CHAPTER XIV
LEONARD MCNALLY
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
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 300l. 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 300l. 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 300l. 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, 75l. 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
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 2,500l. 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 100l. 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:—
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—
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 22l. 10s., '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:—