more ardent Republican
spirits, as well as to those by whom the invocation
of foreign aid had always been looked upon as an
unwelcome though necessary expedient, the unexpected
strength of the French armament may have suggested
a doubt whether the aims and intentions of those
by whom it had been despatched had been so wholly
disinterested as they had been represented. A
suspicion of the possible existence of other objects
on the part of their allies besides those for which
the expedition had been ostensibly equipped may
reasonably have been aroused.
%ttc of Xor& £5warb fttiOctaXb 213
However that might be, it was dear that the
collapse of the enterprise had incalculably lessened^
or at least delayed, the chances of a successful appeal
to force as a means of putting an end to the systetai
of oppression of which the unhappy people were the
victims. Under these circumstances the United Irish-
men, with whom Lord Edward must be for the future
identified, intimated their desire, in the spring of
1797, to confer with the leaders of the Parliamentary
Opposition, together with their readiness to arrive at
an understanding pledging themselves and those with
whom they acted to accept a moderate measure of
reform.
It was an opportunity which, had the temper of
the Government been other than it was, might have
changed the face of Irish politics, and disappointment
and hope might have joined hands to effect a genuine
reconciliation. There can be no doubt that the more
moderate men amongst the party were sincere in
their desire to make conditional peace with the
Government Emmet afterwards declared that, had
their overtures been accepted, the Executive Directory
of the United Irish Association would have sent to
inform the French authorities that the difference be-
tween the people and the Government was adjusted,
and to decline a second invasion.
On Grattan rests the responsibility of having, so
far as the Parliamentary Opposition was concerned,
declined to accept the advances made, and of having
thrown the weight of his influence into the scales
a 14 Xtfe Of Xorb E^warb fmOccOb
against the proposed step. Always adverse to the
extreme section of the National party, he now declined
to meet them, arguing that, while such a proceeding
would probably be productive of no good result,
he and his friends would be placed in an embarrass-
ing situation.
He may have been right in both portions ; yet
it should never be forgotten that from the United
Irishmen, hot-headed and violent as was the character
they bore, came the rejected overtures of condliation.
In order to understand the refusal of such a man
as Grattan, in the desperate condition of the country,
to make so much as an attempt at co-operation, it
is necessary to bear in mind not only his conviction
of the absolute hopelessness of any endeavour to
move the Government from the course they were
pursuing, but also his rooted distrust of the leaders
with whom it was a question of forming an alliance.
There is something tragic, which leaves no room
for reproach, even if it is impossible not to see in
it cause for regret, in the attitude of the men of
whom Grattan was the most distinguished representative.
Loyal, true, and upright, they had given their lives,
and had given them in vain, to further what they
conceived to be the best interests of their country.
Now, defeated on all hands, they were forced to
look on, an isolated and helpless group, and to watch
the people they had done their best to serve led,
as they believed, to destruction by other and less
experienced guides.
Xtfe of Xor& E5war& f ttjOetalb 315
** Alas ! all the world is mad," wrote Lord Charlemont
about this very time, ** and unfortunately strait-waist-
coats are not yet in fashion." And again : " My advice
has been lavished on both parties with equally ill
success. . . . Would to Heaven it had been other-
wise ; but, spurred on by destiny, we seem on all hands
to run a rapid course towards a fHghtful precipice.
But it is criminal to despair of one*s country ; I will
endeavour yet to hope."
It is but a feeble hope which is kept alive by the
consciousness that despair is a crime.
The view he imagined would have been taken
by his father of the United Irishmen is summarised^
a little brutally, by Grattan's son — namely, that they
were ^^a pack of blockheads who would surely get
themselves hanged, and should be all put in the
pillory for their mischief and nonsense." Grattan
knew but little of the individuals who composed the
party, and of some of them a more intimate knowledge
might have modified the rough-and-ready judgment
attributed to him. " He did not associate with them/'
says the same authority ; •* they kept clear of him —
they feared him, and certainly did not like him, . , .
He considered their proceedings not only mischievous
but ridiculous."
And yet, holding this opinion of the men who
were rebels, it is curious to *tudy some significant
sentences which occur in an explanation given, twenty
years later, by the great Irish leader of the reasons for
the course he pursued in withdrawing from Parliament
ai6 X4te Of Xorb E^wat^ flts^euXb
— a course pressed upon him, as well as upon
George Ponsonby, by a deputation of which Lord
Edward was one.
"The reason why we seceded," he ezpkdned, in
the year 1 8 1 7, '^ was that we did not approve of the
conduct of the United men, and we could not approve
of the conduct of the Government," and feared to
encourage the former by making s[)eeches against the
latter. ... ^' It was not necessary/' he went on,
speaking of the Government of the day, ^*fbr me to
apologise for not having joined them. It might be
necessary, perhaps, to offer some reason to posterity
why 1 had not joined the rebels. I would do neither.
The one was a rebel to his king, the other to his
country. In the conscientious sense of the word rcM
there should have been a gallows for the rebel, and
there should have been a gallows for the minister.
Men will be more blamed in histor)' for having joined
the Government than they would if they had joined
the rebels/* *' The question men should have asked,"
he once sjiid, speaking of those unfortunate brothers,
the two Sheares, who walked hand in hand to the
scaffold and so died — ** the question men should
have asked was not, * Why was Mr. Sheares on the
gallows ? ' but, * Why was not Lord Clare along
with him ? ' ''
Others besides Grattan, looking back with the
melancholy wisdom time and experience had taught,
were not disposed to view those who had resorted
to physical force altogether in the same light
Xife of Xorb £&warb f ttsOeralb 217
as they had viewed them at the time. Valentine
Lawless, afterwards Lord Cloncurrjr, has left it upon
record that, though he had dissented at the time from
Lord Edward's opinion that the only hope of efFecting
the reforms desired by both the friends alike lay in
separation, half a century of vain watching for signs
of regeneration had led him to doubt his early con-
clusions, and to ask himself, ''Was Lord Edward
right or wrong in his conviction ? "
Lord Holland, too, cousin to the FitzGeralds, but
an Englishman, and blinded by no national prejudice,
when expressing, twenty-six years later, his deliberate
judgment upon the principles for which Lord Edward
had suffered, observed that *'he who thinks that a
man can be even excused in such circumstances " —
the condition of Ireland in 1798 — ** by any con-
sideration than that of despair from opposing a
pretended Government by force, seems to me to
sanction a principle which would secure immunity
to the greatest of all human delinquents, or at
least to them who produce the greatest misery among
mankind."
It may be well for any one inclined to look upon
the rebels of 1798 as mad and wicked incendiaries,
bent upon plunging their country, for purposes of
their own, into bloodshed and misery, to ponder
these utterances, spoken with calm deliberation at
a date when time had cleared away the mists of
passion and prejudice which obsau-e men's vision at a
period of great national convulsion.
2is xifc of Xor& £dwar& f ftjOeralb
In the summer of 1797 a new and important
addition had been made to the official staff at the
Castle in the person of a young man, some six years
younger than Lord Edward himself, but destined,
in spite of his youth, to play a considerable part in
the history of Ireland during the ensuing years. This
was Robert Stewart, lately become, by his father's
elevation to an earldom, Viscount Casdereagh, who
in the month of July was not only made Keeper of
the Privy Seal, but was entrusted provisionally with
the performance of the duties belonging to the office
of Chief Secretary — a post to which he was afterwards
appointed upon the resignation of Mr, Pelham, at
this time absent in England.
Lord Castlcreagh's was a strong, and in some
resjxicts an interesting, personality. He possessed
talent, industry, perseverance, and determination. To
judge by his portrait, he avided a singular beauty of
feature to his more substantial gifts, and his courtesy
was, if cold, unfailing. As evidence of his charm of
manner and bearing, it is worth while to quote a
witness as unlikely to have been biassed in his favour
as Charles Teeling, the United Irishman, who, describing
a visit he had received in prison from Casdereagh —
by whom he had been arrested in person — dwells
upon the fascination of his manners, his engaging
address, and his attractiveness and grace.
Turning from his personal to his political aspect,
his views at his entry upon public life seem to have
borne the stamp of an inconsistency often denoting
Xtfe of Xor& E5wat& f itsOeralb 219
the influence of personal choice, as distinguished from
the homogeneous character of a complete set of
opinions adopted ready made, as the equipment of
the member of a party, or the heritage of a family
tradition. He had supported the Act of 1793 by
which the franchise was extended to Catholic free-
holders ; but his desire for Parliamentary reform had
stopped short at that point. He was a Tory, but
exempt from the apprehensions of his party with
regard to the effect of the revolution upon France.
When, later on, he flung himself body and soul
into the endeavour to carry the Union, he desired that
the measure should be accompanied or followed by
one of Catholic emancipation.
Comparing his position, at this stage of his career,
with that of Lord Edward, their antecedents were
not without points in common. Both were Irish,
both well born — the Stewarts being an influential
family of County Down — both were soldiers, both
had entered upon political life at the earliest age
possible, Castlereagh having been put forward, before
he had completed his twenty-first year, by the in-
dependent freeholders of his county in opposition
to Lord Downshire's nominee. Castlereagh, as well
as Lord Edward, had at the outset voted for the
most part with the Opposition. Though there is no
definite proof of the fact, they must have had many
of the same associates, and can scarcely have failed
to have been personally acquainted. Charles Fitz-
Gerald, Lord Edward's brother, was a friend of
220 Xife of Xor6 £&wan> f it30ecaI5
Castlereagh's, and his aunt Lady Louisa Conolly —
in contradiction to the robust hatred cherished by her
sister Lady Sarah for the ^^ ignorant, vain, shallow
Secretary" — had evidently a liking for the young
man, and full confidence in his high character and
good intentions.
Yet, whatever had been the case in the past, the
two now stood each the most prominent representative
of hostile camps — the one backed by the whole force
of the English Government and its resources, financial
and military ; the other dependent alone for support upon
the passionate allegiance of the mass of the Irish people.
it was an unequal struggle. Castlereagh won ;
living to fill post after post of honour, responsibility,
and power ; while Lord Edward, within a year, lay
dead in his prison. Yet the last, living, was idolised,
and dead, has been ever loved and honoured ; whereas
" few men," says his biographer, " have been the
victim of such constant and intense unpopularity "
as Lord Castlereagh — an unpopularity which has
followed him to his grave, and is expressed, in brutal
form, in Byron's epitaph.^
Meantime, while the new Chief Secretary was
being initiated into his duties, things in the country
were going from bad to worse. ^*They treated the
people/* Grattan said long afterwards, speaking of the
' With (Ifath doomed to grapple
Beneath this cold slab he
Who lied in the chapel
Now lies in the Abbey.
Xife of Xorb £t>war& f ttsOeraU) aai
military tyranny which prevailed, "not like rebel
Christians, but like rebel dogs." As an instance of
the spirit which prevailed and the ferocity of the
sentimehts indulged among the upper classes with
r^ard to the disaffected, then and later, it is worth
while to refer to a paper printed, in September, 1799,
in the Dublin Magazine. Dealing with the effect pro-
duced upon the peasantry by the conspicuous exhibition
of the mutilated remains of their slaughtered comrades,
the writer quotes the words "of a gentleman who
seemed to speak the sense of his countrymen" in
saying that he wished " we had more heads up, if it
were likely they could again rouse the villains to
insurrection, for we are fully able to put them down,
and the more we despatch the better."
At an earlier date, too, Rochford, determined to set
fire to a whole quarter in which a crime had been
committed, declared that it was impossible that an
innocent person could suffer, for such a person was not
to be found.
The peasantry were not, however, without their
advocates, powerless though they might be ; and Lord
Moira in particular, from his place in the English
House of Lords, did not shrink from pointing out the
results of the policy which was being pursued.
On November 27th, 1 797, he made a solemn arraign-
ment of the whole system at work, and after describing
the horrors of which his country was the scene — the
tortures inflicted, the half-hangings on mere suspicion,
the burning of houses, and other outrages daily
222 %itc Of lorb £t>warb fftsOendd
perpetrated with complete immunity — ^'*the rack,
indeed," he allowed bitterly, comparing the sufferings
of the Irish with those of the victims of the Inquisition,
"was not applied, because, perhaps, it was not at
hand'* — he proceeded to warn the House that the
numbers of United Irishmen were on the increase in
every part of the Kingdom, and to express his con-
viction that, if the present system were continued,
Ireland would not remain connected with England for
another five years.
He spoke the opinion of the more moderate party
in Ireland, who were rapidly dissociating themselves
from any share in responsibility for the proceedings
of the Government. The FitzGerald connection, in
especial, whatever differences of opinion they might
entertain as to the best modes of resistance, were
unanimous in their repudiation of the policy pursued.
Lady Sarah Napier, writing in June, 1797, from
Cclbridge, where she was living close to her sister,
Lady Louisa Conolly, is explicit on the subject.
She had never, she says, up to that time believed
Ireland to be really in a bad way, ** because I
could not imagine upon w/jat grounds to form the
reasoning that actuates the Government to urge oh a
civil war with all their 'power. But since, from some
unknown cause, // is their plan, I will do them the
justice to say they have acted uniformly well in it, and
have nearly succeeded. They force insurrection i tout
bout de champr ^
' Lady Sarah Lennoxes Letters, Vol. II., p. 393.
Xife of Xort) £^wart> f it56eralt> 223
A scheme had been set on foot some three years
earlier for raising a militia, and thereby meeting the
disafiected portion of the population on their own
ground. The plan had been cordially taken up by
the country gentlemen. Lord Edward alluding with
some coldness to the part played by his brother the
Duke in the matter.
" The people do not like it much," he had written
at the time — *^ that is, the common people and farmers
— and even though Leinster has it " — he was referring
in especial to the force raised in County Kildare — " they
do not thoroughly come into it ; which I am glad of,
as it shows they begin not to be entirely led by names.
I am sure, if any person else had taken it, it could not
have been raised at all/*
At the present juncture the Duke, disgusted with
the conduct of the Government, threw up his com-
mand, his example being followed by his brother-
in-law Lord Bellamont, and his aunt's husband Mr.
Conolly ; while Lord Henry FitzGerald, like Grattan,
his colleague in the representation of the City of
Dublin, took the step of retiring from Parliament.
Lord Edward, for his part, had not only declined,
in the month of July, to seek re-election, on the
ground that free elections were made impofmiblc by
the system of martial law then in force, but hail finally,
with reckless generosity, thrown in his lot, Win future
and all its promise, with the extreme National party.
How much or how litde was known or sunpcctcd
by Lord Edward's relations of the extent to which
334 Xfte of %ot6 £^lmc^ jfttaOendb
he had become implicated in revolutionary schemes
and designs must remain a question. That he should
have desired to keep those about him, more esp)eciall7
his mother, in ignorance of facts which would have
caused them serious disquiet, may readily be believed ;
whUe it is expressly stated that when visiting London
on political business, in the year 1797, he carefully
avoided the society of those most dear to him, lest
such intercourse should cause them to be credited
with cognisance of the perilous transactions in which
he had become involved.
But while thus taking thought for the safety of
others after a fashion he never practised where his own
was concerned, it is difficult to imagine that, open
and unreserved as he was, to a fault, he should
have been capable of maintaining a systematic silence
towards those nearest to him in blood and affection,
with whom his terms had been those of unlimited
confuicncc, with regard to the objects and aims which
hail become the main interest of his life and the govern-
ing motive of his actions. It is at any rate clear — to
anticipate events for a moment — that enough was
known to Mr. Ogilvie of the relations of his stepson
with the party of revolution to bring him over
to Dublin in the spring of 1798, for the purpose of
making a last effort to detach him from his dangerous
associates, and to prevail upon him, if possible, to
quit the country.
Mr. Ogilvie, on this occasion, had an interview with
the Chancellor. Lord Clare evinced a desire, evidently
Xffe of Xor5 £^war5 f it5(^ecal5 335
sincere at the moment, to save from the consequences
of his rashness a conspirator who not only possessed
to so remarkable a degree the affections of the people,
but was also connected by birth and blood with persons
for whom he himself entertained a genuine regard.
** For God's sake,** he urged, " get this young man
out of the country. The ports shall be thrown open
to you, and no hindrance offered.**
It was not Mr. Ogilvie*s fault that the proffered
opportunity of evasion was not embraced. He asked
no better than to get his hot-headed stepson out of
the country ; but his well-intentioned intervention was,
as might have been expected, fruitless. Lord Edward
was of all men the least likely to leave his comrades in
the lurch. If Mr. Ogilvie had ever indeed hoped to
succeed in his endeavour, the circumstances under
which the meeting of the two took place must have
convinced him of the futility of any such expectation.
At the very moment when his stepfather came to press
upon Lord Edward the expediency of taking advantage
of the facilities Lord Clare was ready to afford him
for gaining a place of safety, a meeting of the heads of
the United Society was taking place in his house. It
was from assisting at their deliberations that he came
out to receive his visitor, and to demonstrate to him,
by an argument which he must have known Mr.
Ogilvie would find himself unable to refute, that
discussion was useless, and that it was impossible that
he should pursue the proposed course.
" It is out of the question,** he said ; " I am too
15
piB^gea ID mcsc Mm id oe ww id wiUMiiiir
Aci'fptuig, howefcpy the wiiifly of Ui atloSty 9ui
of the Govcnynent tkrt lie thould qdt Ifdaad tt
proof miBficut dMI impvu^gt ipcn Mt tt Id the
results of Us c wM MTfin p with the oticBM
futy^ the uKicdiiSt^ di^Miiycd uf osrtsni of
rdations^ when the Ucm fiuBf ttH and the
was issued fer his sppwhrnaion, widi fcgjud to any
participation on his part in actnal revohidonafj dei^ns^
affords evidence that thef had remained ignorant up
to the last of the perilous extent to which he had
become compromised. It may be that affection, the
desire to spare those he loyed the amdety which an
acquaintance with the true state of aflSurs would have
caused them, had achieved what both fear and prudence
had failed to effect; and had, in a measure at least,
scaled his lips. At any rate, we read in a lettw from
Mr. Ogilvie after the catastrophe that his wife was
supported by her confidence in her son's " not deserving
anything by word or deed " ; while Lady Sarah Napier,
describing an interview with a visitor, wrote, " I said
I was sure he was innocent, though he had made no
secret of his opinions, but that nobody dreaded a
revolution more, from the goodness of his heart."
That I«ord Edward might dread a revolution was
possible. It was also more than possible that he might
rcgttnl it AS the lesser of two evils. It is, at any rate,
certain that, with the cognisance of his friends or with-
out it, he had been busily preparing one.
Xife of Xotb £^wart> jftt56eralt> 227
In returning to the history of these preparations
it is necessary to touch upon an accusation which,
upon the evidence supplied by two informers, has
been brought against Lord Edward — that, namely, of
complicity in counsels including assassination amongst
the methods to be employed against the enemy. It
is a charge wholly escaped by few revolutionists ; and
the evidence upon which it rests in the present case
may be taken for what it is worth.
During the summer of 1797 there had appeared in
Dublin — an almost inevitable feature of the times — a
secretly printed newspaper, called the Union Star.
It not only constituted itself an advocate of assassina-
tion, but designated certain persons in particular as
fit objects for vengeance. On his own confession,
a man named Cox was sole owner, editor, and printer
of this paper. In the month of December Cox
turned informer, and a conversation is on record in
which he stated to the Under-Secretary, Cooke, that
Lord Edward and Arthur O'Connor had been frequently
in his company, being cognisant of his connection
with the Suir^ the inference intended to be drawn
being of course their approval of the methods
advocated by it.
To this statement O'Connor, on his own behalf,
gave an explicit denial, asserting that the Star had
been set up during one of his own terms of
imprisonment ; that he had remonstrated with Cox ;
and that it had been by his advice that the latter had
given himself up to Government.
tt8 %Ht of %oxb iBbwaxb flts^eaVb
By the time that the aflair was afted Lord
Edward was probably not in a position to disprove
any calumny. But the evidence of Cox — ^further
declared to be " angry with the leaders of die United
Irishmen*' — will be scarcely accepted as wdghing
heavily in the balances against the witness borne
both by Lord Edward's own character and by diose
who knew him best as to the spirit in which he
carried on the struggle.
The second instance of a corresponding charge is
to be found in a letter written at the end of diis same
year by Lord Camden to Mr. Pelham. McNally,
the informer, is there quoted as declaring that the
moderate party had carried their point, and that the
intended proscription had been abandoned ; adding
that O'Connor, Lord Edward, and McNevin had
been the advocates of assassination, the rest of
moderate measures.
That it was ever Lord Edward's custom to favour
the bolder policy, whatever might be the particular
question at issue, is clear. It will also be seen that
when, in the course of this year, a scheme was in
contemplation having for its object the capture of
the Castle and the barracks, he had argued in favour
of its adoption. In the same way, at a later date,
he supported the daring project of attacking the
House of Lords at the moment when the peers were
to be assembled in it, on the occasion of the trial of
Lord Kingston. On the hypothesis, therefore, that the
scheme alluded to by the informer was of a similar
%ac of Xocd iB6mtaX> fttsOecald 119
natnre to diese» and one by which a blow would have
been directed at the heads ci the Government, it is
likeljr enough to have commended itself to him ; nor
is it probaUe that he would have experienced more
scruple in making himsdf master of the persons
of the Government offidals dian was felt by the
authorities themselves with regard to the wholesale
arrests of the insurrectionary Directory. Assassination,
however, is a wholly different matter ; and those
afquaintcH with Lord Edward FitzGerald's life and
character wiU appraise the testimony which places him
amongst its advocates at its just worth. With this
notice of the accusation brou^t against him and the
evidence by which it is si^ported, the subject may
be dismissed.
Amongst the preparations for a rising now being
actively carried on, negotiation with France, with a
view to securing her co-operation, was naturally an
item of the last impcxtance. As early as the spring
of 1797 a Dublin solicitor named Lewines had been
accordingly sent to Paris as the accredited agent of the
United Irish party. In May a further move took
place. The Republic had despatched an emissary of
its own, with orders to visit Ireland, with the object of
obtaining information on the spot as to the true condition
of the country. Owing, however, to the difficulty of
obtaining the necessary passports, it was found im-
possible for the envoy to carry out his instructions, or
to proceed further than London. Under these circum-
stances Lord Edward was deputed to meet him there.
230 Xtfe of Xort) BDwarft jfft50etaR»
as the authority best qualified to supply the de^red
information as to the military organisation and resources
of the Society of which he was by this time one of the
recognised and accredited chiefs.
The information he had to impart, coloured by
his sanguine spirit, must have been encouraging enough,
so far as numbers were concerned. So extensive were
the military preparations that it was computed that
in Ulster alone no less than one hundred thousand men
were enrolled and regimented. Such was the eagerness
of these northern recruits to precipitate an appeal to
arms that it was only by the authority of the leaders
of the whole Society that they were prevailed upon
to delay taking action till the arrival of the expected
succours from France, which it was hoped would
supply the experience and skill in which the Irish
were, in spite of their ardour, lamentably lacking.
In all parts of the country, too, as Lord Moira bore
witness, the people, rendered desperate by their suf-
ferings, were swelling the ranks of the Union. Had
it been possible, at this time, when the enthusiasm of
the people was at fever height and England embarrassed
by foreign foes and mutinies at home — had it been
possible to strike then, the history of the rebellion
might have been a different one. But it was not to
be ; and in the summer an opportunity was allowed
to slip which was not likely again to present itself.
A plan of insurrection had been prepared, mainly
by the Ulster leaders, to which several hundred of
the troops quartered in Dublin were ready to lend
life of Xort) £^wart> f it3<^tal^ 231
their co-operation ; while a deputation from the militias
of Clare, Kilkenny, and Kildare had made, in the
name of their respective regiments, the offer already
mentioned, to seize the barracks and the Castle. It
was a bold scheme, and, carried out, might have
wholly changed the face of affairs ; but, in spite of
Lord Edward's advocacy, the Dublin Ejcecutive decided
against its adoption, and the enterprise was relinquished,
to the bitter regret of those who had seen in it
Ireland's best chance of success. **It seems to me,"
said Tone, writing at Paris, ** to have been such an
occasion missed as we can hardly ever see return."
He might well say so. It never did return.
Meantime, the year 1797 drew towards its close, and
no blow had been struck. But before the beginning
of 1798 Lord Edward had made a new and disastrous
acquaintance.
CHAPTER XV
bish Informers—*' Battalion of Testimony "—Leonard licNally
—Thomas Reynolds — Meeting between Reynoldsaod Lord
Edward— Reynolds and Neilson — Cunan's Invective.
IT was an evil day for Lord Edward — an evil day
for his party as well — when, some time in the
November of 1 797, he met, on the steps of the Four
Courts, a gentleman named Thomas Reynolds, a United
Irishman little known at the time, but who quickly
rose to an unenviable notoriety, and will long live in
the memory of his countrymen as the betrayer of
his party and his chief.
The figure of the informer is one which, like a
shabby and sordid Mcphistophelcs, is never long absent
from the scene of Irish politics. His trade was
sedulously fostered and encouraged by the English
system of Government, and to it may be traced much
of the alleged sympathy with crime and genuine
reluctance to lend a hand in bringing the criminal to
justice which has been so often used as a reproach
against the Irish people. '* The police are paid to
catch you, and well paid^' a priest is said to have told
a member of his flock who, weary of the life of a
332
life of Xor5 £t>wart> f it5(BetaI6 233
hunted man, was contemplating the surrender of
himself into the hands of the law. ** The informer
is bribed to track 70U down, and well bribed^** he
might have added with equal truth. It is not
surprising that a people noted for its instincts of
generosity should have preferred to leave the work of
Government to be performed by its paid instruments,
and should have shrunk from so much as the semblance
of participation in the traffic.
The indiscriminate horror entertained with r^^ard
to those, whether innocent or guilty, who were
convicted of co-operation with the natural enemies
of their race — unfortunately identified in the eyes
of the people with the administration that went
by he name of justice — is curiously and signally
illustrated by an incident which took place about this
time. Two sisters named Kennedy, mere children of
fourteen and fifteen years old, and supposed to be
heiresses, were carried off from their home by a gang
of ruffians, to two of whom they were forcibly married.
When, some weeks later, the men were made prisoners
and brought to trial, the unfortunate girls were induced
to consent to bear witness against them, chiefly, as
it appears, in revenge for a brutal blow bestowed upon
one of them by her captor. The result of the trial
was the hanging of the men and the pensioning of
their victims. But so passionately opposed was public
sentiment, even in such an instance as this, to the
conduct of the approver, that demonstrations of hostility
greeted the unhappy sisters wherever they ventured
234 life of Xort) £t>wart> f it5(Beralt>
to show their faces ; that when they subsequently
married, the misfortunes of the one were r^arded bjr
the people in the light of a judgment upon her ; and*
stranger still, the husband of the other was infected
to such a degree by the popular superstition that he
imagined himself haunted by the spectre of his dead
rival, and never dared to sleep without a lig^t in
his room.
Of the brutality engendered by the loathing, whole-
some in its origin, of the trade, an example is given in
a story told by an aged lady, Mrs. O'Byrne, who
remembered throughout life — ^as well she might —
being taken as a child, by the servant to whose care
she had been entrusted, to the Anatomical Museum
of Trinity College, where she witnessed a perfomuuice
consisting of a dance, executed by means of a systeni
of pulleys, by the skeleton of the informer " Jemmy
O'Brien." The husband of the woman who took her
little charge to this ghastly entertainment had, it
subsequently transpired, been done to death by
O'Brien, afterwards himself hanged for murder, and
she took a grim pleasure in the show.
Another, and even more singular, instance of the
feeling with which the class was regarded, lasting down
almost to our own day and shared by the servants of
their employers, is furnished by the fact that it was
found necessary at the '^Informers' Home," as it was
popularly called — an institution kept up by Govern-
ment, and said to be a relic of the " Battalion of
Testimony" — to lodge the police in charge of the
Xife of Xord £^war5 f ft5(^ral5 235
place in a hut apart, the men objecting to the de-
gradation of living under the same roof as those they
were set to guard.
Taking into account this condition of public senti-
ment, it may be imagined that the position of the paid
political spy was not without its disadvantages, and
that by the more timorous among the body their wages
were not altogether lightly earned. It was not every
villain who was so constituted as to be able to ply his
craft with the sang-froid of the celebrated barrister
McNally, one of the most remarkable figures of the
time, to whom must be allowed the honour of having
carried the art of treachery to its highest point of
perfection ; who could move even Curran to tears by
his eloquence on behalf of one of the very men he had
betrayed ; who, having first sold Emmet and then
acted as his counsel in court, could visit him in prison
on the day of his execution, and piously console him
with the prospect of his approaching meeting with his
mother in another world ; and who, finally, carried on
his course of deception with unrivalled success till the
day of his death, in 1820, when, to crown all, having
passed for a Protestant in life, he squared his accounts
with Heaven by calling in a priest and receiving from
him the sacraments of the Church.^
For such a man one cannot but feel that there was
actual enjoyment in the exercise of his art. But
other professors of it were not equally fortunate,
> The younger Curran, in his Life of his father, pays an enthusiastic
tribute to this friend of forty-three years.
236 tAXc Of Xorb Edward fttjOecald
and even among the members of the Battalion of
Testimony penitents were to be found. Thus an
Englishman of the name of Bird^ who had been
the means of committing a number of obnoxious
persons to prison, sickened of his trade, threw it
up in disgust, and published an account of his trans-
actions with the Castle ; while Newell, another of die
brotherhood, in a curious letter to his employer, the
Under-Secretary, Cooke, accused him, not without
dramatic skill, of his moral ruin.
" Though I cannot deny being a villsdn,'* he said,
"I hope clearly to prove that I had the honour of
being made one by you."
Returning to Mr. Thomas Reynolds, it would not
appear that this gentleman, at any rate at first, found
the branch of business in which he had engaged alto-
gether to his liking. He was a young man of twenty-
six at the time of his meeting with Lord Edward.
Brought up by the Jesuits, he had carried on the
trade of a silk manufacturer in Dublin. Lately, by
means of some land leased — it is said on very
favourable terms — from the Duke of Leinster, a distant
connection on his mother's side, he had attained to
the position of a country gendeman in the county
of Kildare.
His political antecedents were, from the popular
point of view, unimpeachable. He had been a
member of the Catholic Committee, had represented
Dublin in the Catholic Convention of 1792, and had
recently been initiated into the Society of United
life of Xott) £6wart> fftjOeraR) 337
Ifishmen, dioug^, if his son is to be credited, in
ignorance of its revolutionary character. He was also
— 4i fiirther guarantee — married to the sister-in-law of'
Wolfe Tone.
This was the man who — also on his son's authority —
was in 1798 hailed as the saviour of his country, and
courted and caressed by all who were not actuaUy
engaged in the rebellion. Wealth and honours were
voted to him ; but, satisfied with having done his duty,
he declined them all ; and, honourable and upright
public servant as he was, found himself at a later date
shaken off and discountenanced by the very persons^
with one or two exceptions, by whom he had been
employed ; retiring finally to France, there to find
consolation for the ingratitude of the great in a small
number of friends.
Thus far Mr. Thomas Reynolds, junior, fired with
filial enthusiasm. A less ornate account of his father
would describe him as, though unquestionably an
informer, not one of that lowest type to whom treachery
is a trade by which to make a living, who deliberately
insinuates himself into the confidence of his comrades
in order to betray them, and who, to quote Curran*s
eloquent invective, " measures his value by the coffins
of his victims, and in the field of evidence appreciates
his fame as the Indian warrior does in fight — by the
number of scalps with which he can swell his
triumphs.'*
It is true that Moore is inclined to include
Reynolds in this category, disposing of him in summary
238 lUfe of Xot^ £{>vnir& fttiOctaXb
fashion as a worthless member of the conspiracy
who, pressed for cash, availed himself of this means
of discharging his debts. It is also undeniable that
the sum of five hundred guineas was paid over to him
by Government. But a careful examination of evidence
tends to make it probable that money was not his
principal object, and that this particular informer
belonged to a different grade in the profession. He
was rather one of those persons who, finding them-
selves — in the first instance perhaps involuntarily — ^in
possession of facts they conceive it their duty to make
known, kck courage to act openly, and having laid the
foundation of their future career by the initial act
of giving clandestine information against their com-
rades, experience the truth of the saying that " ce n^est
que le premier pas qui coute^^ and continue to court and
invite the confidence of those they have betrayed, for
the express purpose of making use of it against
them.
When Lord Fxlward met Mr. Reynolds on that ill-
fated November day, the two were barely acquainted,
owing, as the younger Reynolds explains, to Lord
Edward's recent absences from Ireland. Falling in
with him, however, on the steps of the Four Courts,
and aware of his reputation as a trustworthy member
of the Society, the latter entered into conversation
with the future informer, and before they parted a
meeting had been arranged, to take place on the
following day at Reynolds's house. It was then pro-
posed that he should temporarily fill Lord Edward's
%AU of Xor& £dwatd jfit^Oetalb 239
own post, as Colonel of the United Irish Society
for the Barony of Kilkea and Moon, in which was
situated the property he had recendy leased from the
Duke.
According to Reynolds's evidence, given at a later
date before the Secret Committee, he did not at first
take kindly to the arrangement. He furnished the
Committee with an account of the conversation between
himself and Lord Edward ; of his own attempts to
confine it to general subjects, to avoid committing
himself, and to put Lord Edward off.
The young leader, it seems, was unwisely pertinacious.
He assured the informer that he would himself share
with him every danger, and *• Deponent on this con-
sented," so the statement runs ; falling, it may be,
under the charm of his companion, in whom he felt a
pride, as in some remote manner a kinsman of his own,
and possibly fired for the moment with some spark of
contagious enthusiasm.
He had stiU, however, objections to urge. He did
not think — so he told Lord Edward, who probably
knew it far better than he — that the United men
could stand in battle against the King's troops. One
may believe that the answer returned by his chief, to
the effect that, assistance from France being expected,
some of the Irish would certainly join the foreign
lines and learn discipline under their allies, was not
altogether calculated to reassure the timorous conscience
and uneasy mind of the reluctant recruit, unlikely
to look forward with the same cheerful anticipation
240 Xife of %otb £t>warb fttjOenilb
as his leader to a French invasion. At all events, it
appears that no definite arrangement was arrived at
on this occasion, though the interview must have been
on the whole satisfactory, since at its conclusion
Lord Edward remarked that there was an honest man
in the county of Kildare» of whom he gave Reynolds
the name, and to whom he referred him for further
instructions as to the duties of his new post
Reynolds's own honesty, if it had ever had any
existence except in the imagination of his open-hearted
chief — so confiding by nature that it must have
appeared to more astute men a waste of their talents
to spend them in entrapping him — was not of long
continuance. For family reasons — ^we are not told
of what nature — and influenced by consideration for
the FitzGeralds, represented by Lord Edward,
Reynolds finally decided upon accepting the oflfered
post, was In consequence initiated into the pro-
jects and schemes of the United Irish leaders, and
learnt, according to his own declaration, for the
first time, their revolutionary character. ^ A timid
man, and afraid either to rouse suspicion agsdnst
himself by severing his connection with the Society,
or, remaining in it, to co-operate with its designs ;
entertaining, moreover, scruples of conscience as to
his duty in the dilemma in which he was placed, he
selected the middle course of retaining his position,
but retaining it as a Government agent.
> It is difficult to reconcile this statement with the account of
the conversation between Lord Edward and the informer.
Xife ot Xotd Edward f it^Oetald 341
His son, it is true, indignantly denies that he
deliberately obtained information for the purpose of
betraying it, and instances in disproof of the calumny
the feet of his fether*s having excused himself from
attendance at a meeting of the Provincial Committee,
held in February, 1 798, to which he had been summoned,
and where he would doubtless have been placed in the
possession of important fects. But, unfortunately for
the argument, it is refuted by Reynolds*s own evidence,
in which he is stated to have informed the Govern-
ment of the proceedings of this very meeting, " which
Deponent got from Lord Edward FitzGerald *' — a
safer method of obtaining information than that of
personal attendance in Dublin. It is, however, feir to
say that it was only afrer that meeting that he took
the step of communicating with the authorities; and
that it was possibly true that it was done on an un-
premeditated impulse. It must also be added, in
justice to a man whose record is black enough
in any case, that he seems to have been actuated by
no personal animosities ; that in the first instance
he had even strangely hoped to have avoided
the incrimination of individuals ; and that to
the last he showed an inclination to screen Lord
Edward.
He must have possessed talents of his own for his
particular line of business, though of a different
character to those of McNally ; for up to the very
last he possessed the full confidence of his chief; and,
carrying his life in his hand, he seems to have retained
16
242 uuc Of Xocd JE»mat fttsOtaSb
presence of mind under drcu ma a n ce s wludi m^ht
well have caused hixn to lose it. A stoiy is told
by Curran's son, on the authorinr of an eminent Irish
barrister^ of a midnight meeting in the streets ci
Dublin between Rejmolds and Neibon, a member oi
the conspiracy possessed of c ati a o r d inary physical
strength and an excitability of temperament bordering
on insanity, of whom more will be heard hereafter.
On this man some suspicion of the troth had
glimmered. Forcing the informer to foDow him
to a dark passage in what were then the liberties of
Dublin, he presented a pistol at his breast, widi the
question,
**What should I do to the villain who could
insinuate himself into my confidence for the purpose
of betraying me ? "
*' You should shoot him through the heart," was
Reynolds's answer, made with ready eflfrontery.
The reply, the story goes on to relate, so struck
his assailant, that, though his suspicions were not
wholly removed, he let the informer go.*
Whatever may be the opinion formed of Mr.
Reynolds and his performances, he must not be refused
the honour of having provided Curran with the
opportunity of achieving a signal triumph of eloquence;
> Tliis anecdote is denied by Reynolds's son, who substitutes ftw
it one of Iiis own, difTcring rather in the letter than in Uie spirit;
arrordiiiK to which the informer, charged by Neilson with treachery,
flung himself upon the accuser with the exclamation, "And dar« you
say that ? " The testimony of young Reynolds in his father's favour
has been sliown, for the rest, to be not unimpeachable.
Xfte of Xord £dwat& f it^Oetald 343
and this digression — scarcely irrelevant when we
take into account the part played by the subject of
it, though behind the scenes, in the closing chapter
of Lord Edward's life — may fitly be terminated by
a quotation from the speech in which, like a fly in
amber, the memory of the traitor is preserved. It
was in connection with the BiU of Attainder brought,
after his death, against Lord Edward, that this speech
was made.
" I have been asked," said the great orator, " whether
I have any defensive evidence. . . . Where am I to
seek it ? I have often of late gone to the dungeons
of the captive, but never have I gone to the grave
of the dead ; nor, in truth, have I ever before been
at the trial of a dead man. I oflFer, therefore, no
evidence upon this enquiry, against the perilous
example of which I do protest in the name of the
dead father whose memory is sought to be dishonoured,
and of his infant orphans whose bread is sought to
be taken away. Some observations, but a few, upon
the evidence of the informer I will make. I do
believe all he has admitted against himself. I do
verily believe him in that instance, even though I heard
him assert it on his oath — by his own confession an
informer and a bribed informer — a man whom respect-
able witnesses had sworn in a court of justice upon
their oath not to be credible on his oath. . . . See,
therefore, if there be any one assertion to which
credit can be given, except this — that he has sworn
and forsworn that he is a traitor, that he has
CHAPTER XVI
1798
Lord Edwaid'i Doom Approodmig— Hts Portndt al tins Date
— Pertooal Attractioii — DiSarenccM among the Leaden-^
Delay of Freodi Aanstance— Arrest of CXGcxmor— His
Acquittal and Impri sonment — Katiooal Pr ospec ts —
Reynolds's Treadiery— Arrest of the Committrr,
SEVENTEEN hundred and nincty-dght— that
year of disaster — ^was come. The crisis was at
hand. Lord Edward's doom close upon him. The
winding-sheet, to the eyes of the seer, would have
passed his heart and risen around his throat.
And when I meet thee again, O King,
That of death hast such sore drouth.
Except thou turn thee again on the shore,
The winding-sheet shall have moved once more.
And covered thine eyes and mouth.
It was not in Lord Edward's nature, even had he
foreseen the fate that was awaiting him, to turn aside
from it. He might be a weak man — in many respects
he was undoubtedly not a strong one ; but honour
and loyalty were not weak within him, nor was his
the want of strength which leads to the betrayal of a
comrade or a cause.
845
246 lite ot %ovb JEbwatb fltsOexaXb
Evidence has already been quoted to show that,
almost to the last, the Government, though troubled
by no scruples with regard to his confederates, would
gladly have seen themselves relieved from the odium
attaching to whomsoever should lay hands upon a Fitz-
Gerald, and would willingly have afibrded him every
loophole for escape. But no dream of the possibility
of availing himself of such chances of evasion would
have crossed Lord Edward's mind. He loved life,
indeed, and would fsun have seen good days, but not
at the cost of what was in his eyes a more important
matter than life. As he had told his stepfather, he
was pledged to the cause and he was pledged to the
men ; and to both he was un^teringly true.
Yet there must have been anxious moments at
Kildare Lodge. Another baby was expected with the
spring ; and Pamela, in spite of the determination she
had expressed to Madame de Genlis to remain in
ignorance of her husband's political designs, cannot
but have been aware to some degree of what
was doing. Lady Sarah, indeed, writing shortly after
Lord Edward's death, expressly states that his wife
had never ceased attempting to use her influence for
the purpose of persuading him of the ill effects of a
revolution — " which she, poor soul, dreaded beyond
all earthly evils " ; and however imperfect was her
information as to the extent and scope of the con-
spiracy, she must have known enough to have caused
her to look back with vain regret to those happy
earlier days when theory had not yet been reduced to
H. Hamilton.
J. Heath.
Lord Edward KitzGkrald.
pii^c 217.
Xite of %ott> £dwatd fftsOerald 247
practice, and Lord Edward, instead of preparing and
organising rebellion, was tending his mother's
flowers at Frescati. It is impossible, calling to mind
the image of the charming, slight, leghe child whose
fate was linked with his, not to be sorry for her, as
she entreated his friends to take care of him.
No doubt they did their best. But there is a point
beyond which the care of friends is of small avail, and
in Lord Edward's case it was not far off.
He was at this time in his thirty-fifth year, of
middle height, or rather below it — he was not above
five feet seven — and there would seem to have been
something still boyish about the agile figure, the
fresh colouring, and the elastic lightness of his tread.
His eyes were grey, set under arched brows and shaded
and softened by the long black lashes which remained
in Moore's memory more than thirty years after the
solitary occasion upon which he saw their owner.
His hair was of so dark a brown as to incline to black.
In manner — the description is that of the feather-
merchant Murphy in whose house he was finally
captured — he was ** as playful and humble as a child,
as mild and timid as a lady " ; while a very different
authority, his cousin Lord Holland, dweUing upon
the charm which " fascinated his slightest acquaintance
and disarmed the rancour of even his bitter opponents,"
describes his ** gaiety of manner, without reserve but
without intrusion," and his "careless yet inoffensive
intrepidity both in conversation and in action."
Such, outwardly, was the man who was to lead the
248 life of %otb tlbwuh fits^ctaXb
desperate attempt to free Ireland from the yoke by
which she was oppressed.
To the spirit in which the enterprise was under-
taken Lord Holland again bears witness. No
personal resentment had a share in it. Events,
personal and public, stirring some men to gloomy
and resentful bitterness, had no power to alter the
sweetness of his disposition. He loathed the
measures ; he forgave the men. *^ Indignant as he
was at the oppression of his country, and intemper-
ate in his language of abhorrence at the cruelties
exercised in Ireland, I could never find that there
was a single man against whom he felt the slightest
personal animosity. He made allowance for the
motives and even temptations of those whose actions
he detested."
This sunny-hearted and generous readiness to be-
lieve the best of all mankind not only bound to him
those whose cause was his own, but attracted towards
the revolutionary leader many whose sympathies would
naturally have lain in a different direction.
Thus it was observed by a frequenter of his house
that men were not seldom to be met at it in whom,
from their position with regard to Government, inter-
course with one so obnoxious to the authorities must
have implied a considerable sacrifice of political
timidity to personal attachment. In particular,
mention is made of a visit from a certain Colonel
L (it was doubdess still expedient, at the time
of writing, to suppress names), who, entering together
%JUt of Xor^ iBbwatb fttsOexaXb 249
with two other men unknown to the narrator but
believed by him to be members of Parliament, placed
on the table a large canvas purse containing gold ; and,
smiling at Lord Edward, observed, "There, my
lord, is provision for "
It was this power of personal influence, the aptitude
for gaining affection and inspiring confidence, the
result rather of his winning and lovable personality
than of any marked talents or ability, which made the
young leader a dangerous enemy, and rendered him
so valuable an auxiliary to the cause with which he
had identified himself.
All was by this time, provisionally at least, arranged.
Towards the end of the year 1796 the military organisa-
tion of the United Irishmen had been adopted in
Leinster. Lord Edward and Arthur O'Connor had
constituted the first Directory of that province ; while
the second included, in addition to these two, Jackson,
Oliver Bond, and McNevin. Lord Edward, besides,
practically filled the post — though it is doubtful
whether he was ever formally elected to it — of head
of the Military Committee, a body whose duty it
was to prepare for co-operation with the expected
succours from France, and to arrange a general plan
of insurrection.
The principal point upon which opinion among
the Chiefs of the Union diflFered, and it divided their
counsels to a dangerous extent, was still the question
whether it was expedient to await the arrival of the
promised assistance from abroad before uttcmt^^ '^
2SO Xite of Xor^ £5wac& fitsOeaOb
rising at home, or to act indq)endentl7 of foreign
support. In this matter Lord Edward, as might
have been expected, lent all the weight of his influence
to the advocacy of the bolder course, O'Connor
being also in favour of it. Emmet and McNevin,
on the other hand, both members of the Supreme
Executive, elected from the Provincial Directories,
gave their vote for the more prudent counseb
of delay.
A curious and characteristic conversation is recorded
by Madden, on the authority of the man with
whom it took place. The pleading of Lord Edward
for immediate action, independent of French suc-
cour, recalls that of the patriarch on behalf of
the doomed city of Sodom, In support of the
opinion entertained by him that the moment for
action was at hand he had cited returns from
which it appeared that one hundred thousand men
might be expected to take the field. The objector,
also a United Irishman, but one of a less sanguine
temperament, pointed out the vital distinction to
be made between numbers on paper and numbers in
the field, and frankly owned that, pledged to the
Union as he himself was, he would not be found in
the ranks of men who should raise the revolutionary
standard in the absence of the conditions essential,
in his opinion, to success. Fifteen thousand French
soldiers, he argued, had been considered necessary
at the time when the enterprise had first been con-
templated ; and owing to the number of English
Xtre of Xor^ £bwar^ f ftjOetalb ^s^
troops now quartered in the country, such an auxiliary
force was, in a still greater degree, indispensable
at present
" What ! " answered Lord Edward, ** would you
attempt nothing without these fifteen thousand men ?
Would you not be satisfied with ten thousand ? "
" I would, my lord," was the reply, " if the aid of
the fifteen thousand could not be procured/*
" But," urged the young leader, ** even if the ten
could not be procured, what would you do then ? **
" I would then,** was the answer, " accept of five,
my lord/*
"But,'* confessed Lord Edward, "we cannot get
five ; and when you know that we cannot, will you
desert our cause?"
" My lord," was the answer, " if five thousand
men could not be obtained, I would seek the assistance
of a sufficient number of French officers to lead
the men ; and with three hundred of these we might
be justified perhaps in making an effort for inde-
pendence, but not without them/' " You, my lord,**
he added afterwards, "are the only military man
amongst us ; but you cannot be everywhere you
are required ; and the misfortune is, you delegate
your authority to those who you think are like
yourself. But they are not like you ; we have no
such persons amongst us/'
They were wholesome truths, frankly uttered. And
there is little doubt that the charge was true. It was
likely enough that the young commander-in-chief did
35a Xife of %otb £^warD fttjOenOD
delegate his authority unwisely ; but how, except
unwisely, could he, under the circumstances mentioned,
have delegated it ? And the weeks crept on, and
French aid, whether of officers or men, was not
sent
Various causes had contributed to the delay.
General Hoche, the commander of the expedition
ending so disastrously, had died a few months
after its failure, and in him the Irish cause had lost
a staunch and zealous advocate. Bonaparte, on the
contrary, on whom the destinies of Europe increasingly
hung, had never testified any cordiality towards the
project. The exceptional opportunity which the
enemies of England might have found in the mutiny
in the British fleet had been permitted to pass
unutilised ; and no immediate prospect of succour
from abroad was apparent.
On the other hand, Lewincs still remained at Paris ;
where his position was such that Lord Clare, in a
speech made in the Irish House of Lords, attributed
the ill success of the British peace negotiations largely
to his influence ; thus crediting the representative
of the United Irishmen with a weight he could
hardly have possessed. However that might be, the
agent was given reason to hope that the matter would
be brought to a successful issue, and it was doubtless
with the object of hastening that result that 0'G)nnor
was despatched to France at the beginning of the
year.
It was not likely that the envoy of the United
Xlfc of Xor& E6war6 f ItsOeraW
253
Irish body would have been permitted to reach his
destination in safety. 0*Connor was a marked man,
who had spent six months of the preceding year
in prison, and had, since his release, been engaged,
in conjunction with Lord Edward and others, in con-
ducting the Press newspaper, the organ of their party
in Dublin. The Government was also already in
possession of information, furnished by McNally, as
to his departure from Ireland, and the mission upon
which he had been sent. But even had it been
otherwise, the arrangements for the journey appear
to have been made for the express purpose of attract-
ing the attention of the authorities, and of facilitating
any attempt at capture. They afford, indeed, another
and a signal instance of the total incapacity of the
conspirators for conducting the business they had in
hand.
Attended, if contemporary papers are to be credited,
by no less than four companions, O'Connor had set
out from London ; and having failed to effect an
embarkation from France at the spot originally selected,
the party proceeded to make their way on foot to
Margate, accompanied by a cart containing a large
amount of luggage. It is scarcely surprising that,
arrived at that place, they were met by officials who
had followed them from Bow, had overtaken them
without undue difficulty, and proceeded to take them
into custody.
O'Connor's trial took place, some weeks later, at
Maidstone ; a military uniform, the key to a cor-
254 Xffe of Xor^ SDwarD f tt3<9eral&
respondence in cypher with Lord Edward, and,
according to some accounts, incriminadng documents
having been found in his possession. The office of
the Press at Dublin was also searched, and all papers
seized ; Lord Edward, who had been in the c^ce
at the time of the raid, " interesting himself much,"
according to a newspaper of the time, ^^ to comfort
the woman of the house,'* and ofiering herself and
her family an asylum in his own house, as compensa-
tion for the trouble which had been brought upon her.
In many quarters fears were entertained that evidence
sufficient would be forthcoming to hang O'Connor.
Writing of the chances of the trial. Fox observed that
ministers were "as unrelenting hunters of lives as
ever lived," and evidently felt alarm as to the result.
Lord Edward, on the other hand, shared no such
apprehensions. He was of too sanguine a spirit to
lend himself to forebodings, declaring besides, not
without a touch of levity, that his friend had had
" nothing odd about him, except twelve hundred
guineas'* — no doubt, taking into account the financial
condition of the party, a startling and suspicious
circumstance !
Lord lulward's hopefulness was on this occasion
justified by the event. O'Connor was acquitted, chiefly
owing to the evidence borne in his favour by the
Whig leaders, who, satirised in a contemporary squib
under the names of Foxton, Sherryman, and others, are
described as "giving him, as they thought, the highest
character in the world (though many thought that they
Xife of Xor^ B^war^ fft3(BeraI^ 255
were unsaying all they had said before) by declaring
that his principles were exactly the same as their own.^^
It will remain a question by what means such men as
Lord Moira and Grattan, both witnesses in O'Connor's
favour, and certainly not likely to perjure themselves
for the sake of a United Irishman, had been brought
to believe in his innocence. If, however, their in-
fluence availed to procure his acquittal, it was of little
service to him. He was at once rearrested, and
removed to Ireland, where he passed the next four
years in confinement.
On Lord Edward's relations, watching the course
of events with natural anxiety, it was inevitable that
the apprehension of his intimate friend and associate
should have produced a disquieting impression ; and
before they had had time to recover from the alarm
it had caused them, a second event had taken place
which threw the other matter into the shade, and was
the beginning of the end.
The year had opened favourably, as far as the re-
volutionary designs were concerned. Ulster, it is true,
owing to more causes than one, was not in a condition
so conducive to cordial co-operation as had been the
case a few months earlier. The seizure, by General
Lake, of a large quantity of arms ; the difference of
opinion existing between the northern and the Leinster
leaders as to the policy of awaiting French aid ;
together with an unfortunate tendency to jealousy on
the part of the Presbyterians of the north with regard
to the Catholic element, by this time so integral and
:=:pcrttr: £ acrrr o? the Unfoa in odier ports of the
cr— -trr, hii aZ cD— />:ncd to lessen the measure of
furr*?r: ?? '>e exnccrsd from the northern province.
B--^ :? sr s^-?: riis. the spread of the oi^anisa-
nr-i f'>eT-.-r^ hii beer, enormous ; and in the returns
— -iii :r Lori Eiw^ri, 15 niilitarv chief, in the month
0: F::rr-i-y, the fbrce regimented and armed through-
e-'-t Irtiir.i wi> esdmared a: scarcely less than three
hu-irfi thiusir.i mer- Nor was the commander-in-
cr.iif likclr :o ake to heart the warning which had
See- Se^trTrri urcr. him w:ih regard to the important
i sr".rr!rr. :r "^e Invr. between numbers on paper and
r.un-bers :-. z'-.c r.eli. On the surface, at all events,
ill rrc.T.:>ei well :cr the chances of success, should a
r!*>-^ be irremrtei. But there was one factor ^ich
r.il n?: been ticcn into account. This was Mr.
T-:: :- -^ jl;:!— :i-: :< -?: entitled to the entire
.-L.i: v :-^^ >L\:..v*. :> rr:?ir!e. \V::h the members
.:" :".L '• B-::j."..:*: ::' TL>:r:?r.y" scattered through-
r:.: :-l :--■:-.• :.~/i r'.y.-.T their trade in every
J. -:-.: — r^.L". :' wrrr: L?ri Moira had publicly
.:„.!.i-i.:, r""^-: " - rl-ue ::: the Irish House of
I. -is :".a: -;. • --u.i.:erL.: :o think such wretches
.»^„!-: r.-..: Lrr:r!:\ -i-.l:.: or protection under any
Gover:.:r.w:.: " — :: :> r.ot possible that the English
.■;::hor:::ts ^ho..ii h.ive renuined in total ignorance
of I co:'.>p:r.ijv which had attained such perilous
^:::v.l:.>-.o:.>, eve:: haJ not the prince of informers,
Lvonarvi McNally, been constantly furnishing them
Xife of Xor^ B^wat^ f tt3(?eral^ 257
with data as to the affairs of the Society. But,
notwithstanding the means of information at their
command, there had still existed, in the first months
of the year, an absence of any such definite evidence
as could have been counted upon to ensure convictions
in the event of the leaders being brought to trial.
That McNally should appear as a witness does not
seem to have been contemplated, the continuance of
his services being probably too valuable to be forfeited
even for such a purpose, and of the other principal
tools of the Government two at least were firm in
their refusal to come publicly forward. Under these
circumstances the authorities were in a dilemma.
It is true that another and a less creditable reason
than that supplied by the absence of sufficient evidence
has been alleged to have been the true cause of the
delay of the Government in taking active measures to
put an end to the conspiracy. It has been asserted
that, for reasons of their own, they had no desire to
intervene in such a manner as to prevent the imminent
insurrection. In support of this explanation of the
inertia at headquarters Lord Clonmell is said to have
declared on his death-bed that the United Irishmen
had been expressly permitted to carry on their work
unhindered, with a view to the fecilitation of their
ultimate destruction, adding that he himself had
entered a vain protest against this policy.
" As to myself," he is quoted as saying, " if I were
to begin life again, I would rather be a chimney-sweep
than connected with the Irish Government."
ass Xife of Xord £&warb f ftsOeealD
With the explanation thus furnished of the tardiness
displayed by the authorities in taking action, certain
documents, however, conflict, and a letter from Lord
Camden to the Duke of Portland, written in February,
1798, should be taken into account. In this com-
munication the arrest of the rebel leaders, in the
absence of evidence sufficient to justify a trial, is
proposed ; the suggestion, characteristic as it was of
Irish administration of justice, being emphatically and
unconditionally negatived by the Duke.
Whatever may have been the cause of the previous
delay, there can be no doubt that to Reynolds belongs
the distinction of having made so definite a betrayal
of the secrets confided to him, as holding a trusted
position in the Union, as to place it in the power
of the Government to strike with certainty and safety
at the heads of the organisation.
It was in NovembcT, 1797, that the meeting with
Lord Edward had taken place, resulting in his advance-
ment to a post of importance in the society of which
he was already a member. On the 25th of the
following February, chancing to have as travelling-
companion on some journey a Mr. Cope — a gendeman
" in whose friendship and honour I had the most
implicit confidence " (the words read like satire) — he
was induced to disclose to him in part the extent of
the conspiracy, with an account of the proceedings at
the meeting already mentioned, held some six days
previously, of which he had been furnished with a
report by Lord Edward himself Nor was this all ;
lite of Xot!) £t>wari> f itsOeralZ)
259
for he supplied further information with regard to a
second projected meeting, to include the whole pro-
vincial Directory of Leinster, to take place in Dublin
on March 12 th, at the house of Oliver Bond.
From this time the Government saw its way clearly.
AH was arranged with the authorities, and on the
occasion of the proposed meeting the blow was to be
struck.
The day before the eventful March 12 th was a
Sunday, and on that morning Mr, Reynolds, whose
proceedings at this juncture can be traced in curious
detail, hospitably entertained at breakfast a member of
the Society, *' no particular conversation ** taking place
during the meal, owing to the presence of his wife.
During a walk, however, taken by Reynolds and his
guest before they separated, the latter enjoined upon
the informer a punctual attendance at the meeting
on the following day — an injunction to which Mr.
Reynolds doubtless promised obedience ; although he
relates that later in the day, ** not wishing to be at the
meeting, as I knew it was to be arrested, 1 wrote a
note to Bond, stating that Mrs. Reynolds was taken
very ill/' and consequently excusing himself from
attendance.
His Sunday's work was stiU incomplete. Having
no doubt attended divine service in the interval, the
ex-member of the Catholic Committee paid a visit to
Lord Edward, then, with his wife, staying at Leinster
House ; with the object^ — in which he was successful
^Hjf inducing his young chief, for whom he appears
use c( Xcc^ E^«ar^ f itiOcraO)
' '-..; :--r-u.-'r- i ps-^urne though incongruous
-::;r-..-:- :: i.>^-- rr^.i*:!: ircn the meeting on the
T^.T— :'v A T^nzsz T&xr produced bjr Reynolds
:-•.:. .:'-ii.-.T;i ^.-^jrr-is 15 ^^ the course to be
".~^^:: r^ zr-t l^^r:*r>' Corps in case of riot or
:^--~^ >rir^rz rr Ljri E^rriri ro point to the posscs-
s ; • :•- • vrr-j.r :- r? >r=e iiir.l on the part of the
."^: :-^.rr:''- l- : ^sr r^\t Itr.z weight to his guest's
-•*'^->c-':iT :•-. Hi -s-fw-ed, he obser\-ed, that he
.-•^^ ^t :-r- :: r-xr,:^, w.:h which country com-
- - - .-*r :." vi? iz r-j.: -r.crr.cr.: interrupted ; since,
. •,.: :• ■•; *^«:\ 'i -sr-Ii S? ib!?, ?y means of his
• " - .--• V • 1 :-I: .-i.-i. :: -i5:t" the French in\'asion.
7'*^ -.-«-.: --..* r ; '.LT. ^i lii^ri. wculd be to fill a
-"; w '•.-:-^ -^ -^c^'i^ ^'*' ^"^cers and Irishmen
.-. -.-* ^.-N.-* i- -;ri c-irarie of drilling the
.- .... . • ■ ^ . : _ : : ". i::i to put off
- . • ■ . ' ■ . - . - . . . ■':-.:;■■ v-:-r>^::on, suhse-
. ■ . >. ^ : J:vcrr.r:ient, after
•- .- - < *- !.:.; Lcri Edward,
^-. - - : -:.:•. :.'' iir.r.er, but he
;:. .. -. . :::>.icred his dav's
J ^-.; "ri :he appro\-al
. .. v^ . ... ... -.: -i.: :o his well-earned
..-.-, '--.,-< .,j; b>cer. thoroughly pcr-
- ... ; -. "i >..-.> :-.<;.r. by the Government
.\: -. J, .. "Ni^^-t'.^c of his disclosures, were
:..:..: v% :- .^. b^: won:p!c:e success. No less than
Xife ot Xor^ B^war^ f it3(?eral^ 261
fifteen members of the G)mmittee were arrested at
the place of meeting itself, while four others, absent
from Bond's house when the raid was made, were taken
into custody almost simultaneously. All papers were
likewise seized.
CHAPTER X\TI
1-98
ExcTtrxs^ct in Dcbixn — PuaeU— Lord Edward's Funfly —
L ri Cut]«reifh's Syspathy— Lord Edward's Evaskxi —
Vir.c'^ Reports — Keyncids's Curious Coaduct — Meeting
ct Lcri E«^rard a::d Pamela — Martial Law — Lord
Edward's Por.tioz— Spurt in which be met iL
THAT Minrh Monday must have been z day
rr" c\j teriL*-:: ::: Dublir.. The Government
.1:..: :-:,. Ci>*^c -^.i.: the r cw:: cjuse of exultation, and
:hc r::'-!.i:i :> rwv. .-: :".-,?r.s uron that cause. When
Lor.: C!.=.rv, r..i>: ".y s^:.: for on the arrest of the
Cv?::<r.M:."'> :? .i::e::.: the n:cct:r.g of the Council,
\v.i> huTv.!.:: t^? c'?ev the sun^mons, the mob greeted
h.r.\ with abuse, rcturi.evi by him with interest,
'*cur>ir.^ .1::.: N\ve.ir:r.g like a madman."
The::. f.iHiiig ::: with Lord Westmeath, the two
ei-.terevi a shop, procured pistols, and, thus armed,
the Chancellor proceeded on foot to the Council.
Many there will have been, throughout the length
and breadth ot Dublin, who» as the intelligence spread
of the wholesale arrests which had taken place at
a6a
%AU Of Xot^ £bwar^ fftjOeralb 363
Bond's house, will have asked themselves and one
another the question, ** Who next ? "
And where was Lord Edward meanwhile, the
leader whose escape, should it be effected, would leave
the triumph of the Government still incomplete ; and
in whom the hopes of the people, those others
they had trusted removed, would centre themselves
more and more exclusively ?
This was the question asked by all, with varpng
d^ees of anxiety, ranging from that felt by Pamela
as she sat, sick and alone, in the great house in
Kildare Street which had seemed to the country
housemaid like a prison, to the malevolent interest
of the Government officials, or the idle curiosity of
the lounger in the street.
It was clear that he had not attended the doomed
meeting. It was also certain— or seemed to be so—
that he was not at Leinster House ; though, in point
of feet, he had been only prevented from entering it
at the very moment when search was being made for
him there by the warning of the faithful Tony.
According to a report in circulation, he was said to
have been present at the arrest of McNcvin, one of
the absent members of the G)mmittee who had been
separately apprehended, and it was added that he had
only escaped out of the clutches of the Sheriffs officers
by virtue of the fact that his name was included in no
warrant at hand. But whether or not this rumour was
to be credited, he had disappeared, and had, for the
moment, given his enemies the slip.
264 Xifc Of Xor^ B^war^ fft3<BeniR>
At Letnster House a mishap had occurred which
might have seriously aiFected the issue had the case
against Lord Edward ever come to be tried in court.
Although timely warning had been sent to Pamela,
and she had been specially cautioned to effect the
destruction of all incriminating documents, her presence
of mind in face of the crisis appears to have deserted
her, unless indeed the scarcely credible hypothesis is
accepted which would make her ignorant of the
existence of any necessity for such precautions. At
all events, she appears to have taken no steps to obey
the directions given to her ; with the result that, on
the arrival of a search party commissioned to demand
the surrender of all papers belonging to herself or
to Lord Edward, she had no alternative but to deliver
them up. She accordingly did so, though not without
signs of such evident distress that Major O'Kelly,
the officer in C(Mnmand of the detachment, is s^d to
have pertbrmed his duty in tears.
Though such a display of her sentiments might not
he altogether judicious upon Pamela's part, it was
natural enough that, if she had had time to examine
into the nature of the documents she had so un-
accountably allowed to fall into the hands of the
authorities, she should have experienced some un-
easiness. Amongst them was one — found in Lord
Mdward*s desk — dealing with the fashion after which,
in case of a conflict taking place in Dublin itself,
the fight should be conducted ; as well as a map
of the town annotated for military purposes by a
Xife of Xor^ £bwar^ f itjOeralb 365
gunmakcr. The story goes that, information having
reached this faithful follower of the fact that his
handiwork had fallen into the possession of the
Government, he presented himself at once to the
authorities, claimed the map boldly as his own, making
answer, when asked for what purpose he had drawn
it out, that it had been ^ for his amusement," and
so did his best to shield his chief.
The papers secured, the tearful O'Kelly, with his
men, had retired, only to return shortly afterwards
to Kildare Street in order to institute a fresh search,
this time for Lord Edward himself, now ascertained
beyond doubt to be not of the number of the
arrested leaders. The quest, thanks to Tony's watch-
fulness, proved vain — a fact of which Pamela was
thoughtfully apprised by O'Kelly, to whom she after-
wards addressed a letter in grateful acknowledgment
of the consideration with which his duty had been
performed.
Others, besides Lord Edward's wife, were in sore
distress and anxiety on his accoimt. The Duchess
was, perhaps fortunately, in England at the time ;
neither was Mr. Ogilvie, though visiting Dublin at a
later date, as yet upon the spot. His wife's two
sisters, however. Lady Sarah Napier and Lady Louisa
ConoUy, were both at hand ; and their rebel nephew
was scarcely less dear to the one than to the other,
although the affection of the childless Lady Louisa
was naturally of a more absorbing type than that
of the sister surrounded by a band of sons and
366 xiCe of %otb £5vrarb fttiOctalb
daughters of her own. It is, indeed, noticeable that
in neither of these two aunts, or indeed in any others
of the tamily, is a trace discernible of any anger or
irritation with regard to the line of conduct which
had been the cause of so much anxiety, or of any
sentiment other than an absolute confidence in the
rectitude of the man they loved so well, combined
with the tenderest solicitude concerning his safety.
L^iusual facilities exist for ascertaining not only
the state of their feelings at this time, but also the
daily course of events, so far as they were known
to them. Lady Sarah, whose husband was in a
condition of health which made it desirable that he
should remain ignorant at the moment of disquiet-
ing occurrences, kept for his benefit a minute record
of the events which followed upon the ministerial
.vup. III this vi::iry is contained, in particular, a
i:r.ip:v.c .K\\ni:;t or' .i visit paid by Lady Louisa, on
the \\\\:::csvi.iy .ir'rcr the arrests, to the house of a
mirv.srcrial tricrui, Mr, P [Pakenham], and of
.1 co:ivcrsario!T there carried on with Lord Castlereagh.
La.iy Louisa, who appears to have been in a
condition bordering upon distraction, slightly ex-
asperating to her stronger-minded sister, had appointed
another nephew. Lord Charles FitzGerald, to meet
her at the Pakenhains' house. In his stead, however.
Lord Castlereagh appearevi, with the explanation that,
in spite of differences ot opinion (Lord Charles, two
years later, was counted amongst the supporters of
the Union), nature was strong, and that Lord Edward's
Xlfe ot Xor^ E^war^ f tt5(Beral& 367
brother had found himself so much overcome by the
events of Monday that he had set off early the
following morning for the country, to get out of
the way.
Having offered this somewhat lame interpretation
of the conduct of his friend, Lord Charles's apologist
addressed himself to the task of consoling that other
relation of the fugitive, whose feelings had not had
the effect of hurrying her from the scene of action.
He informed her soothingly that she might rely upon
the earnest wishes of Government to do aU they could
for Lord Edward, " who was so much loved,** adding,
with a ring of greater sincerity, that, ** as he can*t be
found, no harm can happen to him *' — a more con-
vincing argument for hope than the picture of a
paternal Government yearning to show mercy.
Lord Gistlereagh also added that he pitied Lady
Edward "most exceedingly*' — ^which everybody alike
seems to have done.
The host*s part in the conversation is also recorded.
(" Fine flummery ! '* comments Lady Sarah contemp-
tuously.) "He only hoped in God he should not
meet Lord Edward, as it would be a sad struggle be-
tween his duty and friendship *' — friendship, one may
believe, to the Conollys, the wealthy and influential
owners of Castletown, rather than to the culprit
himself.
" Louisa took all this as it was intended she
should,'* adds her sister, still scornful ; " but when
she was out of the room, Emily " — Lady Sarah's own
a68 xite of Xor& £5war5 fft50e^a^
daughter, adopted by the ConoUys— " heard Sir G. S.
express his hopes that Lord Edward would be caught ;
and she did not hear or see anything like a con-
tradiction to this wish from any of the company."
It was indeed clear that, whatever might have
been the attitude of the Government some weeks
earlier, they were very much in earnest in their desire
to possess themselves of Lord Edward's person ;
and later on Lord Clare, who had formerly given
the assurance to Mr. Ogilvie that no hindrance should
be placed in the way of the young man's escape,
told Lord Auckland, with satisfaction, that it was
expected that such evidence would be forthcoming
as would enable them to ^^ bring many of the leading
traitors to justice, and at their head Lord Edward
FitzGerald."
For the present, however, he was fortunately out
of their power, and the question occupying all who
were attached to him was how he should be kept
out of it.
Lady Louisa, fresh from the consolations of Lord
Castlereagh, went to visit ** poor little Pamela," sick
at Leinster House, to adjure her to be silent as
to any information she might possess as to the
fugitive's whereabouts — surely an unnecessary injunc-
tion — and to advise her to remain where she was,
receiving all callers, in order to demonstrate that she
was innocent of plotting mischief.
Pamela, whose '* fair, meek, and pitiable " account
of what had taken place made an excellent impression
upon Lord Edward's aunt, agreed to all the sugges-
tions offered ; and Lady Louisa went back to the
Pakenhams, to make a report of her goodness and
gentleness, and no doubt to assure them of the
certainty, of which Pamela had managed to convince
her visitor, entert^ned by his wife of Lord Edward's
innocence and safety. One cannot escape the con-
clusion that Pamela was either a very ingenious or
a strangely unsuspicious woman. Is it conceivable
that, living day by day with a man steeped in so-called
treason, the head of a conspiracy about to break into
open insurrection, compromised as deeply as rebel
could be, his wife could have remained ignorant of
the fact ? Yet this incredible hypothesis is the only
alternative to the theory that she was deliberately
and successfully deluding his aunt into a belief in
her conviction of his innocence.
Regarding the place of concealment of the object
of the general anxiety all sorts of rumours continued
to circulate as the days went by.
It was asserted that he had been seen in a post-
chaise at Newry, in the company of his brother
Charles — the same whose feelings had compelled him
to absent himself from Dublin, and who, one may
believe, would in no wise have welcomed the society
of so compromising a fellow-traveller. According to
another rumour, he had succeeded in making good
his escape to France. That this last report continued
to prevail ts to be inferred from a letter from Lord
Bulkcley to Mr. Dundas, containing an account
27> Xife of Xorb £5wart> f lt5(BeraU>
person of his chief ? To whatever cause his conduct
was due, the result was the same, and Lord Edward
continued at liberty.
Notwithstanding the advice given by Lady Lowsa
that Pamela should remain at Leinster House— Conolly,
always a cautious man, having forbidden his wife to
receive her at her own — she intimated to Lady Sarah,
on the day of Reynolds's second interview with Lord
Edward, that her present place of residence had grown
detestable to her, and announced her intention of
hiring a quiet house of her own.
" She bid me," adds Lady Sarah, " tell my sister
Leinster to be quiUy quite easy. To write would
be folly in her^ and indeed in «j, for all letters are
opened now ; so I only wrote to Mrs. Johnston,
and made a child direct it, desiring her to send for
Mr. Ogilvic, and show it him. We know nothing
yet of how my poor sister will take it — I fear very
hxsWyr
Pamela's determination to change her quarters was
explicable enough. It may well have occurred both
to her and to Lord Edward that communication would
be easier and safer in an unpretentious lodging than
should she continue to tenant the Duke's great house.
At any rate, she carried out her intention without
delay. On the very day when she had declared
it — the one on which Lord Edward's hiding-place
was to be changed for another — he visited her at her
fresh abode, in Denzille Street ; and the confidential
maid who, with Tony, had accompanied her thither,
Xtte of Xort> E^warb f tt5<BeraU> 373
was startled, on entering the room that night, to find
her master, whom she had imagined to be in France,
sitting with his wife in the firelight, both, as she
believed, in tears ; while little Pamela, not yet two
years old, had been brought down from her bed in
order that her father might take leave of her.
It was the last meeting of husband and wife for
over a month — their last meeting but one, so far as
any record remains, on this side of the grave.
Other matters besides purely personal ones must
have been discussed that night ; for on the following
day — the statement is made on the authority of Mr.
Reynolds's son — the informer had an interview with
Pamela, when she handed over to him on Lord
Edward's behalf certain sums due to the funds of
the Society, Reynolds being still an accredited member
of it. She also gave him a ring to serve as a guarantee
of the authenticity of any communication he might
have occasion to send to her ; and finally complained
to him of her own lack of available money, in conse-
quence of which the compassionate Reynolds sent her
fifty pounds, having placed the like sum at Lord
Edward's disposal on the previous day.
The statement may be taken for what it is worth.
It is a singular coincidence, and one which does
not tend to corroborate it, that in Lady Sarah
Napier's diary there is an entry the very day before
that of Pamela's interview with the informer, to the
effect that she had sent her nephew's wife the sum
of twenty pounds, in case she might find herself in
18
▼3.:- :f -a^T r.:r-7. ^rr=^ ^^^ Pi=cfa had rc-
-•r-e^ =i^ VT see T^ riertj br facr. It is of
iv^-ic rrss;:.- ir;i: ^-.t rac =,dc boc= s«»r at the
z't viT s:-- :c tr* =.iccx ar hand belonged
•■ "- =^-^^^- 5.-; »i= =,rc iva£jabic tor pcnooal
.*c. -: - ITT ISA: .: .5 diSz-Zr ro bc&cve that,
- lis: :: -«« ?-t *^:.l: -:•: hrre prctemd to be
-:- -ti :: -tr r.^ri-i 5 x:^: rzrhcr than to the
House,
-^ ^
-xtzy. I: cir.-i:: be dcxibtcd that the
:t.Tt .: G:v-r.-e-: :: uj hir.is upon the only
rr.i- w-.-.ss i:c-i r.:x.-::e w:r: nilirary afiairs could
;ui-:r. r.i.T. :: ::r-i«;;t ir. ir.rurrcction with any
c-i':r r,f t-::css ^rrw s'j-rr.rer mi stronger as they
'.-'■-"-' ' "* " ''■ -vTw-r :: :r.e conspiracr,
•'.. . .-*.::.-: i-e ^^er^y c:sphved
r. , J • J j.^: • ~'. -ir V :-e rrcer.: action of
•■'. ^ V-:' -v ■ -- -J. ^.:: - ::" :he Society, and
•: :' ;• -.:>:-..:::•: f:-:: Directory/ were
:-. f •'.:• -: : '^v^ :: r.:-.: >..!Ttrei had not been
r.i- :! •. :'« V'.;! r' r.--. I: is >a:i that on the very
cvr-j 'Y -hi: :irr^^> three .ipr^^::::ments were made
t'/ t';li *'.'j va.l:'..:c^ !cf: ::: the Leinster Executive;
;i'! ! .1 h.i:: !:■ II ; i:: i:.:) cir^uhtion only five days later
;'.e. :tfi i :e;i 'f the 'urnvcarying efforts at work
i'» k'.e;- ij;- the cjiiraye anJ spirits of the national
I trty. I'reerve.l hy Moorc, it is worth summarising
hrrc
Xite ot Xorb £5warb f it5<BetaI& 275
"For us," so it runs, **the keen but momentary
anxiety occasioned by the situation of our invaluable
friends subsided into a calm tranquillity, a consoling
conviction of mind that they are as safe as innocence
can make men now ; and to these sentiments were
quickly added a redoubled energy, a tenfold activity
of exertion which has already produced the happiest
effects. The organisation of the capital is perfect ; . . .
the sentinels whom you have appointed to watch
over your interests stand firm at their posts, vigilant
of events, and prompt to give you notice and advice,
which, on every occasion at aU requiring it, you
may rely on receiving. . . . Your enemies talk of
treachery, in the vain and fallacious hope of creating
it ; but you, who scorn equally to be their dupes
or their slaves, will meet their forgeries with dignified
contempt, incapable of being either goaded into un-
timely violence or sunk into pusillanimous despondency.
Be firm, Irishmen, but be cool and cautious ; be
patient yet awhile ; trust to no unauthorised com-
munications ; and above aU we warn you, again and
again we warn you, against doing the work of your
tyrants by premature, by partial or divided exertion.
If Ireland shall be forced to throw away the scabbard,
let it be at her own time, not at theirs."
Evidence of the unbroken and undaunted spirit
displayed cannot have been wanting to the Govern-
ment ; and as more and more information reached
the authorities, the measures they adopted increased
proportionately in stringency and rigour. They
276 lite of Xor^ £^war^ f tt50ecald
culminated in the proclamation, on March 30th, of
martial law and free quarters — a proceeding followed
by what has been characterised by an historian whose
rigid impartiality and unexaggerated veracity none
will question as '' a scene of horrors hardly surpassed
in the modern history of Europe."
It is not necessary to enter here into the sickening
details of the system of barbarous and savage brutality
of which the unhappy peasants were made the victims
through the instrumentality of an army whose con-
dition was described by its own commander, Sir Ralph
Abercrombie, as *'a state of licentiousness that
rendered it formidable to every one but the enemy."
But it must be borne in mind that the scenes
enacted through the length and breadth of the
country have been allowed on all hands to have been
the cause of hastening on the insurrection and of
making further postponement impossible.
In Dublin itself and its vicinity the measures of
the Government had been marked by special prompti-
tude and energy. Within a fortnight of the arrests
at Bond's, so strictly enforced were the orders to
institute everywhere a search for arms that domi-
ciliary visits were paid for that purpose to the houses
of men as well known as Mr. ConoUy and Colonel
Napier.
Of the warning conveyed to Lady Louisa Conolly,
in the absence of her husband, of the impending
search, and of her reception of the intelligence, a
graphic account is given by Lady Sarah. The timorous
life or %oxb Kbvoavb f tt50eral^ 977
and nervous Lady Louisa had, to the indignation
of her sister, treated the officer by whom it had
been brought with all courtesy and meekness, going
so far as to desire that gentleman — plainly dis-
posed to treat the search in the present case as a
matter of form — not to allow his civility to interfere
with the performance of his duty.
**Thus," pursues the high-spirited Lady Sarah —
" thus did my dear sister so aUer her nature that she
submitted to be disarmed and leave her house a prey
to vagabonds. . . . What perversion in the noblest
nature may be compassed by cunning, by nerves, and
by habits of having terror rung in her ears for years !
I had neither time nor thoughts to answer, argue, or
try to convince her " — Lady Louisa had come over
to her sister's house to communicate to Lady Sarah
the warning she had herself received — " I thanked her
for the notice and rejoiced to be prepared \ and on
reflection I now determine to refuse to aUow the search
or to give up the arms."
To which determination, it may be added. Lady
Sarah steadily adhered, successfully vindicating her
right to retain the means of defence.
On the same morning that Lady Louisa's visit
had been paid. Lady Sarah had received another, this
time from a Mr. Henry, with whom the political
situation, and in especial Lord Edward's share in it,
was discussed. It was the opinion of the guest that
the Government still continued to desire the escape
of the young leader. He, however, C3r~*«*^ his
21& Xite ot Xor^ £6war5 fft3<Beca(&
fears that the latter would be tempted " to draw the
sword and throw away the scabbard, for that thejr
(I don't know who Henry includes in ikey) all say
that if Edward is taken or touched they xvoM*i bear it."
Lady Sarah also learnt from the same informant
that *^ Lord Ormond and Sparrow made themselves
constables, searching for Edward with two dragoons,
the latter vowing he would bring him dead or
alive."
In spite, however, of the endeavours of poUce,
professional and amateur, Lord Edward continued to
remain at large. Nor, whatever might be the case
with Pamela, does it seem that any of his relations
were aware of his whereabouts.
Yet he was, in fact, during the ten weeks for which
he contrived to baffle his pursuers, never absent from
Dublin or its immediate vicinity.
His presence in the neighbourhood was no fool-
hiirdy courting of danger ; it was clearly necessary.
Taking into account all the circumstances of the case,
the activity and vigour of the Government, and the
possibility that, in the excited condition of the people,
immediate action might be rendered at any moment
expedient or necessary, it was essential that the man
on whom the command of the enterprise would
devolve should remain at hand, ready at any time,
in the event of an emergency, to take the direction
of affairs.
In no case was it likely that, at this eleventh hour,
Lord Edward would have been induced to consult
%Atc ot Xorb £&warb ^itaOeralb
«>9
his own safety by withdrawing to a distance. Yet the
position might well have seemed to most men little
short of desperate. The blow struck by Government,
important as it was to minimise it, had been a crush-
ing one, depriving the conspiracy of close upon a score
of its ablest heads, and diminishing to an incalculable
d^ee its chances of success. It must further — in
spite of the denial contained in the handbill which
has been quoted — have been suspected, if not known,
that the information which had enabled the Govern-
ment to aim that blow with such precision and
exactitude had been due to treachery ; and in the
absence of power to bring home the guilt to any
individual, it was not surprising if men, carrying their
lives in their hands, should have been tempted to
look upon each other with distrust.
It was also clear that French assistance, alone
promising a fair chance of success to the rising, was
no nearer than before. In a note which reached Lord
Edward some weeks later, couched, for the purpose
of evading suspicion, in ambiguous terms, the Irish
agent at Paris wrote that the desired advance of 5,000
pounds — jealousy of too large an invading force had
limited the request to that number of men — had been
refused, that no payment would be made short of the
entire, and even that not for four months. It might
as well have been four years.
Nor, turning from public to persona
the prospect upon which the eyes of the ^
rested less menacing. A hunted man, v
on, a price upon his head ; separated from the wife
he loved at the time of her greatest need; his own
future, with hers, and that of their little children and
the baby still unborn, lying dark and uncertain before
him ; his closest friend awaiting in prison his trial on
a capital charge ; his comrades, true and lojral, most
of them scattered or fallen into the hands of the
enemy ; cut off from all possibility of communication
with the mother he loved so well, and the thought
of whose anxiety must have been in itself a burden
heavy to bear, — such was Lord Edward's position
through those weeks of loneliness and peril. It
was a position which might well have taken effect
upon the most courageous heart, the most gallant
temper.
Yet, with all this, his spirit, so far as can be known,
never flagged. Throughout these weeks of daily peril,
when he could feel no security, as each morning broke,
that evening would not rind him run to earth by the
men who were hunting him down, the prey of a false
friend or a paid informer, when the weight, more
oppressive than that of personal danger, of the supreme
responsibility for the direction of the movement which
represented to him the salvation of the country and
of the miserable people, tortured, murdered, and
desperate, rested upon his shoulders, his courage
never failed. He faced the chances of death with as
gentle and light-hearted a gallantry as he had faced
those of life. Only when he was at last tracked down,
when the hope of being of further service to his
cause was at an end, is any trace evident of a
readiness to relinquish the struggle.
" I am sorry for it," he replied quietly, upon being
told that the wound he had received in the fight
which had just taken place was not dangerous. It was
his solitary expression of regret.
CHAPTER X\Tn
1798
Lofd Edward in Hiding — Haxrfareadth Eyapra — Lojaltj and
Treacbay— In Thomas Street— Last Visit to His Wife —
Issorrectiooary Plans — Higgins and Magan — ^Attempt at
Capture — Acquittal of Lord Kingston — Lord Edward
tracked, wounded, and taken Prisoner.
THE history of Lord Edward during the following
weeks is the history of a hunted man — a record
of hairbreadth escapes, of fitfiil caution alternating
with the reckless foolhardiness which familiarity with
danger seldom fails to breed. It is a story of sordid
and cold-blooded treachery and of heroic tidelin^*.
There is no contrast more striking than that pre-
sented at this moment by the histor)' of the countr>'
between instances of repeated and deliberate betrayal
of trust by men whose position and standing might
have seemed to be a guarantee of integrit)*, and the
most unshaken and incorruptible loyalty on the part
of others to whom the offered bribes would have meant
the exchange of poverty and want for undreamt-of
riches. The story is well known of the escape of
Hamilton Rowan, when a couple of boatmen, with the
282
f^
Xifc of Xord j£Dward ^itji^erald 2S3
very handbills in their possession which offered a
hundred pounds for his apprehension, carried him safely
over to France. On another occasion three militia
soldiers, condemned to death as United Irishmen, chose
rather to give up their lives than to purchase pardon
by the betrayal of their comrades, the father of one of
the three, when desired to use his influence for the
purpose of saving his son, declaring that he would
shoot him himself sooner than see him turn informer.
And again and again Lord Edward, placed by his
rashness in circumstances of the utmost jeopardy, was
safeguarded by the fidelity of those in whose power
he lay.
On the other hand, it seemed to cost little to men
like Reynolds, or like Higgins the journalist and
Magan the barrister — the two who share between them
the honour of his final betrayal — to convert themselves
into Government tools. In the same way Captain
Armstrong — with, be it remembered, the emphatic ap-
proval of his brother-oflicers — gained the confidence of
the unfortunate Sheares brothers, associated with them
on friendly terms, acquired possession of their secrets,
wound up by dining with them and their family on the
eve of the catastrophe — a proceeding with r^rd to
which it is fair to say that he had himself entertained
scruples, removed by Lord Gistlereagh — and delivered
them over the following day to the vengeance of the
Government. It was no wonder that acts such as
these gave birth in some instances to altogether un-
merited distrust ; and as a proof of the lengths to
a84 %XU Of Xotd £MnnO fttjOecalft
which suspicion might go, it is strange to find that
Mr. Ogilvie, whose devoted and lifelong affection for
his stepson might have been expected to exempt him
from suspicion, was at one time regarded in the Ught
of a possible betrayer.
It was not considered advisable that Lord Edward
should remain for any length of time in the same place
of concealment ; and the retreat that had been selected
for him upon leaving the house in which he had
received the visits of Reynolds was the home of a lady
named Dillon, who lived close to the Grand Canal at
Portobello Bridge.
Though unacquainted, except by reputation, with
the man to whom shelter was to be afforded, she con-
sented, at the request of Mr. Lawless, a surgeon and
one of the ablest of the United Irishmen still at laige^
to receive the fugitive. Under her hospitable roof he
reni:iirR\i for close upon ;i month, ready at hand in case
any emergency should call for Immediate action ; and
in the meantime eluding, so far as it was possible,
observation.
It must have been an anxious time for his hostess,
who had quickly attached herself to the young leader
confided to her care, with his winning ways and love-
able nature, and his rash disregard of the commonest
rules which prudence would have prescribed. To be
cautious was not possible to him, however momentous,
to himself and the country, might be the interests at
stake ; and a flagrant example of his carelessness was
afforded by the prompt discovery, by a servant in Mrs.
%Afc ot Xor^ Edward f itjCBerald 385
Dillon's household, of the identity of her visitor " Mr.
Jameson " with the rebel chief, owing to his name
being written at full in one of his boots. In this in-
stance the secret had fortunately fallen into safe hands,
the man assuring his mistress that she had no cause
for alarm, as he would die to save her guest. He like-
wise refused, with a caution and foresight Lord
Edward might have done well to imitate, to receive the
acknowledgments of the fugitive in person ; in order
that, in case of necessity, he might be able to swear
that he had never seen him.
So long as daylight lasted Lord Edward was per-
force obliged to confine himself to the house ; but
when the fi-iendly darkness — the late dusk of the
spring evenings— came on, he would issue forth, a
child who chanced to be at hand his usual companion.
As the two playfellows — the one, it would seem,
scarcely less light-hearted than the other — returned
along the water's edge, Lord Edward amusing him-
self with the alarm of his little companion as he sprang
into the half-sunk boats that lay in the canal, the
sound of their laughter would reach the ears of the
anxious woman waiting at home, and she would go
out to meet her guest and warn him of the
necessity for caution — a warning no doubt accepted
with penitence and gratitude, and dismissed without
delay from the memory of the delinquent
A great conspiracy had also been entered into
between himself and his little associate, to while away
the hours, having for its object the uprooting of a
386 %AU Of Xotd E5ward fft30eraI^
bank of orange lilies in the absence of their lawful
owner. Truly they were children together.
Even to the most light-hearted, however, moments
must come when the pressure of anxiety will make
itself felt. At such times the thoughts of the fugitive
would turn to his wife and babies ; and he would wait
eagerly for news of the household in Denzille Street,
of the poor sick wife and her children, Edward Fox
and baby Pamela. Mrs. Dillon would then go into
Dublin to obtain tidings of them ; and having guned
the certainty that all was, for the present at least, well,
her visitor would no doubt take courage again.
Life during these weeks and those which followed
was not wanting, as may be imagined, in distractions
of a more exciting nature than could be afibrded by
an onslaught upon unoffending lilies. To a man of
Lord Kdward's boyish temperament and love of
adventure the risks he ran would not have been
without their charm. A story, for example, is told
of how on one occasion a yeoman named Dempsey —
the tale was preserved in his family and will remain
its title to honour — on guard at Lcixlip Bridge, was
accosted at dawn one day by a countryman in frieze
coat ami corduroy breeches, with the question whether
there was any night park at hand where he might
house the sheep he was driving before him.
" No, my lord,'' was the significant reply ; " there
is no pasturage in this neighbourhood."
And the eyes of the two men will have met, in full
comprehension of all that was left unsaid. Then, no
Xite of Xord E5war& f ftjOetald 387
other word spoken, the sentinel resumed his beat,
and the drover passed on, possessed of a new proof
of the loyalty of the people to their chief, and with a
fresh hopefulness at his heart.
On another occasion, later on, the peril incurred
was more serious. The fugitive was actually arrested
by a patrol when engaged in making a survey of the
country about Kildare, in company with Samuel
Neilson, one of the most prominent United Irishmen
remaining at liberty, and the same who, with more
acutcness than had been displayed by wiser men, had
conceived a doubt of Reynolds*s honesty.
Neilson — of whom, curiously enough, Grattan had
a better opinion than of most of his associates, and
who had also been consulted by the Chief Secretary,
Pelham, with regard to the possibility of conciliating
the North — was a Belfast journalist, violent, in-
temperate, and imprudent. He was held by some to
be not altogether accountable for his conduct when
under the stress of excitement, and his reckless indis-
cretion at the time of Lord Edward's arrest drew
upon him, probably quite unjustly, the suspicion of
treachery. By his great stature and Herculean propor-
tions he was rendered almost as conspicuous and as
undesirable a companion for a hunted man as poor
black Tony, who lamented to Mrs. Dillon the fact
that his " unfortunate face " was an obstacle to his
visiting his master while he was in hiding. Of
his extraordinary physical strength evidence was given
when he was brought to trial before Lord Carleton —
a88 xffe Of Xord £^wat^ f ttsOenld
that judge the sharpness of whose severity was ex-
plained by Curran when he described him as water
turned to ice, congealed fears — ^the jailer excusing
himself for the unusual weight of the irons put upon
the prisoner by the assertion that though he would
not have made use of such fetters for any other two
men, they were, in this case, necessary for his own
safety.
It was in the company of this person that Lord
Edward was arrested by the patrol. Neilson, however,
pretended to be drunk. Lord Edward assumed the
character of a doctor, and both were set at liberty.
On yet another occasion, a police officer having
been observed to be taking note of the house where
the refugee was concealed, and a raid upon it being
consequently apprehended, he was promptly put to
bed, in the absence of her mistress, by Mrs. Dillon's
maid, and so disposed as, in case of a search, to
represent an invalid lady. The alarm, however, proved
to have been a false one, and nothing came of it,
except much laughter on the part of the chief actor
in the play.
The fact, however, which had given rise to the
apprehension being taken into account, together with
one or two other suspicious circumstances, it was
decided that the place of concealment should once
more be changed. It was accordingly arranged that
Lord Edward should pass some days in Thonuis
Street, at the house of the feather-merchant Murphy,
whose description of his guest has already been quoted.
Xife ot %ovb Edward f it5(^tald 289
In this place, and in two other houses dose by-*-
those of Moore and Cormick ^ — ^he spent some weeks,
becoming, as time went on and he remained undis-
covered, more and more n^lectful of the commonest
precautions. He went so far as to venture, upon
his arrival in Dublin, to visit his wife, whose neigh-
bourhood must have been constantly under police
observation. The shock caused to Pamela by the
discovery of the true nature of the guest she had
been summoned to receive in the disguise of a woman,
and her terror at the consequences which might attend
his imprudence, came near to costing her her life ; and
it was then that the birth of her child — Lord Edward*s
younger daughter — took place.
The anticipations of the promoters of the conspiracy
were assuming, as well they might, a less sanguine
complexion. A man named Hughes, examined in
August of the same year before the G^mmittee
of the House of Lords, gave a description of a visit
paid by him in Neilson's company to Cormick's
house during the period that Lord Edward was taking
> Cormick, though apparently trustworthy so long as it was a
question of his leader's safety, had afterwards a less satisfactory
record. Arrested in Guernsey in July of the same year, on suspicion,
by General Dalrymple, he not only made a voluntary confession of
his past errors, but followed it up by informing against an Irish sentry,
who, he affirmed, had offered to assist him to escape — a proof of
contrition which appears to have impressed the General very favourably,
although he was not altogether confident of his penitent's veractly.
" I think there may be some doubt," he wrote, " but I must oo the
whole bear a very favourable testimoiiy to Mr. CcxnkM *
here." (See Lord CastUnagh^t C0rufomUmc$.)
shelter there. He had been found playing billiards
with Lawless, the surgeon, and the visitor had re-
mained to dinner ; when, according to his evidence,
the conversation had turned upon the condition of
the country, and the opinion unanimously expressed
by those present — some four or five of the United
part}' — had been that the chances of success, in the
event of a rising, were small.
It was the conclusion to which all sane men must
have come. But it was not a conclusion which neces-
sarily justified inaction. Rightly or wrongly, to Lord
Edward and his comrades, to recede from the
position they had taken up, however slight might
be the chances of success, would have seemed an
abandonment of the cause to which they were pledged.
There were other reasons rendering the relinquisb-
mcnt ot the enterprise impossible. The work of
the Ciover!i!iu-:ir had been J.one, and done well. Its
vuv\ess had been complete. " The means *'— once
more to quote Casrlereai:h's own words — " the means
taken to make it [the rebellion] explode," had not failed
in their object. The people had been driven mad.
CuwdeJ. into viesperation by even' species of torture
that cruelty couKl devise, it was clear that, with
tbrei^-n aivl or without it, by the advice of their leaders
or in spite of it, they would not much longer consent
to deter the appeal to physical force. And since this
was the case, it was not for the men they had trusted
to leave them to make that appeal alone. To do so
would have been to play the part of cowards— a part
Xfte of Xord Edward jTftjc^aR) 391
which, from the young commander-in-chief downwards,
no men were less qualified to act. It was therefore
becoming daily more evident that the time was close
at hand when, in spite of forebodings of failure, the
insurrection upon which so many hopes had been fixed
must be risked.
It was accordingly determined, taking the state of
the country and the condition of public feeling into
account, that to wait longer for French aid was im-
possible, and that a genend rising should be arranged
to take place, so far as might be, simultaneously in
the four provinces ; May 23rd being the date finally
fixed upon for the outbreak. The younger of the
Sheares brothers, now an important member of the
reconstructed Leinster Directory, was accordingly de-
spatched to G)rk early in the month, in order to
organise co-operation in that part of the country ;
while in Leinster, where Lord Edward intended to
take personal command, the capital was to be seized,
the camp at Lehaunstown surprised, with the artillery
at Chapelizod, and the Lord Lieutenant and other
members of the Government were to be made prisoners.
Such was the desperate scheme planned in the
early days of May. Gdling to mind that conversation
at Cormick's house, it is incredible but that those by
whom the plot was elaborated must have been aware
that it was a forlorn hope in which they were preparing
to hazard their lives. But there could be no question
now of turning back.
Meantime, as more and more disquieting information
292 xtfe ot Xor5 Sdward fttsOcaJb
was received by the Government as to the condition
of the country, its anxiety to secure the person of
the popular leader* and by that means to deprive
the insurgents of the weight which, both personallT
and by reason of his birth and name, he lent to
the movement, was proportionately increasing. As
the pursuit became keener. Lord Edward, with the
hope of eluding the vigilance of the authorities, was
moved with greater rapidity from one place of con-
cealment to another.
Early in May he threw himself once more upon
the hospitality of Mrs. Dillon ; who, receiving at the
house of a friend the intelligence that Miss FitzGerald,
from Athy, had arrived to visit her, proved herself
to be so inadequately trained in the art of conspiracy
as to faint on the spot.
Ir is said that vluring this second visit to the house
upiMi the (iranJi Canal even the small measure of
cauti'Mi \.ord Ivlward had hitherto been induced to
o!>serve wa^ thrown to the winds ; that he received
constant visit(^rs from Dublin ; and that, with the
e\/itcnK-nt of the approaching conflict quickening his
l^lood, he no longer maintained so much as a semblance
ot" i^rudcnce. lender these circumstances, it is not
ast(Miishiny that he should have been at length
a'pprehcjuicvl. But that a man so well known should
have been able, for the space of ten weeks, in Dublin
or its immediate vicinity, to elude the pursuit of those
who were u|^on his track is a fact in any case
difficult to explain, and may be accepted as a proof
Xtfe of XorD £^war^ fttsOec$Xb 293
that treachery had not been so widespread as has
sometimes been believed.
The recklessness of himself and his friends, from
the point of view of their party, came near to being
criminal ; for if the insurrection was not to be deprived
of its commander-in-chief, precaution was every day
becoming more necessary. On May loth Giptain
Armstrong's first interview with the Sheares took
place, when he obtained information of a part at least
of the projects that were drawing to a head, as well
as of the hopes indulged by the revolutionary party
of gaining over the militia — a most important item
in their programme. On the following day the
Government, probably moved to the step by the
disclosures that had been made, issued a proclamation
offering a thousand pounds reward for the apprehension
of Lord Edward FitzGerald. It was this measure
which ultimately resulted in his capture ; though
whether to Higgins, the proprietor of the Freematis
Journal^ or to Francis Magan, the barrister, who was
the more immediate instrument in the process of
betrayal, belongs the credit or discredit has been a
much-debated point.
An immense amount of somewhat unprofitable
labour has been expended upon the attempt to appor-
tion to each of these gentlemen their proper amount
of responsibility in the transaction. The fact would
seem to be that Higgins occupied the position of
employer or patron — the go-between <^ minitters:
Magan being the paid tool. The fintyl
394 X4fe of Xotd £Owar& fttjOeralb
as the *'Sham Squire,*' into the detsuls of whose
disreputable career it is not necessary to enter,
though an informer, was not in the strict sense of
the word a traitor, having openly and consistently
given his support to the Government. It was his
office apparently to suborn other men. Magan was
his special discovery, introduced by him some months
earlier to the authorities as a member of the United
Irish Society from whom useful knowledge might be
bought, and who justified the assertion and proved
his value at the present juncture by furnishing in-
formation with regard to Lord Edward's movements
and whereabouts.
From the documents that remain, it would seem
that Higgins experienced some amount of difficulty
in keeping his subordinate firm.
** If you cm sec M. this night," he wrote, some-
where about the end of April, to his employers, " you
can bring out where Lord I\dwurd is concealed." And
again, '' RememluT to bring him to a point — I mean
about Lord Edward.'' It would almost look as if
Magan were still troubled by scruples. The Govern-
ment, however, had their own methods of removing
those indulged in by needy men ; and a fortnight
later Higgins was able to complain that " M. seems
mortified that when he placed matters within the reach
of Government, the opportunity was neglected." It
was soon, however, furnished with another.
Lord Edward's second stay under the roof of
Mrs. Dillon was not of long duration. The night
Xite ot %otb Edward fft36eraR> 295
of May 23rd having been definitely fixed upon as
the date upon which the general rising should take
place, it was essential that the leader should be close
at hand, in order that consultation might be held
with him at any moment. About the 13th, therefore,
he bade his hostess farewell, characteristically sparing
her what anxiety he might, by leaving her with the
impression that his visit to Dublin was merely con-
nected with the ordinary business transactions of the
Society, and that she might look for his return in no
long time.
It is difficult to trace his movements with accuracy
for the succeeding week, and they are variously
chronicled. The time seems to have been divided
between the private house of James Moore, a public-
house keeper, where he enacted the part of French
tutor to the daughter of his host ; and the house
of the same feather-merchant. Murphy, who had
previously shared with Moore and Cormick the perilous
honour of affording shelter to their chief.
It was to Moore's house that he appears to have
gone first on his arrival in Dublin, remaining there
for some three or four days. It must have been
during this interval that an interview took place —
the last — between Mr. Ogilvie and his wife's son,
described by Miss Moore in reference to the extra-
ordinary suspicion of treachery from which this tried
and trusted friend of a lifetime was not exempt.
" I know not whom to trust," she said — as indeed
she might, remembering the implicit confidence which
296 Xtfe of %oxX> iBlbwatt fttsOetaXb
it will be seen had been placed by her in Nfagan. *^ I
saw Lord Edward take a ring from his hand, and press
it on Mr. Ogilvie as a keepsake. Tears fell from
Mr. Ogilvie*s eyes as he grasped Lord £dward*s hand."
It was a final parting. It may be that by both men
the probability that it would prove such had been
recognised. Perhaps, too, both were thinking of the
mother, now grown old, alone in England with the
weight of her anxiety — an anxiety to which Lady
Holland made allusion when, after Lord EUlward*8
arrest, she expressed her fear that, should the matter
end fatally for the " child of her heart," it would not
do less in the case of his mother.
Lord Edward, however, can have had little time or
thought to spare even for those he held dearest.
During the days passed at Moore's house another
incident, besides that interview with Mr. Ogilvie,
took place. A meeting was held at which the young
leader made a suggestion of so bold a nature that
less daring spirits might well have shrunk from its
ad()[Hion. Yet, hazardous as it was, carried into
effect, it might have changed the outlook of ailairs.
The character of the situation, the desperate condition
of the conspiracy, demanded despierate measures. It
might have found in them its best chance, though a
poor one, of success.
What Lord Edward proposed was no less than
an attack upon the House of Lords, to take place
on May i8th, when Lord Kingston, before the
assembled peers, was to undergo his trial for the
Xffe of Xor^ £^war^ f fts^eralb 397
murder of Colonel FitzGerald, the seducer of his
daughter.
What chance of success, partial or complete, the
scheme would have had, had Lord Edward's suggestion
been adopted, must remain in doubt. More timid
counsels prevailed ; and it was rejected by a majority
of two, of whom the informer Magan was one.
In the report of the occurrence made by Higgins,
he added that an attack on the Gistle had been agreed
upon for the following week ; and he furthermore, as
Magan's mouthpiece, supplied the information as to
where Lord Edward would be found that night.
Magan had good reason for being in a position to
furnish this intelligence, for, if the account of the
matter given by Miss Moore is to be relied upon —
and there seems no reason to doubt it — it was to his
own care that Lord Edward was to be consigned.
It had come to the knowledge of the conspirators
that Moore's house had fallen under the suspicion of
the Government. A carpenter of the name of Tuite,
occupied in repairing the floor within the recess of a
double door in the house of Mr. Cooke, had over-
heard the Under-Secretary observe that it was to be
searched for pikes and traitors. The traitor behind the
door took his measures promptly. Wrenching oflF
the hinge, he asked permission to go and provide
himself with another, hurried to Moore's house, gave
warning of the impending visit, and went back to
complete his interrupted labours.
The intimation was acted upon at once. Moore
298 xtfe of Xord £5war5 fftsOenlb
himself fled without delay, leaving it to his daughter
to provide for Lord Edward*s safety. This she
accordingly did by arranging with her friend Mr.
Francis Magan that he should receive the fugitive
that same night at his house.
Magan was not slow to avsul himself of the
opportunity thus afforded him. Acting upon the
intelligence he supplied, it was determined by Govern-
ment that his expected guest should be seized on the
way from Thomas Street to Usher*s Island, where
the informer lived. With this object the Town
Major, Sirr — Lord Edward's Gibraltar acquaintances-
provided himself with what he considered a sufficient
force to deal both with the leader and vnth the body-
guard by which it was now his custom to be ac-
companied, disposing his men in two parties, in order
that the rebels might be intercepted whichever of
the alternative routes to Usher's Island they might
take, and thus awaited their coming.
As it chanced, the other party had likewise separated,
with a view, no doubt, to avoid attracting attention.
The result was that a scuffle took place in both streets.
But while Sirr was knocked down and in danger of
his life, only a single prisoner was captured, and
one who contrived to give so satisfactory an account
of himself that he was presently released. Lord
Kdward made good his escape. He gave up, however,
in consequence of the attack, his intention of seeking
shelter at Usher's Island that night, returning instead
to his former quarters in Thomas Street, and throwing
Xffe ot Xord E^warb f ft5<BeniI^ 299
himself again upon the hospitality of Murphy, a timid
man who, though faithful in spite of his fears, would
gladly have been quit of the perilous responsibility
thus thrust upon him.
Once more — for the last time — Lord Edward had
escaped the toils of his enemies. Almost at the
same hour, in the House of Lords, another oflfender
against the law had also made good his defence,
though after a different fashion. Before a brilliant
assemblage, under the presidency of the Lord Chancellor
Clare, Lord Kingston had been called upon to answer
for the crime with which he stood charged.
" Culprit," he had been asked in the terms of the
old formula, " by whom will your lordship be tried ? "
" By God and my peers," the accused made reply.
" God send you good deliverance," was the rejoinder,
also prescribed by precedent.
The aspiration had been heard. Lord Kingston
stood that evening acquitted of murder, on the score
of justification, a free man. But to the national leader,
awaiting his doom in the little house in Thomas
Street, no such plea of justification would have been
allowed, bring forward as he might the ruin of
countless homes in the place of one.
He had not long to wait. The race for life was
over ; the quarry was run to earth.
On the morning succeeding the struggle which had
taken place between the Town Major and Lord
Edward's escort, Magan paid a visit to Miss Moore.
Whether or not there had been any truth in the
300 life of XotD £^war^ ^tjOeralD
hints thrown out by Higgins as to the difficulty he
had exf)erienced in bringing his accomplice to the
actual point of betrayal, it is dear that those difficulties
had been overcome, and that he had now taken kindly
to the part. His visit was made for the purpose of
ascertaining the reason of the non-appearance of his
guest on the previous night, and his careworn aspect
— natural enough, seeing that a thousand pounds
might be at stake — was remarked by Miss Moore^
who doubtless explained it by the anxiety felt by
the conspirator for the safety of his chief.
" 1 have been most uneasy," he told her, " Did
anything happen ? I waited up till one o'clock, and
Lord Edward did not come."
Still wholly unsuspicious of treachery. Miss Moore
fell at once into the trap laid for her. She not only
cnliiihtcncJ the informer :is to the occurrences of the
preceding ni^ht — of which he was probably himself
in ;i position to have given her an account — but
bestowed upon him as well the information he
sought ;is to the leiuler's present place of concealment,
the intelligence being doubtless passed on without
loss of time— though no evidence remains of this
fact— through HiiTLrins to the authorities.
At the time when Miss Moore made her statement
with regard to her dealings with Magan, his guilt
had not been so conclusively brought home to him
as afterwards. Her own inference, however, arguing
from the course of events, was clear.
" If Magan is innocent," she said, with the bitterness
Xtfe of Xor& E^watb f ttsOecald 301
of a friend who has trusted and has been deceived,
** then I am the informer," since they two had alone
been in the secret of Lord Edward's intention of
seeking shelter at Usher's Island when he had been
waylaid and intercepted. At the time when Magan's
visit was paid, though the incident from which she
afterwards inferred his guilt had already taken place,
her confidence in him was too complete to be at once
dispelled. Even had her suspicions been aroused,
caution on her part at this stage would have availed
but little to avert the approaching catastrophe.
Murphy, on Lord Edward's arrival at his house the
night before, had been struck by his altered appearance.
It was little wonder. The life he had been leading,
the constant strain both on body and mind, be a man's
courage and spirit what it may, does not leave him
as it finds him. He was also ill, and suflFering from
a cold. There was, however, no time to indulge in
sickness, and the next morning he declared himself
better. It was a Saturday — the Saturday after Ascension
Day — and for the Wednesday or Thursday following
the general rising was planned. Yet, notwithstanding
the nearness of the crisis and the supreme necessity
for prudence during the brief space of time which
was to intervene, incident after incident betrayed the
almost incredible heedlessness of the conspirators with
regard to the commonest precautions.
As Murphy, anxious and nervous, stood before
his door on the morning after Lord Edward's arrival,
a parcel was silently placed in his hands. Being
3C2 xifc Of XorD Edward Witsi
opened, it was found to contain a ir
manifestly intended for the use of the
chief of the projected insurrection — a
possession, both for host and guest, whic
concealed under a heap of goat-skins
imprudence, too, of which Neilson i
such as would have rendered it s
attention not been attracted to Murpli
it drew down upon him, probably i
the suspicion of bad faith. The gigant
conspirator was constantly on view, ;
the street, now pausing at the door of ]
unfortunate host, to bestow upon him
fluous injunctions as to the necessity for
Lord l\dward himself meanwhile, \
siixht of a party of soldiers passing d^
aiul niukin:: a halt before Moore's hous
himself to a place of concealment u
where he ^;H*nt scmik* hour^ of the after
evenin:: vlrew on, it was considered
fiiLritive to leave his hiding-place, and
came vimvn to J*inner, sharing the meal
aiul Neilsi^n.
It was scarcely over when the latt
movements it is always difficult to acc^
ijiiitted the house, leaving, it was said, 1
open. Mur[^hy, meanwhile went doi
Lord I\dwarvi, still ill and tired, withdre
he occupied, where he was presently
host, lying upon the bed, reading Gil
Xffe of Xor5 E^watD f ft5<Benilb 303
The end was close at hand. It was when the two
men were together that the sound of steps became
audible upon the stairs ; and the next moment Sirr's
assistant, Major Swan, entered the room. Lord
Edward had been tracked at last.
Of the scene which followed varying accounts have
been given. The surprise party consisted of Sirr
himself. Swan, and eight or nine private soldiers,
together with a Captain Ryan, *who seems to have
accompanied the party in the character of a volunteer.
Sirr had at first remained below, disposing of his men
in such a manner as to frustrate any attempt which
might be made at escape : and Swan, though closely
followed by Ryan, entered alone the room where
Lord Edward was discovered.
At the first sight of the intruder Lord Edward
sprang to his feet, and, receiving a shot from a
pocket pistol which missed its aim, struck at his
assailant with a dagger which had lain by him on
the bed.
According to the account afterwards given by Ryan's
son. Swan — whose wound was in truth very superficial
and was well in a fortnight — thereupon cried out,
"Ryan, Ryan, I am basely murdered," when R}ran,
who appears to have been a man of courage, ran in
to his assistance, armed only with a sword-cane ;
received what proved to be, in his case, a mortal
wound, and continued, in spite of it, to cling to
Lord Edward till further help arrived.
Sirr, meanwhile, hearing from below the report of
304 Xffe or Xord JEdwatb fttsOetaXb
Ac pistol-shot fired by Swan on his first entrance,
had hurried upstairs, and has left, in a letter addressed
to the younger Ryan, a description of the scene which
met his eyes.
" On my arrival in view of Lord Edward," he wrote,
^^ I beheld his lordship standing with a dagger in
his hand, as if ready to plunge it into my friends,
while dear Ryan, seated on the bottom step of the
flight of the upper stairs [communicating with the
roof], had Lord Edward grasped with both his arms
by the 1^ and thighs, and Swan in a somewhat
similar situation, both labouring under the torment
of their wounds ; when, without hesitation, I fired
at Lord Edward's dagger-arm, when the instrument
of death fell to the ground."
Weaponless and wounded. Lord Edward still refused
to surrender, making a last attempt to force his way
to the door. The soldiers, however, were called in,
and, in spite of his desperate resistance, he was made
prisoner, though " so outrageous was he " — to quote
Ryan — " that the military had to cross their muskets,
and force him down to the floor, before he could be
overpowered and secured.*'
Thus ended the struggle. The people's leader was
in the hands of the enemy. On this night — possibly
at this very hour — Magan was elected a member of
the head Committee of the Society of United Irishmen.
CHAPTER XIX
1798
Conduct when a Prisoner — Various Scenes in Dublin —
Pamela — The Facts and her Account of Them at
Variance— Her After-lif(&— Visit to Bar^re^-Death.
THE capture was effixted ; the game, so far as
Lord Edward was concerned, lost. But he was
a man who knew how to face defeat.
The heat and excitement of the struggle over, all his
habitual gendeness and courtesy was apparent. He
affected, says the Annual Regis ter^ with a sneer, in
chronicling the event, the politeness of a courtier, and
declared he was sorry for the wounds he had inflicted.
It was evidendy not credible to the writer that con-
sideration towards opponents hurt in the performance
of their duty could be genuine in the case of a man
whose resistance, while resistance was possible, had
been so fierce. Those who knew him would have
judged differendy. Insisting that the wounds of his
adversaries should be attended to before his own, it
was only when he had been informed, with purposeless
exaggeration, that Ryan was dead and Swan mortally
305 20
3o6 life of Xotd Edward f ftsOerald
wounded, that he consented to allow his arm to be
dressed, adding, "It was a hard struggle — and are two
of them gone ? "
His own wound, on examination, was pronounced
not to be dangerous, the announcement eliciting from
him the solitary expression of regret that has already
been noticed. Exhausted not alone by the pain and
fatigue of the moment, but worn out physically and
mentally by the constant stress and stndn of the last
two months ; debarred from participation in the
struggle for which he had so strenuously prepared
the way, and rendered useless to the cause for whose
sake he had sacrificed all the world had to offer, he may
indeed have been willing to close his account with
life, and to make an end of the tragedy it had become.
At the Castle, to which he was at once taken, he
had an interview with Lord Camden's private secretary,
Mr. Watson, wh(^, sent by the Lord Lieutenant to
assure the prisoner of every consideration consistent
with the safe custody of his person, found him in the
office of the Minister for War, looking on, pallid but
serene, while his wounded arm was dressed.
The secretary, a courteous and kindly official, took
an opportunity, after delivering the message with which
he was charged, of informing the prisoner privately that
it was to be also his errand to convey the news of the
arrest to Lady Edward, intimating, with every promise
of secrecy, his readiness to be likewise the bearer of
any confidential communication fi-om Lord Edward to
his wife.
Xffe of %otb £^war^ ftt$OctaXb 307
One might almost imagine that the oflfer must
have provoked an inward smile. Experience of the
principles acted upon by Government with regard
to means of obtaining information would not have
encouraged even so confiding a spirit as that of their
present prisoner to entrust a communication of the
kind suggested to a Castle official, however accom-
modating. At any rate, the proposal was courteously
declined.
"No, no, thank you," Lord Edward answered.
" Nothing, nothing. Only break it to her tenderly."
The interview with Pamela did not, after all, take
place, since she chanced, somewhat strangely, to be
absent from home, at a party at Moira House. The
news of her husband's capture was therefore left by the
secretary with her servants, and, through Lady Moira's
thoughtful consideration, was not allowed to reach
her till the following morning.
It is strange, looking back over more than a
hundred years, to caU to mind the various scenes
which were taking place on that May evening in
Dublin. At some of them, thanks to the detailed
contemporary records, we can be present. There was,
first, the desperate struggle in Thomas Street, the
excitement of the conflict followed by the dead calm
of irretrievable failure ; there was the party at Lady
Moira's house, at which Pamela, still delicate after
her baby*s birth, and little inclined, one would
imagine, for gaiety, was assisting, charming as ever,
and no doubt, in her ignorance of the catastrophe^
so8 %AU of Xort £dwatl> f it30cral5
of which nimours must have begun to be whispered
abroad, an object of compassion to alL Then there
mm the Lord Lieutenant, with a pu-ty of his own
at the theatre, where news was brought to him of
the important capture. In an adjoining box, withiJi
hearing of the announcement, Lady Castlereagh was
entertaining her guests, two of the Napiers amongst
them, of whom one^Louisa, Lady Sarah's step*
daughter — was so much overcome that her hostess
look her away ; while a younger sister, Emily, Lord
Edward's own cousin — who, " poor little soul^ was
wretched, as you may imagine *' — was not permitted
to leave the box, lest so many abrupt departures,
in the condition of Dublin at the time, should have
given rise to a panic. Nor does one forget that else-
where in the city Magan was receiving his promotion
in the Society he had served by the betrayal of its
chief, not impossibly stiD careworn in aspect, as Miss
Moore had described him, and with his thoughts
wandering from the proceedings in which he was
taking part to the house in Thomas Street, and to
speculations as to whether his thousand pounds were
at length fairly earned.
Outside, in the streets of the city, as the news
leaked out and became public property, consternation
was spreading. Men were collecting together in
groups to discuss the event, or were seen hurrying
from one part of the town to the other ; and some
of the more desperate and more daring were arming
themselves with pikes, in the forlorn hope of effect-
.r^-liii^- t^^JJ^ii^^Jt^€^ vte^^. ■' •^j'*•■^4'',^^X4l4■^
Xffe of %otb £^war^ yit3®etaI^ 309
ing a rescue — a hope perforce relinquished when it
became known that their leader had been akeady
removed from the Castle to the securer precincts
of Newgate Jail, a stronghold to which no follower,
however loyal, could force an entrance.
Upon Lord Edward*s family the intelligence of
the arrest fell like a thunderbolt Well informed as
to his movements as the Government had been, in
comparison, and though, according to Miss Moore's
account of his interview with Mr. Ogilvie, his step-
father at least must have been aware of his presence in
Dublin, the rest of his relations were strongly con-
vinced that he had effected his escape, and was safe
out of the country. Lady Louisa herself, though
ever prone to fears, had scarcely felt alarm at the
reward offered by Government for his apprehension.
In this instance it was clear that Pamela had kept
her own counsel ; and it may have been to the
necessity of avoiding the appearance of anxiety that
her presence at Moira House on the night of the
arrest had been due.
Pamela herself, though apparently dazed by the
blow — " her head seemed still deranged," wrote Lady
Louisa — had borne it better than had been expected.
She was indeed described by Colonel Napier, from whom
she received a visit in the course of the next day, as
keeping up her spirits and bearing her misfortunes like
a heroine — a form of encomium which one may be
pardoned for believing would have specially commended
itself to the subject of the tribute. It is clear that the
3IO life 0t Xotb £&warb fitiOocaXb
courage she displayed was only explicable to the narrator
by the hypothesis of her ignorance of the gravity of the
situation. " Alas ! " he added, writing to Mr. Ogilvie,
now back again in England, " she does not know what
I dread to be true, that Government have strong and
even indubitable proofs of ireasen.^^
Again the question repeats itself — ^Was Colonel
Napier right ? Was Pamela strangely, incredibly,
blind ? Did she in truth succeed in deceiving herself
as to the degree of her husband's culpability in the
eyes of those who had his life in their hands ? Or
did her powers of concealing what she knew, even now
that the crisis was reached and the blow had fallen,
from those to whom Lord Edward was scarcely less
dear than to herself, amount almost to genius?
At any rate, she was winning golden opinions. In
the letter alre:idy quoted, dated two days after the
capture, Colonel Napier again makes mention of her.
After iiitorniing Ogilvie that George Ponsonby and
Curran were to he Lord Edward's counsel, and adding
the warning that the former " feared the event," he
expresses his hope that poor, dear, intrepid Lady
I\dward " will cross to England, in obedience to the
orders of the iVivy Council, Ponsonby being of opinion
that she could he of no use in Dublin."
The statement requires explanation. The part
played hy i\u'nela during the brief remainder of her
hushand's life is perplexing in the extreme, and
may he disposed of here. Of the aflectionate nature of
their relations there can be no doubt. Lord Edward
Xite of %ot^ B^wacd fit5<Beral^ 3x1
had more than once, during the weeks that he passed
in hiding, risked his life in order to visit her ; his
mother*s evidence remains to testify that he "adored
her" ; and if further proof were wanting, it would be
furnished by the will, drawn up in prison, bequeathing
to his wife all he possessed, " as a mark of my esteem,
love, and confidence in her," and constituting her
likewise sole guardian of his children.
That Pamela loved him as much as she was capable
of loving there is also no reason to doubt ; nor is
there a trace of any cloud upon their married life. Yet
that she should have brought herself, though in " sad
distress," to obey the orders of the Government — them-
selves difficult of comprehension in their extreme and
wanton severity — when, judging by the phrasing of
Colonel Napier's letter, disobedience had not been
altogether out of the question, is a fact which seems
scarcely credible.
Nevertheless, on May 22 nd, not more than three
days after the arrest. Lady Louisa Conolly was able to
announce to her sister that the departure of her
nephew's wife for England was finally determined
upon ; that the hopes entert^ned by Pamela of being
permitted to share her husband's prison had been
already relinquished ; and, strangest of all, when Lady
Louisa had made a further and vain attempt to
obtain for his wife the privilege of a single farewell
interview — a request which, if pressed, the Irish
Government itself would have found difficult to
refuse — Pamela had negatived the suggestion, on the
312 life of %ot6 £^war^ fttsOeralb
score of a fear lest such an indulgence might be the
means of causing an accession of fever to the prisoner.
This curious and, again, almost incredible instance
of prudence on her part, implies a realisation of his
condition rendering it still more incomprehensible that
she should have consented to put the sea between
them.
Explain the matter as we may, the fact remains that
before a week was over — on the Thursday following
the capture — ^Pamela had yielded to a mandate which
it may be believed that, with public opinion to con-
sider, ministers would have hesitated to enforce in
the face of a determined resistance, and had left her
husband behind, wounded, a prisoner, and in danger
of his life from other causes. Whatever may have
been the motives which decided her, or her advisers,
upon the step, they will strike the ordinary mind as
insufficient. Not more than ten days after she had
quitted Dublin, Lord Edward was dead.
It is fair to add that it does not appear to have
occurred to her husband's relations to criticise her
conduct. On the contrary, while his mother was
preparing, be the condition of the country what it
might, to come to Ireland; while Henry FitzGerald
was hurrying over to Dublin to share, if it might
be, his brother's cell ; while his aunt was besi^ng
the authorities with entreaties to be allowed admission
to the prison, and, though only at the eleventh hour,
gained her point, the absence of his wife seems to
have been accepted on all hands as natural, or at
Xtte of %oxh lEbwwtb fltiOctsXb 313
least inevitable. Tender as is every allusion to her,
pitiful in her forlorn condition, all appear to have been
agreed that she was better away.
There were doubtless reasons — sentiment apart —
making it expedient that Pamela should cross the
Channel. The prejudice, according to Lady Louisa,
prevailing against her from the first as a French-
woman — no doubt amongst ministerialists — had so
much increased that it was considered safer for her
to be out of the country. This statement is further
explained by an entry in Lady Holland's diary, dated
June loth, to the effect that it had been notified to
Lord Edward's wife that in case of disobedience
she would herself be arrested and tried, evidence
suflicient being forthcoming to hang her. Lady
Holland adds that Pamela had been willing to stand
her trial, provided she was permitted to share her
husband's prison. This being refused, she had been
compelled to come to England, accompanied by her
two children, with a passport limiting her stay.*
Allowing for some exaggeration, and observing that
the mistake in the number of the children does not
indicate an intimate acquaintance with the facts, it
still remains possible that a certain amount of intimida-
tion may have been resorted to by the authorities.
This should be allowed its weight in judging of
Pamela's conduct at this crisis. But there is yet
another curious circumstance to be noted in connection
with the aflfair — namely, the entire disagreement of
^ Li/e and LttUrt of Lady Sarah Lennox (Appendix).
314 Xife of Xord le^watt fit$0€taXb
the account of the matter apparently given by Pamela
in later days with that furnished by contemporaneous
letters, by which the question of her movements is
placed beyond all doubt. Hers was a totally different
tale — a story, it is necessary to add, so manifesdy
false, tested both by external and internal evidence, in
some of its features, that it is impossible, however
charitably disposed, to view this version of the affair
in any other light but that of a romance in which,
by an after-thought, she assigned to herself the part
which she would have desired in retrospect to play.
That Pamela, as she asserted, sold her jewels and
attempted to bribe the jailer is probable enough. She
was generous and open-handed, and was not likely
to have spared money in such a case. It has even
been suggested that an endeavour to bribe the Newgate
officials may furnish a possible explanation of the
otherwise inexplicable severity of the Government in
banishing her from Ireland. But of the interview
with her husband she appears to have represented
herself as obtaining, with its melodramatic colour-
ing, there exists no faintest independent proof, and
it must be dismissed as either an hysterical delusion
or as a pure result of the inventive faculty of Madame
de Genlis's pupil. ^
So Lord Edward's wife disappears from his history — -
a graceful, slight figure, not without a delicate charm
of her own, but most unfit for the stormy scenes
* See Madden's United Irishmen for the authority on which this
story rests.
Xtte of Xotb £&warb f ftsOeral^ 31s
with which she had been associated in France and
Ireland alike, and incapable of grappling with life in its
harsher aspects.
It is not necessary to follow her through her
subsequent history — her marriage with the American
Consul at Hamburg, her separation from her husband,
and the events which marked her after-life. One
glimpse of her will be enough, and it is still in
character.
Thirty years after Lord Edward's death it occurred
to her one day — the motive of the disguise is not
apparent — to visit her early friend, Barire, in the
character of her own maid. Recognising in his guest
the girl to whom, nearly forty years ago, he had acted
the part, required by French law, of "guardian," on
the occasion of her marriage, he produced a portrait
of herself which he had preserved, and showed it
to her.
" c/^, mon DieUy* she exclaimed, no longer attempt-
ing to keep up the farce of her incognito, " comme
fetats jolie ! " b^ging the miniature of him, in order
that she might prove to another friend how great
her past beauty had been.
A year later she died, worth only a hundred
francs. The husband from whom she had separated
paid her debts, and the funeral was provided by her
old playfellow, Madame Adelaide.
zy^^jmji XX
";•?
nfii^ aai sx
:5^ £:;>-;r.iJC?5 f-
1^5-
La-i
s TD tie goo:
to obciis
tTA. •r'!!: 5:jcfi ti=>c is t
Xife of %otb Ebwatb ^it3(^etalb 317
The Duke of Richmond — moved, as Lord Holland
hints, to the greater zeal in the matter by the remem-
brance of some past acts of unkindness — was urging
upon Pitt the necessity of postponement ; and, writing
to Lord Henry FitzGerald, he added, after enumer-
ating the obvious dangers which would attend an
immediate trial, that he convinced himself that the
thing was impossible, and that reasonable delay would
be allowed. Fox, who is described as " extremely
agitated " about his cousin, though personally of
opinion that his presence in Ireland would be more
detrimental than favourable to Lord Edward's cause,
held himself, with Lord Holland, in readiness to cross
the Channel without delay, should it be otherwise
decided by better judges.
Pressure was also to be brought to bear upon those
in high places, to induce them to exert themselves
upon the prisoner's behalf
The Duchess at the feet of the King — such was
Colonel Napier's opinion — might do more than
politicians or lawyers. Let her therefore stop at no
forms or refusals, and never quit him till a pardon was
obtained. It was known that the Duke of York had
entertained a personal liking for Lord Edward, and
had attempted, though in vain, to obtain the cancelling
of his expulsion from the army ; while the Prince of
Wales, in a letter full of kindly sympathy for the
disaster which had overtaken the Leinster family,
alluded to the arch-rebel as " the unfortunate Edward,"
and authorised Mr. Ogilvie to intimate to Lord Clare
the satisfaction which would be afforded him by such
a delay as might ensure ** poor Lord Edward ** an
impartial trial.
" This, my dear sir," added the Prince, " I have no
scruple to admit of your stating in confidence, and
with my best compliments to the Lord ChanceUw.
My long and sincere r^ard for both the Duchess and
Duke of Leinster would have naturally made me
wish to exert myself still more, were I not afraid by
such exertion I might do more harm than good.**^
Dublin itself had not accepted passively the loss of
the popular leader ; and a plot having his rescue for
its object had been organised by Neilson — poor,
violent, irresponsible Neilson, to whose rashness and
folly Lord Edward*s capture has been partly attributed.
It is impossible not to feel compassion for this member
of the dramaiis pcrson.f of the tragedy, void of
principle as he was, now breaking his pledges to
(jovernment, by whom he had been released from
prison upon his undertaking to join no treasonable
conspiracy ; now trafficking with its agents, not
impossibly with the intention of paying them back in
their own coin of treachery ; at another time crying
' It is a curious testimony to the affection which Lord Edward seems
to have had the special faculty of inspiring in all who were tuDugfat
into personal contact with him that it is said that, on the Prince's first
interview with the Duchess at this time, he wept with the tenderness
ol a woman in speaking of him, giving her further the promise that
his friend's little s(jn should not be forgotten by him. It was a promise
he fulfilled later on, not only by his attitude in the matter of the
attainder, but by appointing the boy, so soon as he left school, to be a
cornet in his own regiment.
Xife of Xor^ £&wart> ^ftsOetalt) 319
like a child over the body of a dead comrade ; and
at the present moment imperilling his own safety by
haunting the jail in which his leader was confined,
until warned by signs from the sympathetic deputy
jailor of the risk he was incurring. It was unlikely
that a plot organised by such a head should attain its
end ; nor was it probable that the Government, once
in possession of Lord Edward's person, would allow
him to slip through its fingers. The conspiracy, at
any rate, made known to the authorities by means of
a priest, was easily brought to nought.
But while all these efforts, at home and in London,
were being made on his behalf; while the news of
his capture had fallen like a thunderbolt upon the
hundreds of thousands throughout the country who
had looked to him as their leader ; while the unhappy
people, left almost without guidance, but still passion-
ately refusing to relinquish hope, were rising here
and there, to fling themselves in desperation on the
troops, — while all this and much more was going on
outside, and hearts were breaking for him, the prisoner
himself, within the walls of his quiet cell at Newgate,
was preparing to render unnecessary the endeavours
of his friends to secure him a fair trial. Before the
Prince of Wales's letter had been written, he had made
good his escape to a place where the arm of the law
was powerless to reach him, and where eternal Justice
would try his cause.
For the first few days after his arrest, although the
baU in his arm could not be extracted, his condition
330 xtfe of %otb iBbwatb flt3^etaSb
had caused but little anxiety. The heat of the
May weather was, however, unfiivourable to his re-
covery, and certain other injuries, especially a wound
in the neck inflicted by a drummer when the affray
was over, caused him additional suflfering.
For information as to his state his family were
compelled to content themselves with second-hand
reports, the Government being inexorable in its
refusal to permit the visits of either relations or
friends. It is, therefore, only through the medium of
those admitted to him on the strength of their bdng
neither the one nor the other that any details as
to the earlier days of his imprisonment are to be
obtained. Yet, even under these circumstances, every
one of the few facts recorded bear witness to the
same spirit of gentleness, consideration, and courtesy
bv which ho had ever been distinguished.
One ot* his first visitors seems to have been the
son o\ a tVieiul of Lord Clare's. Gaining admission
to the prison on the plea of business with Murphy —
also continevl in Newgate, and chancing to be a tenant
of his father's — he contrived to obtain access to the
seconvl and more important captive as well ; when
Lord lulward, remembering a blow he had seen
his unfortunate host receive during the struggle
in Thomas Street, enquired faintly after "poor
Murphy's face/' Lord Holland, too, records as an
instance of his cousin's sweetness of nature the
deln)nair good humour with which he took leave
of another guest — one of his bitterest enemies — who
Xite of %ot^ £^war^ f it3GeraI^ 331
had visited him, for what purpose is not stated, in
his mangled condition.
" I would shake hands with you willingly," said
the prisoner, ** but mine are cut to pieces. However,
ril shake a toe, and wish you good-bye."
He was careful to acquit of all malice Major Sirr,
from whom his principal wound had been received,
differing in this respect from some others who have
dealt with the subject, and have directed their in-
vective at a man who, after aU, did nothing but
his duty.^
But while each of the few details preserved con-
cerning these days of suffering, bodily and mental,
and of disappointment and loneliness, bear the same
impress, and point to the absence of any trace of
resentment or bitterness, it was not to the men who
alone were allowed access to him that the prisoner
would be likely to confide his true anxieties, his
fears or hopes ; or would speak of himself and the
cause he had championed. Only when his lips were
unsealed by delirium did the thoughts find vent by
which it is not possible to doubt that he had been
^ As an example of similar justice done to Sirr by another member
of the family, an entry in Moore's diary, dated August, 1830, may be
dted, in which he describes a visit from the Duke of Leinster of that
day who called upon the poet, on behalf of Lady Campbell, Lord
Edward's daughter, to request him— for what reason does not appear —
to postpone the publication of the biography upon which he was theo
engaged. While the Duke was still with him, Major Sirr, by a curious
coincidence, left a card upon Moore, when the latter discovered that his
visitor was known to the Duke, who considered him *Mn his way a
good sort of man.**
21
life cf loc^ Edward SitsOettdb
:Yircs;sir*i:y rursucvi during those uncompanioned hours
y jcto ^,i:c:, !vIIow:ng upon the excitement of the
Txxvc •'^ weeks* when the mind^ in the exhaustion of
•^vc^ r-c ro;-:, Tiust have been haunted, as the day
t\L-i vr :?c rs;r^ come 2nd went, bjr the images of
I.: *a: ••* ^'t: -xr r^k-ng pbce outside his silent prison.
Of.'* ■• :^c --Twor.sc-ousness of fever did he rave,
•oi .'f '^ ^ v'w-^ jXT.lous condition, nor of those he
o^o. M.- WV-* — K-'f his mother, or Pamela, or his
' • w . * crv" — .''w: of Dublin in flames, of militia
I 'v- ---xrv Fsrai^ri^ in spirit from his prison
.V . •« •*.•• '\^: -^^i h-rr:>^;f to be leading on the
•v'\-.v • :*. *^":. i'd wa5 heard crj"ing out, on the
.^v- -^ v.vv • ^ uju:h, .:: a voice so loud that the
oov- ■..u'o. :*j c^r^ of h:s fellow-prisoners, and
*^ w\* c /.>•.-, r-.'-L:— ru". and sullen, gathered in
^ . -. "J'-: v^', jo'r.e on I Damn
'. ^• •.. u::, in its dealings
- ^.. -.\j-.*.v criiicised. Those
- ^ ,.'_:. •-■--. h.ive been accused
^ . . •-.- ' .--ii^russ. In forming
- .., : .s r.ecessary to take
. , .,, <.:ua:ion, the critical
.. ' ^ . - :-.' country, the immi-
... ./.... ^^ und the menacing
. . :>..: :: •> impossible, while
..-, -^ ^s.\;w;-.: ihe authorities of at
.^^ .: -•<. ".vC of that consideration
.,.-..'•' .1 > v'v /..i.i, ,i> :he event proved.
Xite of %ovb £^wat^ f itsGeral^ 323
a dying man, common humanity and kindness might
have been expected to dictate.
The course they pursued in declining to admit,
up to a few hours before the end, any single friend
to the prisoner, even to the exclusion of his wife,
may have been pardonable in men acting under the
influence of panic.^ The refusal to permit a personal
interview with his lawyer for the purpose of drawing
up a will may be explained and justified on the
like grounds. The removal, on the day preceding
his death, of the officer who had been placed in
charge of him, and for whom, with his characteristic
readiness to attach himself to those about him, he had
conceived a liking, may be interpreted as a tribute to
his singular power, so often mentioned, of inspiring
affection in those with whom he was brought into
personal relationship, and a consequent and pardonable
measure of precaution. But it is impossible to advance
the same excuses for the fact, disgraceful to all con-
cerned, that so little heed was paid to his condition
and the consideration it demanded, that an execution
was allowed to take place, on the day before his
death, at the very door of the prison, the ominous
sounds attending it being audible in his cell.
^ The assertion that Lady Louisa ConoUy was granted an earlier
interview with her nephew besides that which took place a few hours
before he died, seems to be clearly contradicted, not only by her own
letters, but by that addressed by Lord Henry FitzGerald to Lord
Camden, in which, recapitulating his causes of complaint against the
Government, he includes in the list the refusal to allow his family
admission to the prison until his brother was in a moribund condition.
'• Wha: no:se is that : " he questioned eagerly ; and
>v^ ^rv.:: a ^rock was the answer given that, praying
car::c>:ly :ha: God would pardon and receive all who
r\.\ :r the vMuse ot ihcir countrj% he sank forthwith
-.".tv^ the ur.c^^r.SviousncHS ot delirium.
hor the ovcrsicht to which this last occurrence
wa> attrbutevi by Lord Clare it is just to say that he
c\:rc>'-;.i r:> rc^Tct to Henry FitzGerald, adding the
a>N.:-a::.c — .i Sv>nicwh.it singular one — that it should
r.. : h-ippcr. a^M-n. But that the incident should have
:.ik^!: r ace unknown to the authorities cannot but be
v\ "> .iircJ. a ^rr-injc cor.tcssion on the part of those
vM-^L.: w::*'. the ir.arUjjcment of affairs.
i ^:vj vAJv-; ::o!\ >hou:d be noted to the rule of
w\. .;.>.:' ;.:'.:vTwtv: aj^air.s: all who might be supposed
tv^ 'U; .i yvr>o:'..i! ir.tcrcst in the prisoner. Lord
} V. .^ : -t". v.: ::'c rr.-.i.istr.itions of the family
i • . 1^:1 :-;..: :«^ .ivail himself of those
■ • . . . • : *. ;.. ! :r..'.y jH^NN-bly aflbrd a clue
. .V : '.^ .:..:..'.jc::cc, and pomts to the
. .^ ■ . ....: . «: .:ic> may have had good
•...>. •:••.-. A.i:..^:'. i^r" rhcir severity in &vour
1 '..X.
^
••
\\ .
'"v
. . ^ ; ■ ■
' '\, V
'\
';
... .< '
^:*
.ru
\\ .>
.•-w '
./v V.
V
. . V •
Ot'
1 . •
vi V. :
'". %i
!" . V.' '
..:: -^ic- u.iN in England, detained
\ the critical condition of his wife,
rc\: o:\\y a few months later, and
..>r. {or his hot-headed brother, over
I'f him afterwards as " often crying."
tile strength of whose feelings had,
cr^ibereJi, forced him to quit Dublin
Xffe of Xor& £t)war& f ft3(BeraI& 335
some weeks earlier, there is no mention. His mother,
whose fortitude, wrote her brother, added a respect
and dignity to her sufFerings that no heart could resist,
ignorant of any imminent danger, set out for Ireland
too late. But Henry FitzGerald, only delaying long
enough to make a vain attempt to obtain from the
Duke of Portland an order admitting him to the
prison, crossed the Channel at once, to try what could
be done on the spot.
He had been given to understand that his brother's
wound caused no anxiety. On his arrival in Dublin,
however, he learnt from the surgeons in attendance
that the prisoner, though considered by them to be
making good progress, had been in danger a few days
earlier. Of the measures he took, under these cir-
cumstances, to induce the authorities to allow him
access to his brother's cell he has himself given an
account in a letter to Lord Gimden, written the day
after Lord Edward's death, in which he arraigns, with
passionate bitterness, the whole conduct of the Govern-
ment towards the dead.
"I implored, I entreated of you to let me see
him," he wrote. " I never begged hard before."
It was in vain. The Lord Lieutenant remained
as inexorable as Lord Clare, to whom he had pre-
viously addressed himself.
For the present there seemed, at all events, no
^ pressing cause for anxiety. Even so late as Friday,
June 1st, the accounts of the prisoner's condition
were still reassuring, although the news of Captain
— - ^«SiTlc^
Xite ot Xor& JEDward f it3(Beral& 3^7
to gain access for a few moments to Lord Edward,
then in the unconsciousness of deUrium, but had
managed to convey a warning of his condition to his
brother. " Seeing you, or any friend he has con-
fidence in, would, I think, be more conducive to his
recovery than fifty surgeons," wrote his fellow-captive,
adding the curious assurance, " We'll watch him as
well as is in our power."
But the time was fiist coming when the prisoner
would stand in need of neither watching nor care —
neither the loving, impotent care of those in like
case with himself as they listened to the ravings which
reached their ears through the thick walls ; nor of
that of poor Henry FitzGerald, half maddened by
the thought of his brother, " possessed of the
tenderness of a woman to all whom he loved," left
alone in his hour of greatest need ; nor yet of the
watchful care of the Government, who, guard him
as they might, could not shut the prison door against
the great deliverer.
He was not, after all, to die without a sight of
a familiar face. Information had been sent to Lady
Louisa ConoUy of the condition of her nephew ;
and she made a last despairing efiFort to move the
Lord Lieutenant from the almost incredible harshness
of his attitude. But she made it in vain. With
the dogged obstinacy of a weak man he refused, in
spite of her entreaties, to cancel the orders of ex-
clusion.
" I who never before knelt to aught save my
IdcfCXcce gg wiB yK36enifr
«rjjt--- - £-T-i^-jM c rriir =a=i s test in vtn."
A a>- rTr^^^trt. •r^^rrcr. su^ggcsticd :3c!f «> the
r. r:*, £.— .-^T Nif' sr, ry w-rci she hii bwcn accom-
ra- td :-. r.^r fr_--<s* --«C- Ir »:ss thit, as a last
rr?.:--;-. ir. irreil :: •>« Oiisoellor should be
I- r-. r".: r.iv- iccrr.^^i a tbrlom hope, since eariier
:r — * iav he hii rt;«c:ed ^he petition oT the dving
mr * '^rzrr.tr, r-: :: wis mcd- Dinner was scarcdr
0V-- •*;-?-: :- i :---?e wis r«cr.s^i ; znd Lord Clart,
co-r.:r^ :-: :o Liiv Lcuin*'* carrio^, listened, not
w:Tr.o-: cr::::^r.. :? her er-trcanr. After a moment's
cor.-. imTio". re rr^ie answer :har, though it was out
of the q-c-t:or: fV him to ^.ve her the order for
5 :''•••"-;. -L :, •: V v^^ :: 'i-'.t express iedsion
'* • <^ - - ., - ^t -. :-L-L WA^ r.o such obstacle
*' :- • -- Vi-: -J -;;- -:::>clf to the prison.
I ' ^ '. ' *, i> - i -.vA-i it ier^th, only just
:r. •:-.'., \v-..' _: rV :-: :".>-c who h;ii so persistently
Cil;- J .ir L'j\.\^''jr llo\i>\: for Lord Henrv on
the w.i\, 1,1 :y L<)..:-a proccCvieJ at once to Newgate,
t^.ortc 1 i»y riu- Charucllor, who, arrived at the prison,
dcurc! the cell ot'ull other witnesses, himself remaining
aj'iirt, tryinif like a woman at the sight of the dying
man. It is one thing to compass a man*s death,
another to see him die; and it is curious to contrast
the LlianLellor's present attitude with the letter in
Xffe of Xor& £t)war& f ft3(BeraI5 3^9
which, not a fortnight earlier, he had congratulated
himself upon the prospect of obtaining such evidence
as would enable the Government to bring the arch-
rebel, at the head of the other leading traitors, to
justice.
The visit had been well timed. The delirium of
fever had passed into the quiet exhaustion preceding
the end. That evening Lord Edward had asked
the surgeon who was attending him to read to him
the Death of our Lord ; had, as Lady Louisa ex-
pressed it, ** composed his dear mind with prayer " ;
and now recognised with tranquil satisfaction his
brother and his aunt.
** It is heaven to me to see you," he said, the
words marking, better than any complaint, what
the previous loneliness had been to his clinging and
loving spirit.
" I can't see you," he objected soon afterwards ;
then, when Lady Louisa shifted her position so
as to bring herself within his range of vision, he
kissed her hand, and smiled at her, " which I shall
never forget," she told Mr. Ogilvie, describing to him
the scene, '^ though I saw death in his dear face at
the time."
She might well see it. He had already reached a
place to which the echoes of this troublesome world
penetrate but fiiintly, and where the violence of grief
and joy is hushed. Though he had imagined Henry
FitzGerald to be still in England, he expressed no
surprise at his presence, only a quiet content, as the
330 Xffe of lotD £^wat^ fitsOcmVb
two brothers who had been so dear to one another
in life met and kissed in the shadow of death.
*'That is very pleasant," he answered, on hearing
they were alone ; falling back into silence while he
was told of his wife's safe journey to England, and
of her meeting with his brother on the road.
" And the children, too ? " he asked, adding
vaguely, " She is a charming woman."
'* I knew it must come to this," he said dreamily,
" and we must all go." Then, his mind wandering
fi^om the present to the past, with all its schemes
and hopes and calculations, he rambled a little, busy
again with militia and numbers, till his aunt begged
him not to agitate himself by talking of such subjects.
" Well, I won't," he said obediently, and presendy
fell once more into a condition of drowsy silence,
his eyes resting the while with full contentment on
his brother's fece.
The time to leave him came. Lord Clare was
waiting. There was nothing more to say, nothing
to be done.
'^ We told him/' said Lady Louisa, " that as he
appeared inclined to sleep we would wish him good-
night and return in the morning. He said, * Do,
do,' but did not express any uneasiness at our
leaving him."
The pain of separation, the supreme bitterness
of death, for him was over.
And so he parted from his friends. Gently, as
he had lived, he was dying. Not three hours after
Xffe of XorD E&war& f it3©eral& 331
Lady Louisa had wished him good-night, he was
indeed sleeping well, for his spirit had passed away.^
At dead of night they carried him, three days later,
to his burial ; fearing lest, in their grief and indigna-
tion, the people who had loved him might be moved
to some act of desperate vengeance. They had reason
to fear it.
For a Chief
Grief
Weeps with a sword.
**For US," wrote Wolfe Tone, the comrade who,
knowing him little, honoured him much — ** for us who
remain as yet, and may perhaps soon follow him, the
only way to lament his death is to endeavour to
revenge it."
The conduct of the Government towards him
whilst yet living was consistently carried out, by the
neglect of those in authority to pay ordinary respect
to the dead by supplying the promised guard, to
secure the funeral from molestation at the hands of
the Orangemen employed to patrol the streets. The
coffin was, in consequence, stopped no less than four
times as it passed from Newgate to St. Werburgh's
Church, in charge of the young officer to whom
it was entrusted — the same who had had the care of
1 The statement made in a paper written by Miss Emfly Napier
(see Appendix to Life and Letters ^of Lady Sarah Lennox) to the
effect that Lady Louisa and Lord Henry remained until all was over,
is clearly contradicted both by Lady Louisa's own account and by the
letter of the surgeon to her announdng the death : " He drew his
last breath at two o'dock this morning, after a struggle that began
soon after his friends left him last night"
332 Xffe of Xot^ £&wart) fitsOctalb
the prisoner till the day preceding his death, and
who, with a man named Shiel, probably a servant
of the FitzGeralds, was the single mourner by whom
he was accompanied to his grave. It was only at
two o'clock in the morning that, orders having been
tardily despatched from the Castle to that eflfect, the
melancholy procession was permitted to reach its
destination, and the coffin was placed below the
chancel of the church.
The arrangement was intended at the time to be
merely temporarj'. There, however, it has remained
ever since, standing by itself in a small, white-washed
vault, one of many which honeycomb the ground below
the building. Above the entrance to these vaults there
have been found, built into the southern wall of the
church, sculptured figures bearing the arms of the
Gcraldines. Upon the outer case of the coffin, added
some thirty years ago, is now inscribed the name of the
Jciul, with the dates of birth and death. But the story is
told, with what amount of truth it is impossible to say,
that seeking in vain, long years after the funeral had
taken place, to identify her father's coffin, Lord Edward's
daughter was referred to an old and dying pauper.
From him she learnt that, hanging about the precincts
of the prison on that June night, he had watched six
men carry forth the coffin containing all that was left
of the people's leader ; that he had followed it to its
resting-place, had stolen into the vault where it was laid,
and, remaining behind alone with the dead, had scratched
upon it with a nail the initials E. F. It is further
Xife of Xott) Edward fttjOecaR) 333
related that, returning to the church. Lady Gunpbell
found the coffin as described, its solitary mark of
identification being the letters traced by the pauper's
hand.
So Edward FitzGerald lived and died and was
buried.
There is a l^end of his race which tells how, every
seven years, there nuy be seen an Earl of Kildare,
who rides across the Curragh on a white charger,
silver-shod. And the people say that when the shoes
of the horse are worn off, his master will return to
destroy the enemies of Ireland. But whether or not,
in days to come, any Geraldine shall ever again set
himself to carry on the old tradition, it is certain
that no purer or more gallant and chivalrous spirit
will ever rise to champion the oppressed than breathed
in Lord Edward FitzGerald.
Whether he is to be regarded as hero or criminal,
patriot or traitor, must be determined, as Southcy
declared, by a reference to the maxims of eternal
morality and positive law. It is a question each man
will decide for himself But whatever the answer
may be, it cannot be denied that he was, in the phrase-
ology of the same writer, a martyr of rebellion. It
is as a martyr that his memory has been kept green
by the Irish people.
" For Edward's precious blood," said O'Connor
bitterly, " not even the semblance of an inquinition
has been had."
He was wrong. For the blood of Edward Vkt-
134 Xik of XorO Btnmnrd #ft5®eniR>
Gerald inqumtion has been made by every generation
ot hts coutttnrmen since the day when he lay dead
m hxs Newgate celL
And who shall pronounce him wholly unfortunate ?
He died^ indeed^ in the flower of his manhood, a
champion of a lost cause, a soldier in the ranks of a
bcitcn armv. But his life was given for that which he
held to be worthy of the sacrifice. Living, he was
surrounded bv a band of comrades who, iidiatever mi^t
be their tailings were as free from petty jealousies of
cbs$ xnd creeds igtK>ble personal ambitions, and sordid
prvite gruJ*ges as any that ever gathered under the
biLriricrs of h:s ancestors ; and he died — more fortunate
that^ some who have occupied his place in the affections
of 1 c^r.crous warm-hearted, and unstable people —
cr»v.v'vrd<:?evl Sy the love and the fealty of the nation
APPENDIX A
FUNERAL OF LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD
The following letters from Lady Louisa ConoUy are
cvuious evidence of the indifference and negligence
of the ministerial officials with regard to Lord
Edward's funeral. The first was docketed by Lord
Henry FitzGerald : " From Lady Louisa ConoUy,
in consequence of a complaint made to her of
the indecent neglect in Mr. Cook's office, by Mr.
Leeson. A guard was to have attended at Newgate,
the night of my poor brother's burial, in order to
provide against all interruption from the different
guards and patroles in the streets : — it never arrived,
which caused the funeral to be several times stopped
in its way, so that the burial did not take place till
near two in the morning, and the people attending
[were] obliged to stay in the church until a pass could
be procured to enlarge them."
Lady Louisa Conolly to the Hon. John
Leeson.
Castletown, yi/K^ 13/A, 1798.
Dear Sir, —
I received both your letters, and acquainted the Lord
Lieutenant with the neglect in Mr. Cook's office, as I thought it
right that he should know it, to prevent mischief for the future
335
136
Bl^pett&fE
OQ tuch occusiofis* The grief I have beeci in, and still do fied^
n m RDUch abmc any other sematiofi, that the want of t^^teot to
mj ftettngf on that melanchaly occasion was not worth aiif
notice.
Dear sir* your htiiBbk sen'ant,
JL O. CoNOLLir-
Lady Louisa Conollv to William Ogilvie, Esq.
, . . The dear rematns were deposited by Mr. Bourne in St
Wet burgh Churchy yntil the liiues woald peruiit of their being
removed to the family vault at Kildajre, I ordered ever>thiiig
upon that ocaision that appeared to me to be right, ooosidering
all the heart-breaking circumstances belongmg to the event;
and I WEi guided by the feelings which I am persuaded our
beloved angel would have had upon the same occasionj had he
been to direct for mtt as it feH to my lot to do for Aim. 1 well
knew that to run the smallest risk of shedding ame drop of Sh^
by any riot intervening upon that mournful occasion, would be
the thing of all others that would vex him most ; and knowing
A\m how much he despised all outward show, I submitted to
what I thought prudence required. The impertinence and
neglect (in Mr. Cook*s office) of orders (notwithstanding Lord
Casilereagh had arranged cver^ihing as 1 wished it) had nearly
caused what I had taken such pains to avoid. However^ happily^
nothing happened ; but I informed Lord Camden of the neglect,
for the sake rif nthi^rs, and l^i riri-vint mivrbief nn oth^^r rtrca^ions^
where a similar neglect might have such bad consequences.
You may easily believe that my grief absorbed all other feelings,
and Mr. is too insignificant even to be angry at. At any
other time than this his impertinence might amuse one, but now
it passes unnoticed.
APPENDIX B
THE BILL OF ATTAINDER
The Attorney-General, Toler, brought in a Bill
of Attainder, for the purpose of confiscating Lord
Edward FitzGerald's property, on July 27th, 1798.
After much discussion it was read for the third time
in the Irish House of Commons, and passed by a
majority of 42 to 9. Having also been passed by
the House of Lords, it was sent to England in
September for the Royal Assent, which it received
in October, in spite of a petition presented to the
King by Lord Henry FitzGerald, as guardian to
the children, and the Duke of Richmond, Charles
James Fox, William Ogilvie, Henry Edward Fox,
and Lord Holland, as their near relations. A separate
petition was also presented by their grandmother, the
Duchess of Leinster. The sequel as regards the estate
may be told in Moore's words. " Lord Clare having,
with the approbation of the Government, allowed the
estate to be sold in Chancery — under the foreclosure
of a mortgage to which the Attorney-General was made
a party — Mr. Ogilvie became the purchaser of it for
^10,500; and having, by his good management of
the property, succeeoed in paying oflF the mortgage
and the judigment debts, he had the satisfaction, at
the end of a few years, of seeing the estate restored
337 22
338 Bwell^fs
to its natural course of succession by settling it upon
Lord Edward's son and his heirs for ever " (Moore's
Life).
In I ''99 Lady Louisa G>noUy and Mr. Ogihrie
applied in \-ain for a reversal of the attainder. In
1815, when the position occupied by the Prince of
Wales as Regent oflfered a better chance of success,
the matter was again to be brought forward ; when,
in consequence of the landing of Napoleon in France,
Lord Castlereagh advised that the question should
be postponed. Only in 1 8 1 9, twenty-one years after
Lord Edward's death — ^was the attsunder finaUy
repealed.
LIST OF PRINCIPAL AUTHORITIES
The Life and Death of Lord Edward FitzGerald. Thomas
Moore. London: 1831.
The United Irishmen^ their Lives and Times, R, R. Madden,
and Edition. Series i, 2. Dublin: 1858.
Personal Recollections of the Life and Times^ with Extracts from
the Correspondence^ of Valentine^ Lord Cloncurry, Dublin :
1849.
Personal Sketches of his own Times, Sir Jonah Barrington.
London : 1827-32.
A History of England in the Eighteenth Century. W. E. H.
Lecky.
Pieces of Irish History, W. J. McNevin. New York : 1807.
Memoirs of the Political and Private Life of the Earl of
Charlemont, F.Hardy. London: 18 10.
Memoirs of the Life and Times of Henry Grattan, By his
Son : 1839-46.
The Age of Pitt and Fox, D. O. Maddyn : 1846.
Revelations (f Ireland in the Past Generation. D. O. Maddyn :
1848.
Curious Family History ; or^ Ireland before the Union, W. J.
Fitzpatrick. Dublin: 1869.
" The Sham Squire'' and the Informers of 1798. W. J. Fitz-
patrick« London: 1866.
Memoirs of the Life of R. B, Sheridan. Thomas Moore.
London: 1825.
399
340 140t Of prtticipal autboritfes
Sheridan, A Biography, W. Fraser Rae. London : 1896.
Curran and his Contemporaries, C. Phflltps. Edinburgh and
London : 1850.
Correspondence (f Viscount Castiereagh.
Personal Narrative of the Irish RebelUon of 1798- C H.
Tecling. London : 1828.
The Autobiography of Theobald Wolfe Tom, Edited with an
Introiluction by R. B. O'Brien. London: 1893.
Rogers and his Contemporaries. P. W. Clayden.
Ri»bert Southefs Commonplace Booh,
The Early History of Charles fames Fax, Sir G. O. Trevdyan.
London : 1S80.
Life of Thomas Reynolds, Thomas Reynolds the Younger.
lA)ndon : 1S39.
Skt: tikes of Irish PiKiticai Characters if the Present Day.
Henry McDougall. 1799.
Memoirs if Madame de Gent is. London : 1825.
Chroni/ucs Populains. Georgette Ducrest. Paris : 1855.
Memoirs of the Whig Party. Henry, third Lord Holland.
.V/.V/T Vi'drS ytgO.
/..;/. .7-../ litters of Lu:y .V. //.//; Lennox. Edited by the
CnuIltc^^^ of llrht sicr aiul Loril Stavordalc. London: 1901.
/../; o/f. I\ CurrAi. \\\ H. Curran.
A\. V. /-. vc.v ./i.v ('/<;■/. .v.v.
The Eirls ■'/ A':.\/.!/\: I )ukc of lA-instcr.
/)/. ti.-.'.irv '/ .^'^^0^^^' /.'/ \^r,i/' /r.
H -ra.e /;■.;./,'':■> lelt.rs.
INDEX
Abercrombu; Sir Ralph, descrip-
tion of the troops, 276
America, war with, 33 seq,
American Civil War, 184
Annual Register^ account of Lord
Edward's capture, 305
Armagh, County, hostility there be-
tween Catholics aud Protestants,
166
Armstrong, Captain, 283, 203
Assassination, Lord Edward charged
with advocating, 227-9
Athy, Lord Edward member for, 46
Attainder, BUI of, 243 ; Appendix B,
337. 338
Aubigny, 25
Bantry Bay, French expedition to,
210
Bar^re, Pamela visits him, 315
Barrington, Sir Jonah, quoted, 71
Basle, Lord Edward at, 206
Bath, Pamela at, 124
•• BatUlion of Testimony," 234
Belfast, Republican celebration at,
137
Bellamont, Lady, 23
Bellamont, Lord, 223
Belle Chasse, Due d'Orl^ans at, 144
Beresford, J. C, 185, 186, 191
Berry, Bliss, 41
Bird, informer, 236
Bond, Oliver, 182, 249, 259
Bowles, Caroline, Southey's letter
to her quoted, 118
Bristol, fourth Earl of, Bishop of
Deny, 49
Brixey, Guillaume de Brixey, 117
Buckingham, Geoige Grenville, first
Marquis of, 82
Bulkeley, Lord, 269
Burke, Edmund, on French Revolu-
tion, 133
Burke, Richard, 160
Bury, Madame de Genlis and
Pamela at, 129
Byron, Lord, epitaph on Lord
Casllereagh, 220
Cadiz expedition, projected, 96
Camden, John Jeffreys Pratt, second
Eari and first Marquis of. Vice-
roy, 191, 228, 258; Lord Henry
FitzGerald's letter to, 325
Campbell, Lady. See FitzGerald
Carhampton, Earl of, 197
Carleton, Lord, Curran's description
of, 288
Carton, 49
Castle, Dublin, i
Castlereagh, Robert Stewart, Vis-
count, his monument, 4; on
Government policy, 191 ; career
and character, 218-20; 266, 267,
268 ; 283 ; 2^
Castlereagh, Viscountess, 308
Catholic Committee, 106; Wolfe
Tone Assistant Secretary of, 107
Catholic Convention, 159; petitions
Parliament, 160, and the King,
161 ; dissolved, 164
Channel Islands, Lord Edward
visits, 59
Charlemont, Earl of, 215
y^
w*
3n^
Charleston Lord Edinrd at, 32
Chartres, Diic de, 67
CbK-hr5te". Loni. engaged to Miss
Ctolvie, 100. loi
Chnstchurch. ildsiftshire, Pamela
brcopht irom. 1 1 S
Chn>i»hiin:h Cathedral, Dublin. 1-^
City lUil. Dublin, 2
( ivTAC, Ducb«se de, 1 20
Claruilham. Countess of, 60
CUnMill'.am. Earl of. 53
Cbre. John KiLzgibbon. first F)arlof,
:i6. :24, 225, 252, 263. 26S. 269.
324. 3:3. 32^• ; takes Lady Louisa
Conolly to Newgate J ail, '3 28
Clinch, hi» execution, 326
Cl'-kncurry. ValentiDC Lawless. Lord,
113. 2i-
( lor. me I. Lord. 1^1. 2^7
i'..).'-. It W.r.am. f^v.otod. Si
C- i. ^Ily. I.atiy Li-wisa. anection fcr
L^rvi riu-ir-:. ?-. 7'. cjntiiience
in Lor : C siU re..ch. 220 ; y.t .v-/.,
,-,, ,-- .^j j^ . . ijj.jn-jj Jo Lord
C.innU:. 32"". an:i Lord Clart',
;:S ; !.»-: i-.t'^nicw with Lord
k.!vs.ir:. ;.'>-;■•; U-tton! n- hi<
I • T. ' A: :.••" . \ A. ;:. ;: »
I' V. i:-'" :v -. -
,
■.. -
I : : V '■.. .1: : K.. .,ik:
I ■
.-■ .
', ~ , . i ~ ; J : • . ~ J
( . '.'■■ : ■ Avt : '
( ' r. L" .: : ^t -■ :. :y .
:_".
- ~ . :.t'C.-" ! 1 ■ : .." ' ■.-■
• '1"
]■■ ■ .. ■.. .; '"•
<■■•;■ V- :.■
(•.■:k }i ■> . 2
C- r!r. = . K. : ■ ,
C.Ti.v. .; :>. M.;-,i';i>:. tr.!
.».:t-.'
to
VM-:;rr..l « » \\.:ii\. ^T
<; .v.K-y. K..:.^rt. i;-
('•>::. the ::•.!. n:r.or. I ^. 1:7.
I J>
C r.'ir-.wfl!. So»Tftarv i"
C '.rr ;i«. l-.I:-. I'hhi.lt. i>:.
l-.i.
I wO.
23;. :j;7. jj;-3
pAiiVViii. (irr.er..', :■■•; j/.v.V)
" I>. ;.nlt rs. If-*'
pL-tlaiid. M.jJaiiU' (ill, 103
l>e Lii Croix, Frchch Minister, 206 ,
Delany, Mrs., her letters nr Dudiess
of Leinstcr's mairia^ 22-3
Dempsey, 186
Denzille Street, Pamela at, 272
Devonshire, Duchess of, 57
DilloD, Mrs., shelters Lord Edward,
2«4-& 291-5
Directory, French, negotiations
with, 187, 201. 205-7
Directory, Lcinster, 249^ 259; its
arrest, 261 ; reconstmcted, 274
Donat, Bishop of Dublin, I
Donegal], Earl of, loi
Dowling. prisoner in Newgate^ 326,
327
Doyle. Sir John, quoted, 59^ 40
Dublin society, 105
Dtiblim Magazime^ 221
Dublin and the Geraldines, 1-4
Dundas. Mr.. 269
KiAVARD III., King, 14
Kmmet. Robert, 235
Kmmet, Thomas Addis, 182; ex-
amined before Secret Committee,
186, 200; 213; 250
K:/GE'i\Ln. Colonel, 297
} ;t. ''if ralii. Kiiward Fox. birth of,
I-". 17^^. 31S \note)
F.i. ciir.il.l, George, sixteenth Earl
.'1 K.liiare. iS
}• ::.'<Sera!J, George Robert, 48, 49
i .t/ri^rald. Gerald, eighth Earl of
Ki'.dare, 5. 15
I in 1.' raid. Gerald, ninth Earl of
Kiiviare, 16
Fit/Gerald. Gerald, tenth Earl of
Kddarc, 17
Kit/ Gerald, James. See first Duke
ui Leinster
Kitz Gerald, James, magistrate in
Fogo, 117
1 itzGerald, Lady Edward. See
Pamela
FitzGerald, Lord Charles, 83, 219,
266, 267, 269
FitzGerald, Lord Edward, his grave,
4 ; his career, 5-7 ; character, 7-0 ;
unfitted for leadership, 10 ; birtii,
3n&cj
343
12; childhood, 21; boyhood in
France, 25 ; education, 26 ; enters
the militia, 28 ; lieutenant in 26th
Regiment, 2^; in Ireland, 30;
goes to Amenca, 32 ; aide-de-camp
to Lord Rawdon, 37; narrow
escape, 38; wounded at Eutaw
Springs, 39; popularity in the
army, 40; at St. Lucia, 41-5;
return to England, 4$ ; member
for Athy, 46 ; distaste for home
life, 47, 48 ; canvasses Westminster
for Fox, SO, S I i ^i^c ii^ Ireland and
firat love affair, 53 ; at Woolwich,
yj ; in the Channel Islands, 59 ;
at Goodwood and Stoke, 60, 61 ;
rejoins his mother, 65 ; at Dublin,
66 ; increasing interest in politics,
ibid. \ in opposition, 68 ; social
and political position, 69; visits
Spain and Portugal, 71 ; in New
Brunswick, 73; letters to his
mother, 75-87 ; journey to Quebec,
89 ; intercourse with natives, 9 1 , 92 ;
at New Orleans, 92 ; disappoint-
ment, 93 ; offered command of
Cadiz expedition, 96; declines,
on being returned member for
County Kildare, 98 ; in London,
102-S ; in Dublin, 105 ; at Paris,
133 1 revolutionary sympathies,
137; takes part in Republican
demonstration, 141 ; meets
Pamela, 146; marriage, 149;
cashiered, iqo; in Dublin, 157;
effect of cashierment, 158, 159;
protest in Parliament, 162, 163;
isolation in the House, 167 ; and
elsewhere, 169, 170; settles on
Kildare Lodge as a home, 175 ;
at Frescati, 17$, 176 ; birth of his
son, 177; development of opinions,
180^ 181 ; character, 183 seq, \ in-
timacy with O'Connor, 192 ; in-
cident on the Curragh, 194, 19$ ;
joins United Irish Association,
198; opposes Insurrection Act,
199 ; delegate to French Govem-
mentt 302; at Hamburg, 203-6;
and Basle, ibid,\ indiscretion,
207 ; declines to seek re-election,
223 ; charges against him, 227-9 »
meets French agent in London,
229 ; meeting with Reynolds, 232,
238-40 ; described by Murphy and
Lord Holland, 247, 248 ; on first
Leinster Directory, 249 ; reported
conversation, 250, 251 ; visited by
Reynolds, 259; eludes arrest,
263; in hiding, 271; visits his
wife, 273; his position, 279-81;
in hiding, 284 seq. ; last visit to
Pamela, 289; reward offered for
his apprehension, 293 ; last in-
terview with Mr. Ogilvie, 295, 296 ;
proposes attack on House of
Lords, 296, 297 ; tracked and cap-
tured, 303, 304 ; a prisoner, 305, 306,
321 seq,\ last interview with his
aunt and brother, 328-30; death
and funeral, 331-3
FitzGerald, Lord Henry, Lord
Edward's affection for, 70, 83 ;
member for City of Dublin, 99;
retires from Parliament, 223, 312,
317 ; letter to Lord Camden, 325,
326, 327 ; last interview with Lord
Edward, 328-30
FitzGerald, Lord Thomas, executed
at Tyburn, 16, 17
FitzGerald, Maurice, first crosses to
Ireland, 13
FitzGerald,- Maurice, fourth Earl of
Kildare, 2, 14
FitzGerald, Pamela, afterwards
Lady Campbell, Lord Edward's
daughter, birth of, 206; 273; 321
{noU), 322 ; 323
FitzStephen, Robert, crosses to
Ireland, 13
Fitzwilliam, Earl o( Viceroy, 190;
recalled, 191
Flood, Henry, 48
Force, Due de la, description of
Pamela, 153
Forth, Mr., sends Pamela to France,
119
Fox, Charles lames, 33, 34 ; elected
member for Westminster, %o\
letter to Lord Henry FitzGerald,
J44
Snftei
Sj^ 99 ; friendship for l^ord Edward,
1 03 ; api^calcd to by Madame de
Civnlis, \2^; protests against
Lord Edward 'ft cashier meat, 1 $0 ;
quoted. 254, 317
French ezj^dition, 3 10; its failure.
311
Frescati. l^uchtss of Lcinster's
hfime. ^o; Lord Edward's early
married life at, 173 sfg.
Glnlis Madame de (also called
MaiKimc de Sillery ), Lord Edward
declines to meet, 1 1 3 ; her account
of! 'amcla's origin. 1 16. 1 17; adopts
Pamela, ii'j; vi&its England and
recfii fs d(H-tor*s degree, 1 23 ;
\Valpol«'"s opinion of, 123; re-
visits England. 1 24; letter to
YiiX, 12'>; Sheridan's guest. 1
12S-30; return to France. 143; |
scene with Due d'Orl^ans. 147, j
14S: her account of Pamela's
marri.ige. Ma 1 72, 173 ; meets
Fit/Geralds at I lamburg, 2t»3 sr^,
Oettisburg. cliarge :it, 184
(ilu-raniiui. I lie. ni rinrcncc, an-
r, -t.r> "I" Ti' rai ':• • <. i \
('..': r.i' ',..:. I ■ : : K-.v .-.r \ aI "i
(^^•^\\\• . W lii.iir. •■ r« \- <'r.itpry.
l.'.\ . .. ' .1 i\ii-.r'> i ;:i :,-. I I I
Imm-.1w..i. :. I (ir'l lliiu.iiil at. » /»
( ir.-.tt, ". 1 1« ■ rv. '.:s i'TA\t 4 . ;!;..:.•■:
.■:-. Ill; •-.''. in it'.S'T 1-r (';'y «.l
I»!iM:: . 'i.. . « :. In-!i ^i v- r. : . :t.
I'-i . li .T" I- tit'li.i:-' «-. ;'../. ••;'-
I f)' >('.•:. MM:"-... \.t. |( ". l.i\..lty
t'» lii.-.a lUltalli. 1' .' . 1 .. . I il.
11-. I'; J. .itv!tuii«- l««u;ir»l> L'r.ilt'l
I iisliii' •■ n. .'i;, ^, /.,_•:..>. :j I ; niirfs ,
ri' in r.i:!;.iitii : t. Jj; ; v;i^'> t'^i-
(ii ]xr .it ( K<.:.;-.r.rs truil. 2^^
I
IIai kas ( i.rjivi'^ Act. siispi-n>i()n of. i
n.,li:;i\. I.nr.l Kdv.Mnl at. 7^>
nanil)iirc. L(ird Kdward at, 203
Henry. Mr., visits Lady Sarah
Napier, zyj
Henry VIL, King, 15
Heniy veil.. King. 16
Higgins, the io former, 293, 294, 297.
300
Hocfae, Genend. 206, and Wdfe
Tone. 208 ; death of, 352
Holland. Lad)*, her diaiy quoted,
313
Holland, third Lord, 217; descrip-
tion of Lord Edward, 247, 248^ 317;
quoted. 330
Hughes, Mr., 289
Inchiquin, Lady, 30
Indians, Lord Ed^-ard s intercourse
with, 90-2
" Informers* Home," 234
J.\CKSo:c, RcT. Winiam, 187 j^^.
Johns, St., New Brunswick, Lord
Edivard quartered at, 76 se^.
Lake, General. 2$$
Larochejacquelin, Marqtnse de,
anecdote of Pamela, lao
Lawless, Mr., United Irishman, 284,
2 on
I.aulfjs. Valentine. 5^^ Cloncurry
I.o--'!i, 1 1. Ml. J«»hn, Lady Louisa
C'l'T'-ully'^: letter to, Appendix A,
l.rj^fvul of Karls of Kildarc. 333
l.'MiisifT l>irt'rtor>*. See Directoiy
1 rii.<t(T. Puchess of, Lady Emilia
l.cnnox, her second marriage.
22-^: relations with Lord Edward.
-7. 3-. 55. 60, 65 ; Lord Edward's
I. ttrrs to, 28. 31. 32. 44, 47, 55^3.
6;. 66. 6S, 72, 73, 75.81. 84-87.
SJi. 105, 137, 138. 141. 142. 153,
I'-o. 171, 174, 175, 176; conduct
cm his marriage, 152. 153; letter
about Pamela. 156; view of the
ctTect of his cashierment. 158;
interview with Prince of Wales,
^iS {fto/r)
Loinster, first Duke of. and twentieth
Earl of Kildaie, Lord Edward's
father, 18, 19; death of, ai
Lciiister. William, second Duke of.
Bnba
345
described, 52; supports Govern-
ment, 83; Master of the Rolls,
84 ; member of Whig Qub, 106,
170 ; resigns command of militia,
223 ; affection for Lord Edward,
324
Leinster House, 177, 263, 264
Lennox, Georgina, 52, 53, 75;
marries Lord Apsley, 93
Lennox, Lady Emilia. See Duchess
of Leinster
Lennox, Lady Sarah. See Napier
Lennox, Lord George, $2
Lewines, agent at Paris, 229, 252,
279
Liancourt, Due de, 12$
Longueville, Lord, 193
Louis XVI., execution of, 165
Lucia, St, Lord Edward quartered
at, 41
Lynch, Mr., tutor to Lord Edward,
21
MacDougall, Henry, on Lord
Edward, 9
Madden, Dr., quoted 8, 194, 250
seg,
Magan, Francis, the informer, 293,
294, 297-9, 304. 308
Maidstone, O'Connor tried at, 253
Margate, O'Connor captured at, 253
Martial law proclaimed, 276
Martinique, Lord Edward visits, 42
Mary les Dames, Church of St., i, 2
McNally, Leonard, the informer,
228, 235, 253, 256. 257
McNevin, William James, 228, 249,
250, 263
Meade, Lady Catherine, Lord Ed-
ward's first love, 53 seq.
Militia raised, 223
Moira, Francis Rawdon Hastings,
Earl of, 221, 255, 2S7
Moira, Lady, 307
Moore, Miss, 295, 300
Moore, public-nouse keeper, 295,
297,299
Moore, Thomas, on Reynolds, 237 ;
247 ; 321 {tufie) ; qtioted Appendix
B, 337, 338
Murphy, feather merchant, 247, 288,
295. 299, 301, 320
Nantes, Comte Fran^ais de, on
Paine, iii
Napier, Colonel, 309, 310, 317
Napier, Emily, 267, 308, 328, 331
(note)
Napier, Lady Sarah, Lord Edward's
aunt, 20, quoted 24 ; anecdote of
Prince of Wales, $2 ; quoted 83,
93, looi loi, 121 (HOte\ 155, 156,
222, 226, 246, 265 sea., 272, 273,
277 ; dislike of Lord Castlereagh,
220
Napier, Louisa, 308
Napoleon Bonaparte, 252
National Battalion, 161 seq.
Neilson, Samuel, United Irishman,
182, 242, 287, 288, 289, 302, 318,
319
Newell, the informer, 236
Newgate Jail, Lord Edward con-
fined in, 309 seg.
O'Brien, Jemmy, the informer,
234
O'Byme, Mrs., 234
O'Connor, Arthur, enters Parlia-
ment, 99, 192 ; views and opinions,
193, 194; delegate to French
Grovemment, 202 seg.; charges
against, 127, 128 ; 252 seg., quoted
333
Ogilvie, Cedlia, engaged to Lord
Chichester, 100^ 10 1
Ogilvie, William, marries Duchess
of Leinster, 22 ; Lord Edward's
affection for, 26, S^-^; I^rd
Edward's letter to, 85 ; interview
with Lord Clare, 224, 22$; re-
garded with suspicion, 184; last
interview with Lord Edward, 295,
O'Hara, General, at St Lucia, 41 ;
at Gibraltar, 71, 72
O'Kelly, Major, 264, 26$
Orl^ns, Duchesse d*. 122
Orl^ns, Louis Philippe, Due d'
^3
346
^n^el
{Egahifs, reputed to ht father
of Pamela. 1 16 : relations wiih
Madame deGenlis, 122 ; meeting
at Belle Chasae, 144; conversa-
tion al Kainsy, 147. 148
Orleans, Mademoiselle Adelaide d",
in England, 24-6; returns to
France. 143 seq.\ provides
Pamela's funeral, 313
Otho, Dominus, 13
Paini, Thomas, author of Rights
of Mam, 10^14, 188
Pakenham. Mr. 26S srq.
Pamela, birth and origin. 115-18;
adopted by Madame de Genlis.
lit); early traininf;. 120. 121;
visit to England and to Walpole,
123 ; second visit to England, 124 ;
S*»uthey's description of. ibid. :
meets Sheridan. 127; his offer of
mairiage, I2g; returns to France,
130: meets Lord Etlward, 146;
marries him, 149; character and
portr.iit. 153-5 i relations with
KilzGerald familvi 156; early
niarrie<l liays. 170 .v/. ; meets
Mail.:nv do (h'i li«- al Mjm'.urg.
j'S -w/. . -M^'. -"4. :J-5. y">- >•./■:
l.l>t ITH-rtllii; uill I.nr-i I'.dw.iPl.
jS.) ; ror.tliKt ultf r !:is iai»liiTc,
attrr-lil'-. ami 'It-.tli. VC ^ /
I'aii-, loFil K«l\'.ar^l 111. 1 ^S .v.y.
I'..t:h'!!. Sir J..!.!!. :v>.
•■ Pi-.ji .1 I »ay \\i'\'<, ' |f'(»
Pt I am, ( :-i<-l' >» » Tr'tary. ji>^. jjS,
;!■«
rortland, I)Mkr ot, 171^, i;i il-.c
Pn'>> iii\\>j)aiM'r. _s ;, 23.1
Oil nn . I.(»ril I-aluartTt! ;o.iriiev t".
F\A\FLA(;n, K«r[)iihli(.an celebration
Kautloii. Lord, 37. Sci' itiso Moira
Reform, agitation for, 106; 161
Regency Bill, 88
Reinhard, French Miniater to Hm-
seatic towns» 10, 205, ao6
Rerolution, French, entfausiaam kx,
135. 136
Reynolds, Thooias, the infonner,
232, 236 seq. \ 256 Mq.
Reynolds, Thomas, junior, quoted,
237, 238. 241, 242 (MUr)
Richmond, third Duke c^ 22, 3$;
disagreement with Lord Edward,
y>\ Lord Edward yields to his
judgment, 86 ; offers Lord Edward
command of Cadiz ezpeditioD,
96-99 ; efforts on Lord Edwartfs
behalf, 317
Rickman, Mr., Thomas Paine^s host,
109; his guests, 112
Rifrhts of Man, by Paine, 109
Rochford, 221
Rogers, Samuel, party at house ot,
Romney, the painter, guest of
Paine's, 111
Rousseau, J. J., influence on Lord
Edward, 97 ; Walpole's opinion
nf. 123
Kowan, Hamilton, escape of, 282,
Rutland. Charles Manners, fourth
I hike ot. Viceroy, 67 ; death of. 71
Ryan, Captain, assists in Lord
Kdwaiil's capture, 303. 304; death
nf. 326
Sam 'FORD. Miss, 30
S"pirmbcr Massacres, 139
" S'lam Squire." See Higgins
Slitart-s, the brothers, United Irish-
nu-n, Grattan on, 216; 283, 291,
Sheridan, Mrs., Lord Edward's
friendship with, 1 27
Slxridan, Richard Brinsley, meets
Pamela, 125 ; describes her, 126;
relations with his wife, 127, 128;
entertains Madame de Genlis and
Pamela, 129 ; proposes to Pamela,
ibid. ; second marriage, 131
Jn^cJ
347
Shiel, only mourner at Lord Ed-
ward's funeral, 332
Sillery, Bfadame de. See Genlis
Sillery, M. de, 147, 148
Sims, Mary, 117, 118
Sims, Nancy. Su Pamela
Sirr, Charles Henry, bis grave, 4;
at Gibraltar, 71 ; Town Major,
298 ; captures Lord Edward, 303,
304; 321 ; nde.Und.
Smith, Sir R., at revolutionary
meeting in Paris, 141
Southey, Robert, accounts of Pamela
quoted, 118, 124; on Lord Ed-
ward, 333
Stanhope, Lord, on Thomas Paine,
III
Stewart, Robert See Castlereagh
Stone, J. H., presides at revolu-
tionary meeting, 141 ; introduces
Lord Edward to Pamela, 146
Stone, , in charge of Lord
Edward in prison, 326
Strongbow, Earl, i
Swan, Major, 303
Talleyrand, 260
Teeling, Charles, quoted 171 ; 185,
218
Tone, Theobald Wolfe, 6; chief
founder of United Irish Society,
106 ; aims of, 107 ; Tone and
Lord Edward, 109; opinion of
Catholic Relief Bill, 164; com-
ment upon execution of Louis
XVI., 165; 181. 182; in Paris,
201 ; interview with Hoche, 208,
209 ; at Bantiy Bay, 211; quoted
231. 331
Tony, Lord Edward's negro servant,
39. 73. 78. 85. 263, 272
Tooke, J. Home, disciple of Paine,
III
Toumay, Lord Edward married at,
149
Tuite, carpenter, 297
Union Star newspaper, 227, 228
United Irish Association, 106;
earlier aims, 107, 108; oath, 108;
suppressed, 190 ; reconstructed,
198; joined by Lord Edward, ibid. ;
advances made by its Iraderi to
Parliamentary opposition, 213;
Grattan and United Irishmen, 2 1 5
seq.
Volunteer Convention, 49
Volunteers, later developments of,
162
V^ALES, Prince of, supports Knx.
$1 ; kindness concerning Liirti
Edward, xij \ Icttrr to Mr.
Ogilvie, JI6; note, ibid
V^alpole, Horace, quoted 50, 83,
100, 123. 129
V^atson, Mr, Lord Csmden's private
secretary, 306
Werberga, Ssint, 2
Werburgh's Church, St., 3. 4 i I<ord
Edward buried thrre, 331, 333
Westmeath, Esri of, 363
Westminster Election, 50
Westmorland, John r«nc», tenth
Eari of, Viceroy, i^»o, 173, 174;
recall, \^y
Whig Club, formation of, 106
White's Hotel, Paris, meeting at,
140, 141
Whiteboy distuibanres, 66
Wicklow, Countv, 174
Wollstonecraft, Mary, 1 1 1
York, Duke of, liking for Lord
Edward, 317
Yorktown, surrender of British
forces at, 41
PritUtd ty HmaM, tVmi94m & Vim^, U,, Urnhm mml AfUUmry,
OA 94MA.T2
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