AN IRISH SOLDIER OF FORTUNE.*
MB& M. J. O'CorniELL adds to the title which we have quoted, " And Old Irish Life at Home and Abroad." It is not surprising that this extension of her subject leads her into not a few digressions. We hear of a quite bewildering number of O'Connells, and their kinsfolk and friends ; we are transported from place to place with perplexing frequency and rapidity, and have to keep our attention on the alert, un- less we would utterly lose the thread of the story, so many are the interruptions, so varied the sources from which it comes. Then Mrs. O'Connell has had a coadjutor in a Mr. Ross O'Connell, and she has a somewhat confusing way of retiring for a time while he addresses the reader. Altogether, the book is a mighty maze, but, as a maze may well be, not an unpleasant place to wander in. A reviewer labours under an oppressive sense of having to render a connected account of what he has been reading, and, therefore, regards volumes of this kind with mixed feeling. But any one who will be content with the good things that come after a some- what chance fashion in his way, will find not a little to please and interest.
Daniel Charles O'Connell (the famous "Liberator," was a nephew) was born in 1745, the son of another Daniel, sur- named the "Big," and Mary O'Donoghue, whose native name was " Maur-ni-Dhuiv," dnglice, " Mary of the Dark Folk." The family seem to have been comfortably off, for though the cadets were poor, the head of the house was able to keep them, the profits of smuggling not being the least of his sources of income. Young Daniel was barely sixteen when he left Ireland, where his religion shut him out from the military career on which his heart was set, and entered the French service, in the Royal Swedish Regiment, in time to take part in the last two campaigns of the Seven Years' War. He had intended, it would seem, to join the Imperial forces, as a young Irish neighbour actually did, but was persuaded to change his mind by a kinsman whom he came across in Flanders. Another brother was serving at the same time on • The Last Colonel of the Irish Brigade. By Mrs. Morgan John O'Connell. 2 vols. London : Kegan Pan', Trench, and Co. 1892.
board an English privateer. The conclusion of peace in 1762 left him a subaltern for seven years, with prospects so gloomy that in 1765 he thought of entering the English ser vice, if he could do so " without injury to his religion." He did not waste his time, but, obtaining admission to the Mili- tary Academy of Strasburg, studied hard. Studious he always was, and generally not in the least of the type of Lever's Irishmen, a prudent, temperate, hard-headed man, who had a horror of debt, duelling, and fastness generally. His biographer• vouches for the fact that in all his letters, of which many have been preserved, and in the letters in which he is mentioned, there is not a word to his discredit.
In 1769, Daniel O'Connell entered the Irish Brigade, as Adjutant in Lord Clare's Regiment. Not long afterwards, he went out to India, and stayed there for not quite two years, a part of his life of which no chronicle remains. In 1775, " Clare's " Regiment was incorporated with " Berwick's," the name of which it assumed ; and the prospects of its officers, Daniel O'Connell among them, were gloomy in the extreme. There was a hope that the British Government would avail itself of the services of some Irish gentlemen to raise regi- ments for service in North America, but it was disappointed. All that O'Connell could do was to wait, and meanwhile to work hard. A memorandum that he wrote, criticising an ordinance for regulating discipline issued from the French War Office, fell into the hands of a distinguished General, the Comte de Maillebois, and made a favourable impression on him. A close friendship sprang up between the two. The Count did all he could to help the young Irishman, but favour at Court was not easily secured. One thing in particular was required,—noble birth. Daniel accordingly sent home for a genealogy. The thing did not exist, for the O'Connells were not a great clan. However, it could be created. A skilful genealogist made up the required document, which the soldier accepted in perfect good faith. In 1779, possibly before, he was made Lieutenant-Colonel, returning to his old regiment, the Royal Swedes. Three years afterwards he took part in the successful attack on Minorca, which was wrested from a deplorably weak English garrison by an overwhelm- ing French force under the Duo de Crillon-Mahon. This was in February. Four months afterwards, he served in the combined attack made by the French and Spanish forces on Gibraltar. He was brigaded with the Bouillon Regiment and a corps of Engineers. The grand scheme of D'Arcon's floating batteries was to be tried. Colonel O'Connell, who was entitled by his studies to have an opinion on the plan, though he was not a professional engineer, strongly dis- approved of i+. He volunteered, however, for service on one of the batteries, and was followed by his whole regiment. Whether it was that the conception of the batteries was defective, or that the inventor yielded to the impatience of the Duo de Crillon-Mahon, and of the young Comte d'Artois, who had just come to join the besieging force, the attack failed with frightful loss. All that O'Connell could do was to save all the lives that he could. A story is told of how the Spaniards who manned the boat in which he was, while so exerting himself, proposed to throw him overboard. He threatened to shoot them unless they rowed towards the batteries, and they had to obey. O'Connell was made full Colonel in recognition of his services. In 1787, he was pro- moted to be " maitre de camp, a sort of Brigadier-General." At the same time he received the rank of Count. He was now commanding the regiment of Salm-Salm. Just before the end came, he attained the long-coveted private entry to the Court. He could now ride in the King's carriage, and play cards with the Queen. Then came the "deluge," and swept away the old order of things, and Count O'Connell's fortunes with it. For a time, indeed, he stayed in Paris, a time so long as to excite the suspicions of Royalist friends, wbo thought he had made terms with the Revolution. The fact was that he was engaged in elaborating a plan of infantry drill at the French War Office, and that he was acting as he did with the full knowledge and approval of Louis XVI. He had a scheme for saving the Royal family, and this, besides his natural desire to finish work in which he was intensely interested, kept him at Paris till all his friends bad gone. Then he had to fly to avoid arrest. He reached the frontier in safety, and served for a time as a private dragoon in one of the regiments of emigres. Late in the autumn of 1792, he reached London safe and sound, but nearly destitute. And now comes a very
curious incident in his career, an incident which has a truly Irish audacity about it. Count O'Connell was engaged to be married to a French lady, whom be had known for
many years, and he wanted very much to go back to France. But then there was a decree which absolutely forbade an émigré to return. To avoid the effect of this, the visit to the
frontier and the brief service with the allied troops had to be concealed. Accordingly, the Count writes to his brother in the following terms :—" You'll render me a particular and most essential favour if you will be so kind as to procure and send me over an attestation drawn up by a notary, certified by the principal Magistrate of Tralee, Killarney, or any other
Corporation, as well as by the Sheriff of the County, ascertaining that Daniel Charles O'Connell, barn at Darrinane, in the County of Kerry, in August, 1747, arrived in said place in latter days of July last, where he remained for the purpose of settling his affairs with his Brother until the middle of October." He is
careful to point out that the seals of the notary, the Corpora- tion, and the Sheriff were to be affixed to this document, which was, of course, a lie from beginning to end, for he had never been near Ireland. No one seems to have made any difficulty, and he got the attestation, seals and all, and forwarded a copy to Paris. But perjury, partly forced on the people by the obnoxious penal laws, was only too familiar to the Irish gentry of that time. We read how a certain Councillor Falvey, who had become a Protestant to save his lands, was accustomed to oblige his Catholic friends by swearing that he was himself the purchaser of lands really bought by them. Maurice O'Connell (the Count's eldest brother) asked him on one occasion to do him this service. He replied :—" My dear Maurice, if I were a few years younger, I would be as ready to oblige a friend as ever. I regret that I am too near my end to perjure myself any more, even for so old and valued a friend as yourself."
In 1795, Count O'Connell was gazetted as Colonel of one of the regiments of the " Irish Brigade." This was the result of an effort on the part of the Government to utilise the services of a number of gallant men who were ready, if they were allowed, to fight for their country. It was scarcely a success.
Enlistment went on slowly ; the Protestant party was jealous. Against the brilliant list of services which the Irish Brigade could count under the French flag, there stands the solitary name of Alexandria. where part of it fought under Sir Ralph Abercromby. The Count never actually served, and was soon retired on half-pay. In 1802, he went to France to see after his wife's property, and was detained by Napoleon. (We cannot allow that Mrs. M. J. O'Connell is right in saying that " Napoleon very properly proceeded to reprisals.") In France he remained till the Restoration, when he received from Louis XVIII. the Grand Cross of St. Louis. But the Irish Brigade was not to be reconstituted. That would have been an offence to England on which the restored King would not venture. In 1816, the Count visited Ireland. He was now well off, and we find him indulging in the scholarly taste for editions of the classics. Here is a list of what he bought
&kiss [sic] Italicus (Drackenborch, 1717), 43. Tacitus, 4 vols. (Brotier, 1771), 44 15s. Terence, 2 vols., Plates (Westerhoven, 1720), 41 lls. Theocritus, 2 vole. (Wharton, 1771), £4 is."
One murmurs, " O u soot les neiges d'antan " at reading of such prices. The whole lot would not fetch half-a-sovereign now. The Count would have been made a Field-Marshal by Charles X. (an old acquaintance of the Siege of Gibraltar), but the Revolution of July anticipated the intention. He refused to take the oath to Louis Philippe, and lost his pen- sion. He died in 1833.
It is noticeable that there are but one or two expressions of anti-English feeling in all the letters quoted in these two volumes, written though they were in confidence. And yet the Irish Catholics of that day, when a man could not even own a horse of more than £5 value, and had to clip the cherished " 0 " from before his name, had good reasons for hating the dominant race. It is now, after England has done her best for fifty years to be just and generous, that it is a part of Irish patriotism to feel a malignant delight in any troubles that may overtake us.
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