Authors: Marjorie Bowen
On a dark day of wind and rain when the tumultuous clouds seemed to fly just above the housetops of Dublin, and the storm obscured the English flag on the castle, Mr. John Ogilvie called by appointment at the handsome residence of the Earl of Clare, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland.
The Scotsman was full of well-controlled but considerable agitation, and had to stay a moment in the large vestibule to collect his forces; yet he was visiting one with whom he had long had an amiable acquaintance, nor could the formidable power of the dreaded Lord Chancellor ever have touched his modest but secure fortune.
When he entered the handsome apartment, well lit by fire and lamps, where Lord Clare awaited him, Mr. Ogilvie’s demeanour, however, betrayed some of his inward trepidation. He saluted in silence Lord Clare and another gentleman who was lounging on a sofa but who rose with amiable courtesy at his entrance. Mr. Ogilvie was not reassured by recognising another of his acquaintances, the young nobleman, Robert Stewart, who had recently become, on his father’s elevation to the peerage, Viscount Castlereagh, formerly member for Oxford at Westminster, now Secretary for Ireland and member for County Down.
Mr. Ogilvie knew from a certain withdrawal in the manner of both these men, which was something more than silence, that the matter on which they wished to see him was very important, delicate and perhaps embarrassing; he could not forbear a sigh, for he feared he knew too well what it was.
Lord Clare, a man past middle age, was of stern and resolute appearance. Lord Castlereagh was extremely handsome, over six feet in height, of a splendid figure, graceful and expensively dressed; his features, which had a classic regularity, were impassive. He had begun as an Irish Reformer, almost a patriot, but was now hand and glove with Clare in maintaining the English supremacy; his manners were mild and nothing had ever been known to ruffle his perfect courtesy.
‘Mr. Ogilvie,’ exclaimed Lord Clare brusquely, ‘let us come shortly to the matter in hand.’ He had, even when he wished to be amiable, an air of authority which was almost dictatorial and a shortness in his speech that was like a tone of command.
‘It is my wish,’ replied the Scots gentleman, who remained standing, alert and suspicious.
‘You are surprised, no doubt, that I have sent for you, having nothing but a civil acquaintance with you. You are surprised, perhaps, at the presence of Lord Castlereagh.’
‘No, why should I be?’ replied Ogilvie dryly. ‘I have a certain friendship with his lordship that leads me to hope that he is here for the pleasure of my company.’
Castlereagh smiled very civilly without speaking.
‘I employ no messengers,’ said Clare, ‘I write no letters in this affair, I come straight to you as the husband of the Dowager Duchess of Leinster, you understand?’
Fearful of displaying some imprudence, the Scot was silent, and Clare continued: ‘You can throw prudence to the wind here, I know everything.’ Then, as if irritated by the other’s continued silence, he added: ‘For God’s sake, man, don’t stand there dumb, you understand me well enough!’
‘Indeed,’ replied Mr. Ogilvie with unabashed fortitude, ‘I do not understand you at all, my Lord. How may I guess to what your allusions point?’
‘They point,’ flung out Clare with increasing roughness, ‘to that young man, Edward Fitzgerald. To that fool, I would have said, sir, but remembered that you had the tutoring of him.’
‘I suppose, sir,’ put in Castlereagh, with smiling smoothness, ‘that you do not hold Mr. Ogilvie responsible for Lord Edward’s opinions.’
‘He might be responsible for the formation of his character,’ retorted Lord Clare; ‘but perhaps we may blame nature for that, it would be more polite to Mr. Ogilvie. Plainly, between these four walls, sir, the young man’s a fool. I like him,’ he added, before the other could answer. ‘I like his family, they have all been friends of mine. That little French wife of his too, married in that crazy fashion! She is a poor, childish soul! Hear me, Ogilvie,’ he spoke vehemently, drawing his thick brows together, ‘I tell you this, as friend to friend, get Lord Edward out of Ireland. You shan’t be stopped; all the ports will be left open to you.’
‘On my honour, my Lord, I don’t know what your lordship talks about!’
‘I dare say not,’ returned Clare impatiently, ‘but you can guess, can’t you? The whole country is in a state of smouldering insurrection and rebellion, and has been for years. One of the ringleaders is Lord Edward. I dare say you affect not to know that.’
‘I do so affect,’ replied Ogilvie stoutly. ‘I should have thought Lord Edward was open enough in his opinions and actions not to fall under your lordship’s suspicions — he spoke his mind boldly in Parliament, as I believe —’
‘Those men who spoke their minds so boldly in Parliament are keeping out of the way now if they have any sense,’ returned Clare. ‘Look at Grattan. He was boldest of the bold, was he not? He has now openly declared his intention of leaving his seat, sitting at home, and keeping his mouth shut. Come, sir, come, you must know what’s happening and what’s going to happen.’
‘I don’t know any more, Lord Clare,’ replied the Scot, fixing the Lord Chancellor with steady eyes, ‘than I see in the public prints.’
‘Then you’re not so well-informed as I thought you were. You’ve heard nothing, I suppose, of a French descent on Ireland? Well, we have. That fire-eater, Hoche, has got near fifty ships of the line at Brest waiting to fall on the Irish coast, making for Bantry Bay, as we believe. Where do you think we’ve got ships or soldiers to meet them, eh? And the whole country ready to rise and welcome them, cut all our throats in our beds, too, I’ve no doubt.’
‘Surely your Lordship doesn’t suppose,’ said Mr. Ogilvie slowly, ‘that Lord Edward has any hand in such treasonable practices?’
‘No, I don’t suppose —
I
know
.’
‘You
know
, Lord Clare?’
‘Yes, you don’t think that I haven’t my agents, my means of information? This young friend of yours is damned imprudent. Why, only this autumn, when he was travelling to Hamburg, he meets a woman in a coach and lets her get all his secrets out of him.’
‘Impossible!’
‘Well, she got enough to write information to her friend, one of Pitt’s jackals. Fitzgerald told her enough to enable her to make a pretty shrewd guess that he’d been to meet Hoche at Basle, he and some others — I suppose them to be O’Connor, Wolfe Tone, and a few more of these dangerous rascals. What did Lord Fitzgerald go to Hamburg and Basle for, dragging his wife and children with him? Bah, don’t try to come the innocent over me, Mr. Ogilvie,’ cried the Chancellor with increasing vehemence. ‘I tell you I know, I have my own agents among these United Irishmen, as they call themselves, who report everything to me.’
‘Good God! How I pity all these poor, unhappy gentlemen! Why doesn’t your lordship strike at once, since you know all their treacheries?’
‘It doesn’t suit me. Campden’s in a damnable position, no strength behind him, no authority. How do we know what help we’re going to get from England? We are supposed to manage on our own. I want to find out all who are implicated, I want to have all my fish in the net before I pull it ashore. It is less dangerous to the State to let this conspiracy continue and be aware of it than crush it and have others spring up of which perhaps we shall have no knowledge.’
Lord Castlereagh interrupted, with elegant courtesy: ‘But I don’t think, Lord Clare, we ought to trouble Mr. Ogilvie with our difficulties. I don’t suppose he’s much concerned in how we keep the peace in Ireland. It was to speak about Lord Edward Fitzgerald that he was asked to attend you, I think.’
‘Yes, I say, of all the men involved in this, he is the only one for whom I have any compassion. There are some rogues among them, those brothers Sheares, for instance, whom I would gladly see, whom I intend to see, on the gallows, but for Lord Edward, with his breeding and family — it would be a pity. I should be sorry for the Duke of Richmond, he is a friend of the Prince and York.’
‘That ought to keep him safe in any case, surely,’ put in Mr. Ogilvie anxiously.
‘It couldn’t keep him safe if he was discovered planning an armed rising!’ cried Clare impatiently. ‘I don’t go to Leinster, tho’ I have given him a hint; but he’s weak, wavers this way and that, half a traitor himself for all I know, and his other brothers are in England, I can’t get at ’em. Besides, I take you, sir, to have a better head than any of them. Go to your Lord Edward, tell him I know what’s going on, tell him, if you like, that there’s a traitor in his organisation who betrays everything to me, and that he owes it to his mother, wife, and children, to clear out of the country as fast as he can.’
Mr. Ogilvie was silent in sheer dismay. He did not know that Fitzgerald’s affairs had gone as far as this; indeed, knew nothing at all; he groped in dark conjecture.
Lord Castlereagh said, with a gentle emphasis: ‘Lady Edward Fitzgerald is a friend of my wife, who likes her. I should be sorry if any mischief came to her — all this between ourselves, as you understand, Mr. Ogilvie? We really have no right to give you this warning with a foreign invasion threatened — we shall have to take very severe measures.’
‘I don’t believe,’ protested Mr. Ogilvie, ‘that there is any plot or plans for a rising. I can’t credit it, and as for Lord Edward being in it —’
Lord Clare interrupted impatiently: ‘I am a lawyer, sir. I study facts before I speak. I’m not talking out of whimsies or suppositions, and I tell you I’ve my hand on this nest of traitors. I could inform you where they meet, the articles of their constitution, their oaths, their passwords, all the rest of the damned nonsense.’
‘You seem surprised,’ smiled Lord Castlereagh, ‘but I assure you it is so. Won’t you act on Lord Clare’s advice?’
‘I have no reason to suppose that Lord Edward is involved in anything that would justify my advising him to leave the country.’
‘You are very prudent and very loyal to your stepson,’ said Lord Castlereagh, ‘but, without more ado, I dare say you will take our meaning, which I assure you is one of pure kindness to yourself and Lord Edward.’
‘There’s not much time to lose,’ added Lord Clare sternly. ‘If those damned French really do set sail we shall have to have an expeditionary force over here, and the whole country will be under the military — Lord Carhampton’s Act will be revived. There is no more to say, I think.’
Mr. Ogilvie paused inside the door. He had been given his dismissal, yet he stood his ground feeling that here was an opportunity to say something he had long wished to say but had been by the conventions of polite society prevented from uttering. He glanced from one to another of these men who were to hold the destiny of Ireland in their hands, and his gaze rested longest on the younger of the two, Lord Castlereagh, quiet, almost indolent in looks and bearing, but, the shrewd Scot was sure, by far a more powerful personality than the formidable Lord Chancellor.
‘I am neither English nor Irish, my Lord; perhaps I could therefore ask — you know I have no direct concern in your reply, therefore perhaps I may hope for it — if any policy of reconciliation is intended, any measures of real reform are being put forward?’
‘You ask that,’ demanded Clare brusquely, ‘when there’s a foreign fleet on the horizon?’
‘If it is true that there is a foreign fleet on the horizon, it seems to me the very moment for concession,’ said Mr. Ogilvie.
‘That would look like fear,’ said Clare.
‘It would be fear,’ smiled Castlereagh, ‘and, Mr. Ogilvie, we are not afraid.’
‘I can see that, but England can surely afford to be generous. These conspirators are not fanatics or bigots or ruffians.’
‘They have such in their ranks,’ interrupted Castlereagh. ‘They encourage such to follow them.’
‘Why, naturally, sir, such scum will cling to the fringe of any movement, but I think the unrest is among the educated classes — they began, at least, by asking for most reasonable terms; you, yourself, Lord Castlereagh, were of their number.’
‘No doubt they so began, sir,’ sneered Lord Clare, ‘but how do they mean to end? Moderate men have either come over completely to the government ideas like Lord Castlereagh here or have withdrawn in silence like Mr. Grattan.’
‘In silence and despair,’ added Mr. Ogilvie. ‘It is curious,’ he continued reflectively, ‘that men like yourselves, gentlemen, should not see something of the other side; you surely must in your hearts acknowledge the reasonableness of what these people demand; you must understand the bitterness with which the Roman Catholics constantly see themselves deluded, find the promises made to them broken. You must have a very clear comprehension of what the peasantry suffer and what indescribable rage is provoked by the protection given by the government to the Orangists and Loyalists — Lord Fitzwilliam, Lord Moira have both spoken out —’
Lord Clare rudely interrupted: ‘Indeed, it seems that we have a United Irishman in you, sir.’
‘As I said, I am so completely outside it that I am able to speak. You have done me the honour to confide in me, you have done me the kindness to give me a warning for Lord Edward Fitzgerald, not that I consider he is involved, but maybe I have other friends who are, and I ask you, gentlemen, if it is not still possible to adopt a policy of reconciliation towards the Irish and prove to them that England can be more firmly their friends than France?’