SIR ROBERT ANDERSON
Secret Service
Theologian
CHAPTER III
LONDON. THE HOME OFFICE AND SECRET
SERVICE
Sir Robert Anderson, son of the late Crown Solicitor
for Dublin, is one of those men to whom the country, without knowing it, owes a
great deal. Silently and efficiently he and his family have worked for years in
high Government positions. And they have worked with a sweet reasonableness and
an absence of hide-bound, red-tape-tied officialism which is as delightful as
it is exceptional. His brother, Sir Samuel Lee Anderson, was a singular
instance of the level head and the sympathising mind. It is a rare combination
and an exceedingly fine one. Hard heads, soft hearts.
R. BLATHWAYT in Great
Thoughts.
ROBERT ANDERSON may almost be said to have drifted into
Secret Service work. He belonged to the fortunate class of barristers who
become self-supporting from the start. In 1865 a number of persons were charged
at State trials in Dublin with treason-felony. My grandfather, the Crown
Solicitor, had deputed his duties to his eldest son, afterwards Sir Samuel Lee
Anderson. Between the brothers there was unrestricted confidence ; so it came
about that the Crown briefs were placed at my fathers disposal, and all
the confidential reports and secret information which led to the arrest of the
leaders of the conspiracy.
There was then at Dublin Castle no Secret Service
organisation or Intelligence Department, and all kinds of secret documents lay
in an undigested mass in an office cupboard. The new Chief Secretary, Lord
Naas, later Earl of Mayo, entrusted my father with the duty of preparing a
précis of these and other official papers relating to Fenianism. The
task completed, he wrote a history of the Fenian conspiracy up to date which
proved of value to the government. This again led to his services being
requisitioned by the Attorney-General when a Fenian outbreak occurred in 1867.
The Irish Republican Brotherhood was popularly known as the Fenian Society, or
simply the Fenians. It was a political association of Irish or Irish-Americans
for the overthrow of British authority in Ireland and the establishment of a
republic. Centres were formed in the United States with the object of raising
funds, especially for the purchase of arms and munitions of war. "Fenian
Bonds" were issued for the purpose. I have one of these, beautifully engraved,
which reads:
"The Irish Republic is indebted unto the bearer in the sum of
ten dollars, redeemable six months after the acknowledgment of the Independence
of the Irish Nation with interest from the date hereof at six per cent. per
annum." The "date hereof" is 30th March 1866, and it is signed by John
OMahony, Agent for the Irish Republic.
Two abortive raids into Canada
were staged in 1866 and 1871. Later developments (about 188385) were the
formation of a "Skirmishing Fund," raised to promote the free use of dynamite
for the destruction of English public buildings and English commerce; and the
rise of an extreme party called the Clan-na-Gael. Members known as the
"Invincibles" were to make history by the removal of "tyrants."
But to
return to my fathers experiences in 1867. In order to secure the
necessary evidence he obtained a permit to see all the prisoners without any
restrictions. Going one morning to Kilmainham gaol, he took the Governor into
his confidence. After visiting a number of the men he left the prison as openly
as he had entered it. But, returning by way of the Governors house during
the officials dinner hour, he was smuggled unobserved into the cell of
the man he indicated. Determined that not even the police should get an inkling
of his mission, he enjoined the Governor not to release him until after
locking-up time, refusing to listen to the warning that he little realised the
ordeal before him.
Long afterwards, when engaged in his campaign for prison
reform, he described this experience. When his object had been attained he
found that three hours remained before his release was due. The only thing
distinguishing that cell from any other barely furnished closet-room was that
the aperture which passed for a window was, as in every prison cell, placed
high up near the ceiling, obscured glass preventing the sight of even a few
square yards of sky.
Although his mission had been successful beyond
expectation, the prisoner having told all he knew of the Fenian leaders in
America in addition to giving all the evidence required for the coming trials,
my father said he felt a depression which would in time have become almost
unbearable. And so, in after years, he made use of this never-forgotten ordeal
in his plea for more humane methods in the treatment of prisoners. There lies
before me as I write a permit given by the Home Office in 1867. It reads
To
THE GOVERNORS, respective Prisons. Allow Mr. Robert Anderson to have an
interview in private, and without the presence of any officer of the Prison or
other person, with any prisoner whom he may desire to see.
(Signed) JAMES
FERGUSON, Bart., Under-Secretary of State.
To continue the story of those
early years I quote the words of an obituary notice in The Times fifty years
later
It was in this almost accidental way that he was enlisted in the
public service. His special knowledge of the ways of Irish political conspiracy
became known in high official circles not only in Dublin but in London. After
the famous Clerkenwell explosion in 1867 - a warning of which he was able to
transmit beforehand to the London police, although they failed to make use of
the information - one of the results of what he himself termed the unreasoning
panic that followed was the organisation of a Secret Service department of the
police, and he was invited to take charge of it. But it only remained in
existence for three months, and he was about to return to the Irish Bar when he
was requested to take charge of Irish business at the Home Office. In this
capacity he had a good deal to do with the surveillance of the Fenian
conspirators - Irish and American-Irish - whose plots gave some anxiety to the
Government in the years 1869 and 1870.
My father had what he called an
intelligent aversion to the Civil Service. And he did not entertain a high
opinion of the Home Office of those days. When he first took up work there in
1877 it was impressed on him that the way to get on was to do as little as
possible and do it as quietly as possible. The ordinary work was light, and it
was left to an industrious minority. The hours were from 11a.m. to 5 p.m., a
nominal 11a.m. and a punctual 5 p.m. ; much of that time was given to luncheon,
gossip and the newspapers ; and there was plenty left for games and ragging.
However, about that time, with the advent of a new Under-Secretary, a new era
of efficiency set in.
Looking upon his work in the Civil Service as
temporary, he had no intention of abandoning his profession and was duly called
to the English Bar, but never engaged in court practice in England. In the
meantime, Sir Richard Mayne, Commissioner of the London police, had given him
access to the detective department and, soon gaining the confidence and
goodwill of the officers, he got to know all that was worth knowing about their
work.
And the London life had great attractions for him, especially the
House of Commons, where his friendship with Captain Gosset, then Assistant
Sergeant-at-Arms, gave him access to "Gossets Room," which was in reality
a sort of social club, invitations to which were extended (with the exception
of two or three relatives) only to M.P.s. In this way my father was brought
into touch with all the by-play of the House, and met the elite of its members.
An instance of the sang-froid which stood him in good stead when dealing
with informers and people of that kidney in the course of secret service and
police duties is given in one of his stories of those days
"On the last
evening of the historic debate on the Irish Church an old friend of my
fathers whom I met at dinner spoke of his fruitless efforts to get an
order for the Peers Gallery, and declared that he would give £100
for a seat. When we rose from dinner I asked him to come with me to
Westminster. I passed with him through the lobbies and up to the gallery door.
There, with the lordliest manner I could assume, I told the doorkeeper that I
would be extremely obliged if he could find a seat for my friend. Whom he took
me for I never knew, but he responded effusively, and begged me to bring him
in. Later on I noticed that the official and a colleague were evidently
discussing me, trying no doubt to make out who I was. So I thought it better to
skip as the Yankees say; but my friend kept his seat till the House
rose. In passing out I thanked the doorkeeper for his courtesy and expressed
regret that I could not stay longer myself. I should add that I never got the
£100!"
The way in which my father became acquainted with Charles
Reade, author of The Cloister and the Hearth, is worth telling again. In order
to avoid an unwished-for visit from some relatives, the novelist told his
housekeeper, Mrs. Seymour, to put the rooms on a house-agents books, and
to write the relatives that they must not come; he himself then went off to
Oxford, where he had a Fellowship at Magdalen. Within a few hours my father had
taken the rooms in Reades beautiful house at Albert Gate overlooking Hyde
Park, without having any idea to whom they belonged. Finding him there on his
return set Reade fuming more than the proposed visit of his relatives had done;
he wouldnt have lodgers in his house, he declared. But Mrs. Seymour knew
how to manage him, and the lodger was left in possession, although for a time
ignored by the "landlord." The way in which they made friends must be told in
my fathers own words:
"Although I couldnt write Never too Late
to Mend, I could make buttered eggs, and as Reade watched the operation in my
room one night, his looks and words suggested that he thought the cooking more
wonderful than the writing. We had met at the hall door on his return home very
hungry from a theatrical supper at which, he explained, there was a division of
labour, he doing the talking and the others the eating. In his handkerchief he
had some baked potatoes purchased at a stall which stood in the street opposite
his house; and his apology for not offering to share them with me was that in
his room he had neither knife, fork nor plate. So I begged him to come upstairs
with me, and I disclosed the contents of my cupboard, which included all needed
for an impromptu supper, not excepting a loaf and butter, eggs, a saucepan and
an etna. As already intimated, the process of making buttered eggs excited his
admiration, and from that hour I believe he regarded his lodger as a
personage."
My father received many kindnesses from Reade, who even used to
lend him his own pet room, built in the garden, when friends came to dinner,
sometimes joining the party himself. In that same room, looking out on "the
trees of the nation," is laid one of the chief scenes in A Terrible Temptation.
Charles Reades house was, as far as I know, the first and last one that
the future C.I.D. Chief broke into.
"I never realised," he wrote, "what an
amount of determination and nerve it takes to break into a dwelling-house at
night until I discovered my own deficiencies in these respects. Arriving home
late one night I found I had forgotten my latch-key, and being unable to rouse
the inmates I decided to enter burglariously. My experience of criminal courts
had given me a theoretical knowledge of the business, and it was with a light
heart that I dropped into the area and attacked the kitchen window. Of course I
had no fear of the police. Neither had I any cause to dread a pistol shot on
entering the house. Yet such was the effect on my nerves of spending twenty
minutes in that area that the sound of a constables tread in the garden
made me retreat into the coal-cellar. I felt then that my case was desperate.
As there were no steps to the area, escape was impracticable, and a new bolt on
the window baffled me. So I was driven to break the glass. The passers-by were
attracted by the noise; but they had no bulls-eye lantern to flash into
the area, and as I had again taken refuge in the coal-cellar they could see
nothing. As soon as they had gone it was an easy task to scramble in. . . . The
police were sent for next morning. The broken glass and the marks inside and
outside gave proof of a felonious entry; but nothing had been stolen, nothing
even disturbed. The case was most mysterious, and passed into the statistics as
an undetected burglary. Charles Reades delight was great when I told him
the facts."
The moral of the story was that burglaries are usually
committed by men who are burglars in the sense that other men are doctors,
lawyers, architects, etc., the only difference being that in the burglars
trade success gives proof of greater proficiency than seems necessary in some
other lines
During the early years in London, in addition to his ordinary
work, he was secretary to several government Commissions; in this way, as
related elsewhere in these pages, he gained the friendship of Lord Aberdeen,
the 7th Earl, who became Viceroy of Ireland, 1886 and 1906 -15, and
Governor-General of Canada, 1893 - 98. It was in connection with a Royal
Commission on Railway Accidents that the first of three attacks was made upon
him in Parliament, in replying to which Mr. W. H. Smith stated that he had
discharged his duties with great ability and perfect faithfulness. When serving
on the Royal Observatory of Edinburgh Commission he made the acquaintance of
Sir George Airy, the Astronomer Royal, whose help proved valuable when The
Coming Prince was being written, one of his books referred to in Chapter X.
He also acted as secretary to the Royal Commission on Loss of Life at Sea.
Lord Aberdeen, who was again the chairman, tells in his reminiscences (We Twa)
that this Commission was appointed as the result of a vehement controversy
arising from certain statements by Mr. Joseph Chamberlain regarding the
excessive mortality amongst the crews of merchant ships, attributed largely to
the overloading of vessels. Shipping interests as a whole strenuously
challenged this inference. The controversial element was quickly manifested
when the Commission met, and it was frequently the chairmans duty to
throw oil on the troubled waters. On such occasions he often found it advisable
to discover that it was just time to adjourn for luncheon, which usually had a
soothing effect. This, however, would certainly not have been the case had not
a private arrangement- been entered into with the caterers whereby the Treasury
allowance of 1s. 6d. per head was augmented. "Of course," wrote Lord Aberdeen,
"this was kept a profound secret, known only to myself and our secretary - the
late Sir Robert Anderson, K.G.B., a very able and high-minded public servant."
In this connection my father mentions that the Duke of Edinburgh did not
approve of hurrying over the cigar stage of the luncheon recess, and when his
colleagues rose, usually kept the secretary with him. On H.R.H.s leaving
to take up a command in the Mediterranean he desired my father to write to him
regularly about the work of the Commission, and afterwards, after the
well-known manner of our Royal Family, gave many proofs that he had not
forgotten him.
Lord Aberdeen, by the way, seems to have shared my
fathers poor opinion of Treasury ways. He gave his support in a tussle
over salary and pension rights, and wrote:
"If the object can be secured
without making the Treasury feel they have been defeated it will be much
better; otherwise they will try to punish us all through the enquiry."
Another letter from him throws light on the almost incredible pettiness of some
officials. "My dear Anderson," it reads, "I do now remember that I carried out
(by stealth for fear of hurting the feelings of the Department) a private
arrangement about a clock!" In the same letter Lord Aberdeen said: "I am very
sorry you have to cross again to that tiresome old island of yours in this
weather." The following year however he became Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and
he then wrote from Dublin: "I think the Irish are still amenable to marks of
sympathy." He was, of course, a strong supporter of Mr. Gladstones Home
Rule policy.
It was as secretary to the Prison Commission, which, unlike
the others, was a branch of the permanent Civil Service, that my father gained
experience which was to prove of great value in after years in his campaign for
reforms in the treatment of criminals and in the nature of prisons.
Eighteen-eighty was an epoch-making year in Ireland, for it was then that
"boycotting" was introduced - a crime which, according to an Irish judge, made
the life of the victim a living death. At the same time a revival of Fenian
activity in Ireland excited the conspirators in England to follow suit. It was
in these circumstances that Sir William Harcourt, the Home Secretary,
re-enlisted my father in Secret Service. "Such work was never to my taste," he
wrote afterwards," and I had definitely turned away from it. I was still in
touch with le Caron and some prominent Fenians in America, but not with the
leaders of the organisation at home. To ascertain who were the London leaders
was an easy task, but how to get hold of them was the problem. They solved it
by forming a plot to discover who their enemy was at Whitehall. A letter came
from a man whom I knew by repute as one of the most dangerous of the London
Fenians. He wished to give information to the government - that was the bait -
but he would deal only with 'the gentleman at the head of the Intelligence
Department he would hold no communication with the police."
The
sequel gives an idea of what Secret Service sometimes entails
"I met the
fellow by appointment one night. He lied to me for an hour whilst I listened as
though I believed all he was telling me. This as I expected led him to ask for
money. I then pretended to lose my temper. I said I had come prepared to pay
him handsomely for information, but I was not to be fooled by the yarns he had
been telling me. Taking a handful of sovereigns from my pocket I jingled them
before him. The greedy look on his face told its own tale. He pleaded that if I
would give him time he would tell me all I wished to know, and meekly asked for
his expenses. I saw that the bait had taken, so I gave him a couple of pounds.
Within a few weeks I had two of the most influential London Fenians in my pay.
. . . I will only add that the hold thus obtained upon the organisation
prevented the commission of outrages at a critical time, and further that the
information received from these men was never used to bring a criminal charge
against any member of the conspiracy."
In such work, however, kudos is not
gained by preventing crimes, but by detecting them and successfully prosecuting
the offenders. My father had again decided to turn from this branch of service,
partly because he had received offers of more congenial work, when what he
called a hateful and fateful murder drew him back into the toils. On 6th May
1882 Lord Frederick Cavendish, who had just been appointed Chief Secretary, and
Mr. Burke, the Under-Secretary, were done to death within sight of the
Viceregal Lodge in the Phoenix Park, Dublin. Although creating such a sensation
it was only the last of a series - one more added to the terrible list of Land
League murders. And as my father pointed out it was in one respect of less
significance than many of those which had preceded it. For the assassination of
government officials could give no such indication of the state of Ireland as
the murder of a lady returning home from church or of humble peasants whose
only offence was obedience to the law. In many districts terror reigned in
every cottage-home refusing allegiance to what was fitly called the defacto
government.
The Phoenix Park murder, however, galvanised the British
Government into action; a new Coercion Act was passed, and special measures
adopted to administer it, an Under-Secretaryship for Police and Crime being
established in Dublin; and under pressure from Sir William Harcourt my father
agreed to represent this department in London.
At that time his work at
Whitehall was many-sided. Whilst still Secretary to the Prison Commission, he
was retained by the Irish government to look after their interests in London,
and was also responsible to the Secretary of State in relation to political
crime in general. When the dynamite campaign began he was in daily touch with
Dublin Castle, and kept up a private correspondence with the British Consuls in
America as well as with le Caron and other informants there. And never a week
passed without his having to meet informants in London at his own home or
sometimes in out-of-the-way places, for they never went to Whitehall.
But
to return to the Dublin murders - my uncle, Sir Samuel Lee Anderson, was
another of the officials marked down to be "put out of the way," his life being
saved by what is commonly called a chance. His regular daily route to the
Castle was known to anyone who cared to watch him. But once when within a
stones throw of where the murder gang were waiting for him, suddenly
remembering some commissions he had promised to execute for his wife, he turned
back and went round another way.
Having to keep a secret for twenty-one
years for the sake of anothers safety can hardly be a usual experience.
In Major le Carons life story (Twenty-five Years in the Secret Service)
he pays this tribute to my father
"He never wavered or grew lax in his
care. He proved indeed to me not the ordinary official superior, but a kind,
trusty friend and adviser, ever watchful in my interests, ever sympathising
with my dangers and difficulties. To him and to him alone was I known as a
Secret Service agent during the whole of the 21 years of which I speak. Therein
lay the secret of my safety. If others less worthy of the trust had been
charged with the knowledge of my identity, then I fear I should not be here on
English soil quietly penning these lines."
Can the spy stories of fiction
produce anything equal to the true narrative of this mans adventurous
career? His real name was Thomas Beach, son of a respected citizen of
Colchester. A thirst for excitement led him to leave home again and again in
early life; and while still a boy he found himself in Paris without money or
friends or knowledge of the language. Having been a choir-boy at home his
singing gained the friendship of a member of the English church he attended in
the French capital, and this led to his obtaining a good berth. But when the
American Civil War broke out in 1861 he was on the move again; crossing the
Atlantic he enlisted in the Northern army, with the name of Henri le Caron. In
due course he obtained a commission and rose to the rank of major. During his
service he made the acquaintance of John ONeill, who later became head of
the American Fenians. It was from him that le Caron first heard of the Fenian
schemes, including those for raids into Canada; and this led to his becoming a
spy in their ranks. The accusation that he undertook this hazardous task for
the sake of financial gain is utterly false. He had become a qualified medical
man, was happily married, and could have settled down to a quiet, comfortable
life.
Le Caron joined the Fenian movement with the definite object of
serving his country, and it was in letters to his father that he first reported
all their doings and plans. These were shown to the local Member of Parliament,
who passed on the information to the Home Office, no payment being given or
asked for. But at a later date, the M.P., Mr. Rebow, urged that le Caron should
be put into direct touch with a representative of the government, and my father
was then asked to deal with him. Thus began a correspondence lasting for over
twenty years until le Caron came into the open at the time of the Parnell
Commission in 1889.
Morleys Life of Gladstone states that for more
than twenty years le Caron was in the pay of Scotland Yard. "Scotland Yard,"
replied my father, "was not aware of the mans existence until he appeared
as a witness at the Parnell Commission." As a matter of fact the correspondence
was carried on through his wife in America and a relative of my fathers
in England, and was always treated as private. On his visits to London, le
Caron used to see my father at our own house; I have a clear recollection of
seeing him there and wondering who he was.
At the Special Commission he
was denounced by Sir Charles Russell (afterwards Lord Russell of Kilowen) as a
"common informer who wormed himself into the confidence of men presumably
honest, however mistaken their views, only to make money and betray them."
"Actually," wrote my father, "the assassins and dynamiters whose plots were
exposed by him were justly described by Sir Henry James, for The Times, as
enemies of the human race, the lowest and most degraded of beings."
Sir Henry went on to point out that the exertions of a man who apprehends a
criminal after the crime are rightly praised, "but here you have a man who,
running risks such as probably no one ever ran before, set himself to defeat
crime before it was carried out, and thus to save the lives of those who had no
other protection." Further, it was stated by my father that in no single
instance was a criminal charge brought upon le Carons testimony. As
regards financial gain, he was as indifferent to money as to danger; anything
he received was not enough to compensate him for having to employ a qualified
locum tenens during his absence. The only really important payment he ever
received was his reward for thwarting the 1870 Fenian raid on Canada. From the
first he considered his role to be that of a military spy in his countrys
service.
As illustrating the need for keeping their names secret, my
father tells that his first Fenian informant was shot as the result of his name
having been given to Lord Mayo, then Chief Secretary for Ireland, who passed it
on to the Lord-Lieutenant during dinner at the Viceregal Lodge. A servant
behind a screen repeated the information in the servants hall. My father
learned this from a detective officer at Dublin Castle, and states that from
that time no informant of his was ever betrayed. His refusal to give their
names and his insistence on treating their letters as private was objected to
at one time by Sir William Harcourt, who remarked that "Andersons idea of
secrecy is not to tell the Secretary of State"
Another incident shows how
easily secret information can become known. On the occasion of Mr.
Gladstones visit to Haddo House mentioned in another chapter, my father
tells how the Premier, sitting beside him at a writing table, was busy with a
file of Foreign Office papers when another guest brought a passage in the
Odyssey to his notice. Mr. Gladstone discussed this as though the Foreign
Office did not exist, but directly afterwards took up his pen and wrote a
Minute of grave importance about Egypt. It was the time when excitement over
the Sudan and General Gordons position in Khartoum was at its height.
"How do I know the purport of the Minute?" said my father; "it was perfectly
legible on the blotting pad he had used! Is it any wonder I refused to trust
the lives of informants to ministers of state?
As another example of Mr.
Gladstones versatility Sir Robert mentions a long letter (a closely
written four-page one which I have in my autograph album) about a book of his,
written on the day which, according to Lord Morleys Ljfe of Gladstone,
was devoted to the reconsideration of the whole Irish question in view of Mr.
Parnells visit to Hawarden.
And Lady Aberdeen tells, in We Twa, how,
on returning from church one morning, he asked for a hymn-book, which he took
to his room, and in the afternoon produced a translation into Italian of the
hymn, "Hark, my soul, it is the Lord." This was on a Sunday when he was in much
anxiety over affairs in Egypt, with messengers from Downing Street coming and
going, and he was conferring about a statement to be made next day in
Parliament.
But to return to le Caron. My father paid this tribute to
him:
"During the four-and-thirty years of my official life I came to
entertain a sincere regard for not a few of the Police Officers who assisted me
in campaigns against criminals, but none of them did I esteem more highly than
le Caron. And it is with them that I have always classed him, not with secret
agents and informers. No bad man could win as he did the unbounded respect of
wife and children.
And to personal charm he added sterling integrity. He
was one of the most truthfully accurate men I have known . . . Though he
deserves well of his country he will never get a statue. But if he is to be
pilloried I will take my place by his side." After le Carons appearance
at the Commission his life was in constant danger. There were many rumours as
to his whereabouts in various parts of the world. Actually he lived under an
assumed name not far from Hyde Park. I remember more than once, when walking
there with my father, his saying that he had to go and see a sick friend, never
giving the slightest hint of his identity even to us. Afterwards he wrote
"Though I had been in communication with him for so long, and seen him on his
visits to England, I never really knew him until the illness which ended
fatally on April 1st, 1894. With all his cynicism and coldness of manner he was
a remarkably attractive man. . . . At first we used to talk over his
adventures, but later on we often spoke on subjects of which I will make no
mention here."
What these subjects were may be gathered from the following
letter
"I fully appreciate and will always endeavour to keep in my mind the
pith, the main principle of what you have impressed upon me in reference to
Gods goodness and my duty to Him; and if I live to get well again my
earnest desire is that I may ever keep uppermost in my mind what I owe to Him
and what He is willing to do for me.
Believe me to be, Yours
sincerely,
H. LE CAR0N."
I have the original letter in my possession;
also his commission as Major and Military Organiser in the service of the Irish
Republic, dated 5th August 1868. This is signed by John ONeill,
President, Fenian Brotherhood, Patrick J. Meehan, Acting Secretary of War, and
John Byron, Assistant Adjutant-General F. B. It was on account of his
relationship with le Caron that my father was the subject of two violent
attacks in Parliament. At this length of time the story would not be of
sufficient interest to relate in detail. On the first occasion he was accused
of handing over, in his capacity as head of the C.I.D., confidential documents
to an informer. As already mentioned, le Carons letters had always been
deemed private, and he claimed accordingly that he should have access to them
in preparing the evidence he was to give at the Parnell Commission. The letters
had never been on record in any government office; they had indeed been kept in
our own home. My father was vigorously defended by the Home Secretary, Mr.
Henry Matthews, afterwards Viscount Llandaff; and his chief assailant, Sir
William Harcourt, gave kindly proof afterwards that he bore no ill-will in
spite of his violent political invective. In 1905 his son, later Viscount
Harcourt, wrote to my father:
"I am most grateful to you for your kind
words about him, which show a real appreciation of his character in spite of
his hard-hitting propensities which showed themselves on the surface."
The
second attack was made in 1910 in consequence of Sir Robert having mentioned in
Blackwood that he was author of certain articles on the American Fenians
published anonymously in The Times as far back as 1887. They were entitled
"Behind the Scenes in America." In this case he was accused of having acted in
a way contrary to the rules and traditions of the Civil Service. The fact that
one of the articles exposed a plot to bring about a dynamite explosion in
Westminster Abbey at the time of Queen Victorias Jubilee might, one would
think, have excused any breach of official propriety had such been indeed
committed. But naturally the wild Irishmen in the House were out for his scalp
and demanded the withdrawal of his pension. Unfortunately, on this occasion the
responsible Minister, instead of defending him, contented himself with
appeasing his opponents by making light of the whole matter and minimising the
services he had rendered to the State. Of the many letters of sympathy and
encouragement received at that time, only one will be quoted here. The writer
was a Scottish lawyer, Mr. R. B. Stewart, a valued friend, who was well- known
in connection with the Keswick Convention and many other branches of Christian
activity
"To speak of a faithful and able servant of his country, who
unsparingly gave himself to her service in work most trying and involving
danger to his own life, during a perturbed time which it is difficult for any
one who did not live through it to understand or even to credit, - in the way
in which you have been spoken of, is a lasting disgrace to British
statesmanship. And it was in order that those might be kept sweet who are the
representatives of the spirit and work condemned by the Parnell Commission!
What man can be zealous in his work if he feels that one day for party
purposes he may be sacrificed to an opposing faction whom, in the line of his
duty, he has offended, and that the sacrifice may be made for the sake of
getting votes?
Politics are corrupt. Let us hope that the officials of the
country may notwithstanding remain true, little as is the encouragement they
sometimes get."
The next chapter goes back to the year 1888, when the
period of service at Scotland Yard began. Incidentally it was the date of the
appointment of the Parnell Commission to which reference has been made. The
Times had published a series of articles entitled "Parnellism and Crime" which
were a tremendous indictment of the chief Nationalist leaders. A Special
Commission was appointed to inquire into the whole matter, the trial lasting
for 28 days. Mr. Parnell was formally cleared of the charge of having been
personally guilty of organising outrages; but his Party was declared to have
been guilty of incitement to intimidation, out of which had grown crimes that
it had failed to denounce.
Chapter Four
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