Chapter XIV: Leonard Mcnally (1)

Thirty years ago I published in 'Notes and Queries'[427] an _exposé_ of McNally, so far as it could then be done on circumstantial evidence. His secret letters to the Irish Government were not accessible when I first touched the subject, but these have become very familiar to me of late, and it will be seen that all I sought to show is proved by the revelation of McNally's own testimony. Before I come to these letters, some of the remarks with which I had long previously prefaced my doubts may perhaps be allowed to stand.

It is an object with Mr. Froude to show--and evidently as pointing a moral--that men who posed as the greatest patriots were secretly betraying the plans of their colleagues. But although Mr. Froude mentions McNally more than once, it does not appear that he was an informer. When describing the arrest and death of the Rev. Wm. Jackson in 1794, he mentions McNally as 'a popular barrister,' and further on his name is given with that of Curran, Ponsonby, Emmet, and Guinness, as constituting 'the legal strength of Irish Liberalism.' This remark is made in connection with an episode told with such dramatic effect by Mr. Froude that it remains merely for a minor pen to unmask 'the popular barrister.'

Charles Phillips, although he had made the lives of famous Irish barristers his study, as shown in 'Curran and his Contemporaries,' refused to believe any tale to the prejudice of McNally. In the last edition of his popular book Phillips declares that

The thing is incredible! If I was called upon to point out, next
to Curran, the man most obnoxious to the Government--who most
hated them, and was most hated by them--it would have been Leonard
MacNally--that MacNally, who, amidst the military audience, stood
by Curran's side while he denounced oppression, defied power, and
dared every danger![428]

In this impression he was supported by W. H. Curran, afterwards judge--a man who, unlike his illustrious father, was of the hardest and coldest nature. He travelled out of his path, in writing that father's life, to pronounce a panegyric which is quite a curiosity to exhume:--

Among many endearing traits in this gentleman's private character,
his devoted attachment to Mr. Curran's person and fame and, since
his death, to the interests of his memory, has been conspicuous.
The writer of this cannot advert to the ardour and tenderness with
which he cherishes the latter, without emotion of the most lively
and respectful gratitude. To Mr. McNally he has to express many
obligations for the zeal with which he has assisted in procuring
and supplying materials for the present work. The introduction
of these private feelings is not entirely out of place--it can
never be out of place to record an example of steadfastness in
friendship. For three and forty years Mr. McNally was the friend
of the subject of these pages; and during that long period he
performed the duties of the relation with the most uncompromising
and romantic fidelity. To state this is a debt of justice to the
dead. The survivor has an ampler reward than any passing tribute of
this sort can confer, in the recollection that during their long
intercourse not even an unkind look ever passed between them.[429]

These remarks were elicited by a scene which occurred in Finney's trial[430] in '98. John Philpot Curran, embracing McNally, said, 'My old and excellent friend, I have long known and respected the honesty of your heart, but never until this occasion was I acquainted with the extent of your abilities. I am not in the habit of paying compliments where they are undeserved.' Tears fell from Mr. Curran as he hung over his friend.[431] Emotion spread to the Bench, and Judge Chamberlain, and Baron Smith warmly complimented McNally. Poor Curran! He

loved to recall the past moments so dear
When the sweet pledge of faith was confidingly given,
When the lip spoke in voice of affection sincere,
And the vow was exchanged and recorded in Heaven.[432]

In 1817, when Curran died in England, Burton--afterwards judge--singled out McNally, as the attached friend of the illustrious dead, to tell him the sad news.[433]

It does not surprise one that Phillips should have expressed the scepticism he puts on record. No man was more deeply versed in Bar traditions. He loved to question its oldest members about their contemporaries; and amongst all their ana he never heard, as regards McNally, a dark doubt started. 'Dr. Madden in his "Life of Robert Emmet,"' writes Phillips, 'broadly states the fact [that he was in Government pay], but does not give, as he usually does, his grounds for so stating it.'[434] Madden, replying to Phillips, said, 'I acknowledge I am ignorant of the time when the pension of 300_l._ was conferred.'

We now know not only the date, but the nature of the service by which the pension was earned.

Under-Secretary Cooke, in the year 1800, drew up for Castlereagh's information a confidential memorandum respecting 'Secret Service Pensions' for those who had given important assistance during the Rebellion. 'Mac,' for a pension of 300_l._ a year, is the first name recommended.[435] On the following page, Mr. Cooke--obliged to be explicit--writes the name _Leonard MacAnally_ in full, with the amount 300_l._ as his annual wages.

Major Sirr was chief of the police system in Dublin. His papers contain no letters from McNally; but Thomas O'Hara, writing to Sirr on November 11, 1800, proffers his services as a spy, and requests Sirr to address his answer to 'Leonard McNally, Esq., 20 Harcourt Street, Dublin.'[436] McNally, irrespective of the knowledge he possessed as counsel for the rebels, was himself a 'United Irishman.' An organ of that body, the 'Northern Star,' on March 3, 1797, proudly describes him as such in connection with the fact that, some days previously, he challenged and fought Sir Jonah Barrington for having used disparaging language towards the United Irishmen. In this combat he lost his thumb. The two Sheareses and Bagenal Harvey--all hanged the following year--escorted McNally to the ground.

A number of receipts for quarterly payments of Secret Service money were stolen from Dublin Castle during the thirties, and came to the hammer at a literary sale-room. Among them is the following:--

Received from William Taylor, Esqr., Seventy-five pounds, due the
25th June last.

J. W.

Endorsed (by Mr. Taylor)--5th July, 1816, 75_l._ L. M‘N.

S. A.[437]

McNally seems to have been the only recipient who was permitted to use false initials. The handwriting in the above is identical with some acknowledged autograph lines of Leonard McNally; but 'trifles light as air' at first encouraged my suspicions. For instance: there appears in the 'Cornwallis Papers,' some five hundred pages away from the part which mentions him, a letter signed 'J. W.'[438] The able editor, Mr. Ross, cannot guess the writer; but the information given deals with matters arising out of legal proceedings, and thereby points to a barrister as the spy.

In the same letter,[439] 'J. W.' states that a man named Bird is determined to 'let the cat out of the bag.' Here it may be observed in passing, that a pamphlet of the day is entitled 'The Cat let out of the Bag,' and, though published anonymously, the copy now before me displays his well known autograph, 'By Leonard McNally, Barrister-at-law.'[440]

John Pollock was Clerk of the Crown for the Leinster Circuit in 1798. The Book of Secret Service Money[441] records frequent payments, through his hands, to 'J. W.' These entries appear from February 16, 1799, to June 16, 1801, when the words 'repaid from pension' are added. McNally, it will be remembered, received his pension the previous year. Cooke, in a confidential memorandum for Castlereagh, writes:--

Pollock's services ought to be thought of. He managed Mac----,
and MacGuicken,[442] and did much. He received the place of
Clerk of the Crown and Peace, and he has the fairest right to
indemnification.[443]

Thus we see how weak was the attempt made by McNally's friends to explain away his secret pension. It was plausibly alleged that McNally, having been refused a silk gown in 1808, the pension was then conferred to compensate for his disappointment. So popular was this barrister, that the refusal of the Crown to give him silk was voted a grievance. Indeed, so far as outward appearance went, he uniformly took the popular side on all questions. The Bar meeting, to denounce the proposed Legislative Union, held on December 9, 1798, includes, among the patriotic orators, Leonard McNally.

Some of the reasons given by Phillips for refusing to doubt McNally's patriotism were, that he declined to join the lawyers' corps of yeomanry in 1798, and that his was the last hand Curran grasped when leaving Ireland! These waifs and strays only prove how well McNally played his part. As a successful dramatic author, and one who had been himself upon the stage, theatrical effect was at all times easy to him.

It is now time to appeal to direct evidence, not until recently accessible. Mr. Lecky, in examining the archives of the Home Office, has found record of McNally's fall, and the virtuous historian describes it as a 'peculiarly shocking one.'[444] It will be remembered that the Rev. Wm. Jackson, a parson, came to Ireland in 1794 on a secret mission from France. He was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death. McNally now found, it is said, that if he did not become an informer the halter would soon encircle a neck previously dignified by forensic bands.

Jackson, shortly before his death [Mr. Lecky goes on to say], found
an opportunity of writing four short letters, recommending his
wife and child, and a child who was still unborn, to two or three
friends, and to the care of the French nation, and he also drew up
a will leaving all he possessed to his wife, and entrusting McNally
with the protection of her interests. He wrote at the bottom of it,
'Signed and sealed in presence of my dearest friend, whose heart
and principles ought to recommend him as a worthy citizen--Leonard
McNally.' These precious documents he entrusted, when dying, to his
friend, and about three weeks after the death of Jackson, McNally
placed them in the hands of the Irish Government.

A few days later, Camden sent a copy of them to England, with a
'most secret and confidential letter.' 'The paper which accompanies
this,' he said, 'was delivered to Counsellor McNally, from whom
Government received it. There is so much evidence against this
person, that he is--I am informed--completely in the power of
Government. Your Grace will observe that the care of Mrs. Jackson
is recommended by her husband to the National Convention, and that
Mr. McNally is desired to assist her by every means in his power
to procure her assistance from them. It has occurred to me that
an excuse might be made for Mr. McNally's being allowed to enter
France for the purpose of attending to this woman's fortunes, that
he should go through London, and in case your Grace should wish to
employ him, I would inform you when and where he will be found.'

Portland replied that he was perfectly ready to make use of the
services of McNally in France, if Camden thought that he might be
safely trusted, but he suggested that this was very doubtful. The
control which Government possessed over him depended entirely upon
the conclusive evidence of treason they had against him. Would
that control continue in a foreign country? Camden, on reflection,
agreed that it would not be safe to try the experiment. McNally,
however, he was convinced, would be very useful at home.[445]

Jackson, finding no chance of acquittal, took poison and died, just as Lord Clonmell was about to sentence him to be hanged. Shortly before his death in the dock, seeing McNally pass, he grasped his hand and is said to have whispered, 'We have deceived the Senate!' This was true of McNally, but Jackson did not suspect him; nor did Curran, or the many other shrewd scribes who have chronicled the touching incident.

Mr. Lecky thinks that McNally's fall dates only from 1794: my belief is that he had previously evinced some frailty. In 1790, when counsel for Lord Sherborne, Beresford Burston accused him of 'doing dirty work,'[446] and McNally thereupon challenged Burston. Dr. Madden says that, in 1792, at the time of Napper Tandy's action against the Viceroy, some of Tandy's legal advisers were suspected of having disclosed their ingenious case to the Crown. McNally was certainly counsel in this cause. St. John Mason, brother-in-law of Addis Emmet, broadly charges McNally with perfidy committed in 1792.[447] Previous to this date Collins the spy calls McNally 'one of us,' in a secret letter to the Government agent, Jack Gifford.[448] Who Gifford was is shown by Curran, who complains to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, that 'Gifford, a note-taker for your Government, had the daring to come up to me in the street and shake his stick at me.'[449]

Mr. Lecky says that McNally often betrayed to the Crown the line of defence contemplated by his clients, and other information which he could only have received in professional confidence, and the Government archives contain several of his briefs annotated in his own hand. Mr. Lecky finds that

he was also able, in a manner not less base, to furnish the
Government with early and most authentic evidence about
conspiracies which were forming in France. James Tandy[450] ...
was his intimate friend; McNally, by his means, saw nearly every
letter that arrived from Napper Tandy, and some of those which
came from Rowan and Reynolds. The substance of these letters
was regularly transmitted to the Government, and they sometimes
contained information of much value. Besides this, as a lawyer in
considerable practice, constantly going on circuit, and acquainted
with the leaders of sedition, McNally had excellent opportunities
of knowing the state of the country, and was able to give very
valuable warnings about the prevailing dispositions.[451]

Among the earlier victims to the severe legislation of that time was Laurence Conner, a poor schoolmaster of Naas, charged with Defenderism, whose case has been invested with interest by Sir Jonah Barrington, Dr. Madden, and others. A moving speech from the dock failed to avert his doom, and his head, for years after, grinned from a stake at the top of the gaol. McNally, who had defended him, stated in his secret report to Pelham that a provision had been offered for Conner's family if he would make discoveries; but his reply was, 'He who feeds the young ravens in the valley will provide for them!'[452] It is strange that McNally should report to his employers this chivalrous speech, which places in marked contrast his own frailty and disgraceful fall. But corrupt as his heart had now become, he could not help admiring magnanimity wherever he met it. The man who sought to make Conner inform was, doubtless, McNally himself, at the instance of Crown Solicitor Pollock, who, as the 'Cornwallis Papers' record (iii. 120), 'managed Mac.'

This is the man whose name Earl Russell erased from Moore's Diary of February 27, 1835, leaving merely the initials 'L. McN.,' because some doubts of his honesty had been expressed postprandially by Plunket, a man more clear-sighted, it appears, than Charles Phillips. Succeeding chapters will show Plunket associated with McNally during the State trials of '98.

Lord Holland amused with my saying how much I used to look up to
this L---- McN---- [writes Moore], on account of some songs in a
successful opera which he wrote, 'Robin Hood.' 'Charming Clorinda'
was one of the songs I used to envy him being the author of.

'Your profession should have taught you principles of honour,' McNally writes in the piece which first roused the muse of Moore. With such fine sentiments it must have caused him a struggle to betray. All will rejoice that he who sang

Let Erin remember the days of old
Ere her faithless sons betrayed her--

escaped the blight of McNally's breath. Moore was the bosom friend of Emmet, sympathised with the 'cause,' and wrote for the organ of the United Irishmen. Shortly after '98, however, he entered at the Middle Temple, London, and saw McNally no more. Plunket told Moore that it was in a duel McNally received the wound in the hip that lamed him, and on a subsequent occasion, when he was again going out to fight, a friend said, 'I'd advise you, Mac, to turn the other hip to him, and who knows but he may shoot you straight.'[453]

McNally was indeed a brave man. If anyone seemed to doubt him, he would be called out and probably shot. In early life he practised at the English Bar. It is recorded in the 'Cyclopædian Magazine,' for 1808, that during the Gordon Riots, when the mob had smashed down the Bishop of Lincoln's coach, had dragged him out, and were beating him with bludgeons, McNally, at the risk of his life, rescued Dr. Thurlow, on whose forehead, he heard them say, they meant to cut the sign of the cross. This prelate, who somewhat favoured Catholic Relief, was the brother of Lord Chancellor Thurlow; and the young barrister may have had an ulterior object in thus exposing himself to danger. McNally himself evidently supplied the account, of which but a few details are here borrowed, and we learn that 'the Bishop required, and received, the address of his protector, but never after acknowledged the obligation.'[454] Some pamphlets on the Regency struggle, and the 'Claims of Ireland' vindicated on the principles of the English Whigs, introduced him to Fox, for whom he acted as counsel at an election for Westminster. 'By whatever right England possesses Liberty,' he said, 'by the same right Ireland may claim it!'

McNally as an orator was declamatory, and at times theatrical. His outward man has been often caricatured, but John O'Keefe tells us that he had 'a handsome, expressive countenance, and fine sparkling dark eyes.'[455] Sir Jonah Barrington recognises the same features. Contemporary memoirs of him supply a long list of his dramas, farces, comic operas, touching lyrics, prologues and masques, all produced at Covent Garden. But when in England he was a genuine, thoroughgoing Irishman very unlike the sham which he afterwards became; and why he resigned a dramatic for a forensic career is curiously shown by 'Sylvanus Urban.' The opening of Covent Garden Theatre, on September 23, 1782, was commemorated by a prelude from McNally's pen.

The author, with a partiality to his own countrymen which we know
not how to censure, has drawn the character of an Irishman as one
possessed of qualities which he had rather imprudently denied to
the other persons of the drama--English, Scotch, Welsh, and French.
This circumstance gave offence, and before the conclusion of the
piece the clamour became too great for anything to be heard. It
was, therefore, laid aside.

No name seems to have been more popular with the pit and galleries, and the admiration of his countrymen for him showed itself in odd ways. Kemble somewhere describes an Irishman at Drury Lane indignantly claiming one of Shakespeare's plays for McNally: and when a spectator, duly challenged, replied that he did not want to dispute the point with him, his tormentor said, still trying to foster a quarrel, 'but perhaps you don't believe me?' Again the man received a polite assurance which seemed quite satisfactory; but five minutes later 'Pat,' observing Kemble whispering to a companion, came over in an attitude still more menacing--'Maybe your friend doesn't believe that the play is written by Leonard McNally?' and to avoid a scene both were glad to decamp. Those were the days when the voice of national predilection made itself heard and felt in dramatic criticism. Home scored a success with 'Douglas:' 'and where be your Wully Shakespeare noo?' was shrieked by some clannish Scots that night. McNally's friends regretted more than once that he ever left London. A book called 'Five Hundred Celebrated Authors of Great Britain now living' was published here in 1788,[456] and it is amusing to find McNally's name included with those of Burke, Gibbon, Walpole, Crabbe, Burns, Cowper, De Lolme and Mackenzie, who at the close of a century were helping to educate the minds which were to adorn its successor.

One day Lord Loughborough, finding McNally ill prepared in a case which came before the Court, advised him to abandon the Muses and study Blackstone; but the _cacoëthes scribendi_ burned too strongly within him to relinquish more cultured pursuits. His 'Sentimental Excursions to Windsor' appeared, and on rejoining the Irish Bar he produced 'The Irish Justice of the Peace,' for which 2,500_l._ was paid by Hugh Fitzpatrick, the Catholic publisher; 'but it contained so much bad law,' writes Charles Phillips, 'that it proved a treasure not to the J. P's., but to the country attorneys.' Sadly soon the former had practical experience of a writ; and Michael Staunton told me, that if McNally's law points often served culprits, they hanged as many more.[457] 'In Dublin,' records a contemporary scribe,[458] 'he has now very considerable law business.'

'He had a shrill, full, good bar voice,' writes Barrington, in bestowing other praise. Sir Jonah occupied the judgment seat, and was famous for his power of discerning character; but, although he impugns the good name of many men, he does not distrust McNally. According to Barrington, 'Mac' was 'good-natured, hospitable, and talented.'[459] It is to be feared that hospitality with the popular barrister was but a means to an end. 'Will you walk into my parlour?' said the spider to the fly. McNally, in some of his letters to the Government when requesting money, urges as an extra reason the necessity of entertaining friends in order to get at new information.

Without money [he writes] it is impossible to do what is expected.
Those Spartans wish to live like Athenians in matters of eating and
drinking. They live so among each other, and without ability to
entertain I cannot live with them, and without living with them I
cannot learn from them.[460]

McNally knew human nature quite as well as Bishop South, who says of the bacchanal that his 'heart floats upon his lips, and his inmost thoughts proclaim and write themselves upon his forehead;' and he adds that, just 'as a liar ought to have a good memory, so a person of guilt ought to be also a person of great sobriety.'[461] McNally's dinner in honour of unfortunate 'Parson Jackson' and of the man who shadowed him to the grave, suggests that it was not the only occasion when death sat at the table.

In midsummer 1798 the clangour of battle filled the air. 'Fear prevails, and all jovial intercourse has ceased, so far as my experience goes,'[462] he writes; but when hostilities ceased, amenities were renewed.

After he had ceased to produce 'masques' at Covent Garden, and entered on his new career of a barrister and a spy, one great effort of his energetic life was to divert suspicion and puzzle posterity. He saw the wisdom of the proverb, 'Show me your company,' and thus he had a double object to gain by cultivating touch with patriotic men. In 1790 he was admitted a Freeman for--as the address to him said--his services to his country. In 1802 he published 'The Rules of Evidence, or Pleas of the Crown.' It is dedicated to John Philpot Curran, 'from an affectionate attachment,' writes McNally,

and from a proud wish to make known to posterity that a reciprocal
and an uninterrupted amity subsisted between the Author and the
man whose transcendent genius and philosophic mind soar above all
competition--whose honest and intrepid heart was never influenced
in the Senate, nor intimidated at the Bar, from exerting, with
zeal, independence, and spirit, his love to his country and his
duty to his client.

The 'authorised' memoir of McNally in the 'Cyclopædian Magazine' quotes the above, adding, 'The relatives of Mr. Curran may extract from this dedication an epitaph worthy of his memory.' The whole object of the memoir, one evidently inspired by McNally himself, is to foster a feeling of respect for and confidence in his own pretensions. No wonder that, in the eyes of Young Ireland one hundred years ago, a halo encircled McNally's head. Some of the spirited efforts which roused the Muse of Moore and Drennan are found in the organ of the United Irishmen. The 'Northern Star' of November 10, 1792, contains rebellious verses signed L. M. N.

Mr. Lecky has not examined McNally's secret reports after the year 1800, and his impression is that he 'did not wish to implicate "persons."'[463] It would appear, however, on Mr. Lecky's own showing, that McNally was not squeamish--even during the reign of terror--in pointing to men by name.

In September and October 1797 he told them [writes Mr. Lecky] that
Bond was the treasurer of the conspiracy; that the chief management
was now transferred from Belfast to Dublin and confined to a
very few; that Keogh, McCormick, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Arthur
O'Connor, Sweetman, Dixon, Chambers, Emmet, Bond, and Jackson were
in the secret.[464]

On February 5, 1797, McNally warns the Government that O'Coigly (hanged the following year) was in Ireland on a political mission, and reports the pith of his conversation.[465] 'O'Connor, Macnevin and Lord Edward Fitzgerald,' he whispers, 'are the advocates of assassination,'[466] which, indeed, there is great reason to doubt.[467] On November 19 Grattan is put in jeopardy.[468] Next month 'a most circumstantial and alarming story,' writes Lecky, had come from McNally. 'It was, that Lord Edward received, some days since, orders from Paris to urge an insurrection here with all speed, in order to draw troops from England. In consequence of it, there was a meeting of the head committee, where he and O'Connor urged immediate measures of vigour;' and thereupon their plans are laid bare: but how Emmet, Chambers, etc., opposed. McNally lived in Dominic Street, near the Dominican Fathers. In letters to Cooke he points to MacMahon and other of his reverend colleagues; and I learn from the present custodian of the 'Dominican Records' that Fathers MacMahon, Bushe, and Mulhall were arrested in '98, but at last suffered to leave Ireland for America. On May 24, 1798, J. W. mentions that MacMahon had called on him the previous day. But so early as June 14, 1797 the falcon eye of McNally had become fixed on this friar. He and other priests, he states, meet weekly at Herbert's tavern, Clontarf. 'Reilly, an officer who served in Germany, is often with them. Individually, no doubt, they are all concerned in the politics of the day, and they act when together with a caution certainly suspicious. Vernon, of Clontarf, offered the waiter 100_l._ to make discoveries, which he refused.'

'Troy may be up,'[469] McNally reports, meaning that the Catholic archbishop had been probably enrolled a United Irishman. Henceforth his Grace's letters were regularly opened at the Post Office.[470] Minor names are often breathed, and who can doubt that, with the Habeas Corpus Act suspended, advanced men stood upon the brink of an abyss? Carhampton, Commander-in-Chief, sent numbers of untried men out of the country,[471] and threatened to do the same with the Rev. Edward Berwick,[472] and others. Hundreds were seized on bare suspicion and expatriated without even knowing their accusers, or hearing the charge for which they suffered.[473]

The acts of no member of the Directory are more regularly reported than those of Arthur O'Connor. McNally seems to have been in his confidence as political ally and legal adviser. In turning over his letters I met one much more voluminous than the rest, furnishing a complete list of all the witnesses to appear at Maidstone for O'Connor's defence, and the facts to which they were prepared to testify.[474] These witnesses included Erskine, Fox, Grattan, Sheridan, Whitbread, Lords Moira, Suffolk, Thanet, and Oxford.

Throughout the State Trials men stalked who, as Curran said, measured their value by the coffins of their victims, and gloom was relieved by forensic _persiflage_. The duel already described left McNally lame, and another limping barrister one day asked Parsons in 'the Hall' of the Court, 'Did you see McNally go this way?' 'I never saw him go any other way,' was the reply.

Ned Lysaght had his skit, too:--

One leg is short which makes him lame,
Therefore the legs don't tally;
And now, my friends, to tell his name,
'Tis Leonard MacAnally.

He had been urged to join a Volunteer corps; but Curran told him that serious trouble might result, for, when ordered to 'march,' he would certainly 'halt.'[475] When writing to Cooke on the subject of the Lawyers' Corps, J. W., in a secret letter of June 12, 1798, introduces his real name, no doubt to puzzle outsiders into whose hands it might fall: 'It would be well perhaps if some of the judges would institute a Corps of Invalids. McNally might lead blind Moore to battle.'

Mr. Lecky thinks that McNally after his fall 'retained all the good nature and native kindness of his disposition.'[476] I fear that this redeeming virtue cannot be safely assigned to him. A careful sketch of the man appears in a local publication of the year 1806; and we learn that among his characteristics are--

Satire--oft whetted on ill-nature's stone,
Which spares no other's failings, nor his own.
But well may Leonard wield that branch of trade
Where cunning comes to penetration's aid;
--No logic closer--strong his declamation,
But his best leg is cross-examination.[477]

This, as we now see, was done quite as much in the privacy of his study as in the forensic arena.

* * * * *

Curran's great speech in Hevey _v._ Sirr contains a passage which has often been quoted:--

A learned and respected brother barrister had a silver cup; Major
[Sandys] heard that for many years it had borne an inscription
of 'Erin go bragh'--which meant 'Ireland for ever.' The Major
considered this perseverance for such a length of time a forfeiture
of the delinquent vessel. My poor friend was accordingly robbed of
his cup.

This 'learned and respected barrister' was none other than McNally himself. I have read his secret letter to Cooke on the subject, endorsed 'June 2, 1798,' and it makes him less a hero than he would publicly convey. He complains of the seizure of his cup, notwithstanding that, as he assured his military visitor, he had already erased the offending inscription. 'Mac,' in conclusion, says that the cup was value for 22_l._ 10_s._, 'hardly earned,' and encloses a separate paper distinctly naming that sum as his due. Four days later he writes to Cooke: 'Major Sandys returned a _sterling_ answer to _my friend's_ note,' which means a full money remittance for the amount claimed.[478]

Below we have McNally's version of this transaction, as supplied to Curran's son for historic and popular purposes:--

A sergeant waited upon him, and delivered a verbal command from
Major Sandys to surrender the cup. Mr. McNally refused, and
commissioned the messenger to carry back such an answer as so
daring a requisition suggested.[479] The sergeant ... respectfully
remonstrated upon the imprudence of provoking Major Sandys. The
consequences soon appeared: the sergeant returned with a body of
soldiers, who paraded before Mr. McNally's door, and were under
orders to proceed to extremities if the cup was not delivered up.
Upon Mr. MacNally's acquainting Lord Kilwarden with the outrage,
the latter burst into tears and, exclaiming that 'his own sideboard
might be the next object of plunder, if such atrocious practices
were not checked,' lost not an instant in procuring the restitution
of the property. The cup was accordingly sent back with the
inscription erased.[480]

Arthur Wolfe, Lord Kilwarden, was the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and his alleged intimacy with McNally is probably exaggerated. The biographer says that Curran repeatedly told this episode of '98, and quotes a touching peroration regarding Kilwarden's alleged interposition: that, in fact, great was the odour of its memory and precious the balm of its consolation!

McNally's account of the robbery of his silver cup was part of his stock-in-trade, and I am sure that for twenty times the price he would not have been without it.

William Henry Curran knew not very much of his father, whose biographer he became. John Philpot Curran had excluded him from his domestic circle, and the letters to his son which appear in the book were addressed to Richard. Who can doubt that much detail which lends interest to the ever popular 'Life, by his Son,' was supplied to the youth by the practised old scribe Leonard McNally? Curran's gratitude to him for help afforded is freely expressed. McNally wrote a style clear as rock water and full of classic strength. Nothing can be finer than his secret letters to Pelham and Cooke--three of which he often despatched in one day. The wonderful anecdotes which made Curran's Life, by his son, almost a classic have been quoted over and over, including the dinner scene at McNally's, when the ill-fated Rev. Mr. Jackson was entertained. Curran's son tells how the talk had been getting imprudent, when the butler, beckoning his master to the door, warned him to be careful; 'for, sir, the strange gentleman who seems to be asleep is not so, but listening to everything said: I see his eye glistening through the fingers with which he is covering his face.'

Cockayne was, of course, a spy of Pitt's; but some of the sensational anecdotes which McNally told of him, as also of Reynolds and Armstrong, may have been overcharged to divert suspicion from himself. These are not the only instances in which the embellishments of the professional advocate seem traceable. As regards Jackson's death in the dock, we are told that he made an effort with his cold and nerveless hand to squeeze McNally's, muttering a quotation from Addison's 'Cato'; but the lines and the adjuncts would be more likely to occur at such a moment to an old playwright like McNally than to the dying clergyman.

Emmet's revolt took place on July 23, 1803, but was soon quelled. He remained in concealment at Harold's Cross, and chose that position in order that he might see Sarah Curran, with her father, pass daily to Dublin. On August 25 he was arrested by Major Sirr. Popular confidence in McNally had now reached its height. A special commission for trying the insurgent leaders began on August 24, 1803. 'Most of the prisoners chose Mr. McNally as their counsel, and Mr. L. McNally, junior, as their agent,' records the 'Evening Post' of the day.

McNally had long had his eye on the gifted young orator Robert Emmet: 'Emmet, junior, gone on business to France--probably to supersede Lewins,'[481] he writes to Cooke three years previous to the insurrection of 1803. On September 3, in the latter year, McNally sends one of his secret letters to Cooke, saying that he is authorised to treat on behalf of a person privy to the whole conspiracy.[482]

The remainder of McNally's letters during these troubles of 1803 are yet wanting. No doubt they remain among Wickham's papers of the period which are still a sealed book.[483] Among the sensational incidents of the hour was the outrage of searching Curran's house, and the capture of Emmet's love-letters to Sarah Curran--to whom the youth had been secretly engaged. Curran himself, we are told, though aware of Emmet's visits, was ignorant of the attachment. But there was a seemingly dear old friend, having access to Curran's domestic circle, whose eagle eye could penetrate still deeper secrets. In the absence of McNally's private reports of that month there is, however, no absolute proof against him on this point.

Mount Jerome,[484] the seat of John Keogh, the great Catholic leader, was also searched, and his papers seized. Dr. Madden mentions that, in 1802, Emmet had dined at Keogh's in the company of John Philpot Curran, when the probability of success in the event of a second rebellion was debated with great animation.[485] Whose was the whisper which betrayed this information never transpired. But Curran, the great depository of popular secrets, maintained, as will be shown, no reserve with McNally. So far back as 1797 McNally writes:--

Grattan and Curran are compleatly in the secret. Everything that's
done or intended is communicated to them.[486]

A quantity of information follows, and the letter ends with these pregnant words:--

Curran gives a dinner at his house. _Will be there._

This is the man whom William Henry Curran describes as having been 'from his youth to his latest hour the most affectionate, unshaken and disinterested friend' of his father.[487]

Before and after the conviction and death of Robert Emmet, the initials 'L. M.' peep from the 'Secret Service Money Book.' On August 25, 1803 (the very day on which Emmet was captured), we read: 'Mr. Pollock for L. M., 100_l._' Pollock, Clerk of the Crown for Leinster, is the same man through whom the bribes for 'J. W.' (McNally) are paid.[488] The 100_l._ cannot have been for the actual capture of Emmet, for I know that in November following a bulk sum was paid for that service. The _douceur_ to L. M. was in acknowledgment of useful information.[489]

McNally appears as counsel for Emmet in the State trial on September 19, 1803. Four days previously, namely, on September 14, 100_l._ is set down to 'L. M.' On the morning of Emmet's execution an affecting scene took place between the rebel chief and McNally, the only friend allowed to see him. Emmet's mother had just died, but he did not know it, and desire to see her filled him--'Then, Robert, you shall meet her this day,' replied McNally, pointing to Heaven in his accustomed dramatic style. A long account of the interview, doubtless supplied by 'Mac' himself with his usual itch for writing, and evidently designed to promote Lord Hardwicke's popularity as Viceroy, appears in a Ministerial journal, the London 'Chronicle,' on September 24, 1803.

Emmet [we are told] observed that, had he not been interrupted by
the Court in his address, he would have spoken as warm an eulogium
on the candour and moderation of the present Government in this
kingdom as his conception or language were adequate to.

After Emmet's arrest Curran was examined by the Privy Council, when Chancellor Redesdale sought by a tone of intimidation to extort the truth; but the scowl of contempt he encountered gave his own nerves the shock he designed for another's, and made him sink back into his chair, abashed by the failure of his rash experiment. Curran's son speaks of the wonderful intrepidity of McNally's language in his addresses to the Court; but it is easy to be defiant when one knows he is safe. Contemporary critics record his marvellous power of penetration in cross-examining witnesses on the State trials. A shrewd man, deep in the secrets of both sides, would not find it hard to create this impression.

Lord Cloncurry complains, in his Memoirs, that after his liberation from gaol in 1801, and for many subsequent years, no man suffered more from petty worries at the hands of the Irish Government. McNally was in the coterie of which Cloncurry formed the central figure, and it cannot be doubted that he consistently reported his fervid sentiments. The 'Press' was the Rebel organ, its tone distinguished, as Lord Camden said, by 'an unheard-of boldness,'[490] and a friendly offer made by Lawless, afterwards Lord Cloncurry, to McNally is thus reported. After mentioning when the private committee of United Irishmen met, McNally[491] announces--the underlining his own:--

Lawless, principal proprietor of the 'Press': _he has offered a
share to J. W.[492]--a £50 share_.... Nothing save rebellious
toasts at the dinner; _McNevin was there_. Lawless gave 'Cut the
Painter' [_i.e._ Separation from England].

_An accurate and dayly_ [sic] _account will be given_. Lawless
sails for London to-morrow night. It is his turn of duty,--perhaps
to meet some people at the Head. He ought to be watched from
George's Quay every hour till his return.[493]

A later letter assures Pelham: 'The fellow-travellers of Lawless shall be found out if possible.'[494]

Higgins and Magan knew nothing of Cloncurry's movements, but between Turner and McNally he had a warm time of it. Lord Holland compared his long detention in the Tower, untried and unaccused, to the operation of the _lettres de cachet_ in old France. In 1803, on secret but, he declares, erroneous information, that Emmet's wounded rebels were concealed there, 'a large military force' searched Lord Cloncurry's house in Kildare, and robbed it of a quantity of papers, some fowling-pieces, armour, and even plate.'[495]

No details are forthcoming as regards the intercourse which subsisted between McNally and Cloncurry throughout the eventful period subsequent to their friendly relations in '98; but the cordiality of that intercourse may be seen from a waif or two. The 'Correspondent,' a Dublin journal, reports on August 27, 1817, a speech of the patriot peer, Cloncurry, in which the epithet 'dear' is applied to his old friend McNally. 'There is no gentleman,' he adds, 'for whom I have a higher respect or esteem, and of whose knowledge, talent and elocution I am more sensible.'

Sometimes McNally travelled as a spy, probably in disguise, through remote rural districts. On August 28, 1805, he announces Tipperary as 'ready to rise.' In September he goes up the Dublin mountains, 'Emmet's line,' and the result of his inquiries was that no rising need be apprehended.[496] I do not find that McNally's secret letters exist at Dublin Castle beyond the year 1805; I must, therefore, seek to trace from other sources the close of his career. Pecuniary need drew its toils tighter round him every day, making him, no doubt, more energetic in his effort to cast them off.[497]

Readers of the 'Wellington Correspondence' from 1807 to 1809 will be able to identify McNally. The subjugator of Tippoo Saib, then Chief Secretary at Dublin Castle, found Catholic Ireland galled by various disabilities. One letter, dated November 21, 1807, encloses a paper headed 'Information received this evening from a very intelligent Priest.'[498] This, on being quoted by the reviewers of the Wellington Papers, excited disgust that a priest should be in secret correspondence with Dublin Castle; but it is quite clear to me that the letter came from McNally, and embodies merely the responses of a gossiping priest to the pumping of a practised hand--the same, I may venture to add, to whom McNally, upon dying, will be found making his own confession.

The Whig Duke of Bedford took office with Fox, Lansdowne, and Grey in the administration of 'All the Talents,' and ruled Ireland for one year. Curran became Master of the Rolls, and McNally thought that he himself, as the leading popular barrister, had claims for promotion. All the men who will be remembered as voting with him at the bar meeting in 1799 had got snug berths. His appeal to Bedford was referred to Wellesley, whose common sense appears in the following reply:--

I agree entirely with you respecting the employment of our
informer. Such a measure would do much mischief. It would disgust
the loyal of all descriptions, at the same time that it would
render useless our private communications with him, as no further
trust would be placed in him by the disloyal. I think that it might
be hinted to him that he would lose much of his profit, if, by
accepting the public employment of Government, he were to lose the
confidence of his party, and consequently the means of giving us
information.[499]

Curiously enough, at the time he is himself most active as a spy, Mr. T. Mulock, of Dublin, reports him, with Messrs. Hutton and O'Connell, as persons who 'ought to be watched.'[500] An account of the first meeting for Repeal of the Union, on September 18, 1810, is preserved in the State Papers; and McNally spoke on that day 'with great zeal and patriotism,' as Plowden proudly[501] records. Mr. Mulock had not the knowledge of character shown by his kinswoman Miss Mulock, the novelist.

Reference has been already made to the fact that in 1811 the Irish Secretary of State, Wellesley Pole, with the object of suppressing the Catholic Committee, caused to be arrested, under the Convention Act, Lord Fingall, Lord Netterville, and the other Catholic delegates. Able counsel were retained by them, and private conferences, attended by Burrowes, Johnson, Perrin, O'Connell, Burton, O'Driscoll, and McNally, were held in order to decide on the lines of defence to be taken. The questions involved were difficult and subtle; and although the courses decided upon were equally novel, it was observed with amazement that the Orange Attorney-General, Saurin, seemed marvellously well prepared for every point, as the delegates daily fought their ground inch by inch.[502]

An aggregate meeting of Catholics was held after the arrests of their delegates. John Mitchel describes the party then in power as a 'No Popery Administration,' and the appearance of a Protestant on the platform was hailed as a happy incident. The following is taken from the 'Correspondent,' a once influential organ of Dublin Castle:--

Mr. McNally offered himself to the consideration of the Catholic
body. He was anxious that his name should be coupled to the
glorious cause for which, as Irishmen, they were contending--a
cause that, from his earliest youth, although a Protestant, he felt
as his own. He insisted that the conduct of the Lord Lieutenant was
illegal--that he had not the power of arresting an individual by
his own mere authority; that, not having the authority, he could
not, of course, delegate it to a Magistrate.--[Here he animadverted
upon the conduct of Mr. Hare, the police magistrate, who made
the arrests.] The King himself, he said, possessed not the power
which the Lord Lieutenant assumed in the arrest of Lords Fingal
and Netterville. He instanced the case of Chief Justice Hussey and
Edward IV.--The King asked the Judge whether his own warrant would
not be deemed sufficient to arrest a subject?--The Chief Justice
answered in the negative. And the reason was obvious. _The King can
do no wrong._--But the subject could have no legal redress against
such an impeccable magistrate. He referred to the State trials for
an exemplification and authority on this point; and he showed that
a power which could not be exercised by Majesty itself, could not
pass through the opaque body of his Lieutenant--a moonshine and
intermitting ray.

O'Connell followed, and the clear head of that great lawyer saved the Catholic body from the deeper pitfall in which the bad law of a false adviser would have placed them. In the course of his speech he declared:--

With regard to what had been said by Mr. McNally he could not
assent. The action of Mr. Hare was merely his own, as a magistrate,
and the Lord Lieutenant had no concern in being responsible for it;
and he [Mr. O'Connell] would not allow in that assembly anything to
be laid to the charge of the Duke of Richmond for which His Grace
was not in every respect accountable.

On October 19, 1811, Wellesley Pole writes from Dublin Castle to the Home Secretary regarding the proceedings of the Catholic Committee, and enclosing 'a report from,' as he says, 'one of our spies.' This document, signed 'J. W.' is still preserved with Pole's letter in the Record Office, London. About the same time Pole announces to the Home Office that 'Young Mr. Curran, son of the Master of the Rolls, has been very active in soliciting from the Catholics subscriptions for Mr. Finnerty, and letters from persons associated in London for promoting that object have been addressed to the Catholics here.'[503] These regular reportings of Curran's domestic circle involve a degree of treachery painful to contemplate.[504]

The reports of 'J. W.' did not tend to make Curran a favourite with 'the powers.' The patriot's son, describing a prior year, records:--

A party of seventeen soldiers, accompanied by their wives, or their
profligate companions, and by many children, and evidently selected
for the purpose of annoyance, were, without any previous notice,
quartered on Mr. Curran's house.[505]

The late Mr. Byrne, an old Petty Sessions clerk, informed me that when walking at this time with his cousin Mr. Phelan, an attorney of Liberal politics, McNally, with a significant wink, accosted him, saying: 'The people are at last beginning to read; those who cannot yet read have books and papers read to them; after they read they will think, and they won't be long thinking until they act.'

On the trial of Sheridan and Kirwan, two Catholic delegates, he spoke warmly against the sheriff and others tampering with the jury, and was checked by the bench. He excused himself by saying 'that where the heart and the understanding went together it was difficult to keep bounds,' etc. Great excitement prevailed by the effort made to crush the freedom of speech, in the midst of which Percy Bysshe Shelley came to Dublin, and largely helped by voice and pen to make the crisis historic. Mr. Pole declared in Parliament, that 'if gentlemen would read the debates of the Catholic Committee they would find separation openly and distinctly recommended.' O'Connell, on February 29, 1812, replied: 'Why, my lord, this is a direct accusation of high treason, and he who would assert it of me, I would brand with the foulest epithets. I defy the slightest proof to be given of its veracity.' The Duke of Richmond, then Viceroy, writes at great length to the Home Secretary, speaks of his 'secret information,' and flutters the Cabinet.[506]

It was during the same year that Roger O'Connor, of Dangan Castle--father of Feargus, member for Nottingham--headed a band of rude retainers and robbed the Galway mail coach on Cappagh Hill. Though somewhat daft, he had method in his system, and when, five years later, he found himself a prisoner in Newgate, pending the long averted prosecution, he directed his attorney, named Maguire, to draw up a fictitious case, including a false line of defence, and lay it before McNally, taking for granted that he would betray to the Crown the person he supposed to be his client. The prosecution strangely broke down, and O'Connor, although notoriously guilty, was acquitted.[507] This trial took place in 1817: the death of Curran followed soon. A man named Waring having been indicted for perjury, McNally is found saying: 'Oppressed by the loss of my earliest friend, I have not strength for the task. But I wish to repel the stigma thrown out against my client, though I should die in the trammels.'[508]

The letters of McNally to Curran would be curious to read; 'but,' writes his daughter-in-law, 'they were destroyed by my late husband when he became so disgusted by the knowledge of the double face McNally must have worn for so many years as the _friend_ of his father.'[509]

Although McNally's are destroyed, some characteristic letters from Curran to him were supplied by the spy to Curran's biographer. It was a constant effort of McNally to engraft himself on the fame and name of Curran. A touching document in the romance of real life is the letter addressed by Curran to McNally in 1810. He exhibits a kind solicitude for the improved health of his false friend, and alludes to their future meeting where secrets and sorrow would be no more.

Godwin's, 41, Skinner Street, London.

Dear Mac,-- ... I am glad to hear you are letting yourself out
at Old Orchard; you are certainly unwise in giving up such an
inducement to exercise, and the absolute good of being so often
in good air. I have been talking about your habit without naming
yourself. I am more persuaded that you and Egan[510] are not
sufficiently afraid of weak liquors.[511] I can say from trial how
little pains it costs to correct a bad habit. On the contrary, poor
nature--like an ill-used mistress--is delighted with the return of
our kindness, and is anxious to show her gratitude for that return
by letting us see how well she becomes it.

I am the more solicitous upon this point from having made this
change, which I see will make me waited for in Heaven longer than
perhaps they looked for. If you do not make some pretext for
lingering, you can have no chance of conveying me to the wherry;
and the truth is, I do not like surviving old friends. I am
somewhat inclined to wish for posthumous reputation; and if you
go before me, I shall lose one of the most irreclaimable of my
trumpeters. Therefore, dear Mac, no more water, and keep the other
element, your wind, for the benefit of your friends. I will show my
gratitude as well as I can, by saying handsome things of you to the
saints and angels before you come. Best regards to all with you.

J. P. C.

'Mac' stuck to him like a leech to the end. 'As he walked through the grounds of his country seat with Mr. McNally,' writes Curran's son, 'he spoke of the impending event with tranquillity and resignation:--

I melt (said he) and am not
Of stronger earth than others.

'"_I wish it was all over._"'[512]

'Curran's will, which I have in the house,' writes his daughter-in-law, 'is dated September 14th, 1816, and the codicil the 5th September, 1817; it bears the signatures (as witnesses) of Richard Lonergan and Leonard McNally. Lonergan was editor of 'Carrick's Morning Post,' a popular organ. The first of a series of papers on the Dublin Theatre, signed 'L. M. N.,' appears in this journal of December 16, 1817:--