Seduction of a patriot.

Walter Cox.

(See Chapter 6)

The seduction of the once-indomitable patriot Watty Cox, who was eventually bought up by the Richmond government, was also due to Mr Pollock.

John Pollock, in a letter addressed to Sir Arthur Wellesley, dated January 12, 1809, directing his attention to Macniven’s “Pieces of Irish History,” [Civil Correspondence and Memoranda of F.** **M. Arthur Duke of Wellington; edited by his son.] goes on to say, (p. 534:) - “Whether this book was originally printed in New York is for the present immaterial; it is now in print in Dublin, and, no doubt, will be circulated through the country with indefatigable zeal. My information says it is the precursor of a French invasion; and certainly the whole object of the book is calculated, and with great ability executed, in order to show the necessity of a separation of this country from England, and to procure a French army to be received here as allies. Your means of information are, no doubt, most ample; it may, however, not be improper in me to say to you that if you have Cox [Mr Pollock was no stranger to Cox. See *Irish Magazine *for 1811, pp. 353, 434.] (who keeps a small book-shop in Anglesea Street,) he can let you into the whole object of sending this book to Ireland at this time; and further, if you have not Cox, believe me that no sum of money at all within reason would be misapplied in riveting him to the Government. I have spoken of this man before to Sir Edward Littlehales and to Sir Charles Saxton. He is the most able, and, if not secured, by far the most formidable man that I know of in Ireland.” He was “secured” accordingly; but Lord Mulgrave, afterwards Marquis of Normanby, on his accession to the viceroyalty, deprived Cox of his pension. Under the regime of the Duke of Richmond was also accomplished the seduction of an able Roman Catholic satirist, Dr Brennan, who continued until his death to enjoy a pension of £200 a year for ridiculing in his *Milesian Magazine *the Catholic leaders of that day.

A correspondent, Mr C. C. Hoey, sends us the following note touching Walter Cox:-

“Scattered through the pages of Cox’s (Watty) *Irish Magazine *from 1807 to 1814, now extremely scarce, may be found a great amount of uncollected information that may be advantageously read with the light of the *Wellington Correspondence. *Though Cox was finally bought up to silence, he did good service for his creed and country. In those years, and that principally on the veto question, the career of this man was extraordinary, and notwithstanding his weak points, he is entitled to a distinct biography. The ‘Shrewd Man’ and the ‘Gunsmith,’ alluded to Under Secretary Trail’s letter, was no other than Walter Cox. Cox’s father was a bricklayer, who was dragged to prison by order of Lord Carhampton, and suffered some indignities and even torture, which never left the mind of his son, and finally made him resolve on turning author, to retaliate for the severities he witnessed in 1798. Cox himself was originally a gunsmith; he supplied military data to Lord Edward Fitzgerald, enjoyed his confidence as well as others in the Directory, and afterwards became his lordship’s biographer in the pages of his own magazine.

Cox, though a youth in 1792, held the command of the second company of the Goldsmiths’ Corps of Volunteers, whose last parade was announced to take place in the burial ground of St *Michael le Pole, *Great Ship Street, but was prevented by a proclamation of the Government and a turn out of the whole garrison, similar to the Clontarf affair of ‘43. This, I believe, was the last attempted meeting of the volunteers in Dublin. Dr Madden inserts a query in the fourth volume of the last edition of his *United Irishmen *(p. 599) as to whether some Mr Cox, who received secret service money in 1803, was identical with Watty Cox; but it is not likely, as from Lord Hardwick’s official vindication of his government, it appears that it was meditated in 1803 to place the formidable gunsmith under arrest as a dangerous democrat.

Cox suffered imprisonment and the pillory several times for his writings in the *Irish Magazine; *the most noted was “The Painter Cut; a Vision,” of which he was found guilty and sentenced to pay a fine of £300, and enter into security himself for £1,000, with two others of £500 each, to keep in good behaviour for seven years, as well as suffer one year’s confinement in Newgate. A great portion of the priesthood exerted themselves in striving to put down his *Magazine *for the part he took against the veto, and he attacked the Government so severely that Crown Solicitor Pollock suggested he should be bought up as being the most formidable character of the time.

Archbishop Troy and Bishop Milner (who subsequently became an anti-vetoist) and Lord Fingal received no quarter at his hands. In his *Magazine *may be found a good deal of matter connected with those men, not to be found elsewhere. Sir Jonah Barrington comes in for a share of castigation for his shortcomings and backslidings; he accuses him of bringing forward a motion in the Irish House of Commons “to confiscate the property of Dr Esmond, who headed the rebel force at Prosperous, and thereby deprived his infant children of bread.” He says Sir Jonah Barrington printed his “History of the Union ” in Dublin in 1802, but as he did not give it to the public then, we presume he gave it to another quarter.

There is also some matter connected with the career of Reynolds, O’Brien, Hepenstal and many others, which I think has not met the notice of the historians of 1798. The admirably executed caricatures published in his *Magazine *were done by Mr Brocas, who afterwards was appointed head master of the Government School of Design, Royal Dublin Society. After lying for some years in Newgate, Cox was at last bought over. He resided for a while in the house No. 12 Clarence Street, off Summer Hill, which still goes by the name of ‘Cox’s Cot,’ and his name appears on some old leases connected with that quarter. He finally retired to Finglas, where he spent many years, and mixed much in the sports and May-pole amusements of that old village.

I am hunting up for some information concerning his latter days, and I find that there is at present alive a nephew of his, a working bricklayer. Cox died in 1837, having been prepared for death by the Rev. Matthias Kelly, P.P. of St Margaret’s, Finglas. From some letters of Cox not generally accessible, we select a few in illustration of his epistolary style:-

“New York, *December *18, 1819.

“My Dear Friend, - I am as uneasy as possible by remaining here, and I am determined to leave this hideous climate and most detestable race of rascals, who call it their own, and boast of it as a gift of Heaven, though the wretches are hardly out of school when they die of old age, or are swept away by yellow fever, which has not spared any one within the range of its devouring limits on the sea coast, from Boston to New Orleans. The last summer I escaped by flying to Quebec - a distance of 562 miles; and from its lofty walls I despatched a letter to you on the 12th of October, and returned here on the 11th of November, to see the sickly wretched Yankees removing the fences that enclosed a considerable portion of this city, when, in their fright, they attempted to put limits to the common enemy, as judiciously as the wise men of Gotham attempted to keep in the sparrows, by placing a strong railing round their town. They have perished in thousands, and, in my opinion, the yellow fever would confer a blessing on the human race by continuing its capers.

“A work of interesting curiosity, I have almost ready, to consist of two volumes, which, if I live until summer, will be in the Irish press. I have seen Mr O’Connell’s letter to the Catholics, and have got it printed here. There never was a better or more seasonable *State Paper, *a dignity it most eminently deserves. Remember me to your child; to B. Tell Mr James Crosbie, Attorney-General to toll-houses, that I hope he is alive and well; but if he is dead, say nothing about it until I call in person.- Yours truly, “Walter Cox.

“A considerable number of Dublin men are here, captains, colonels, &c., who ran away from Generals D’Evereux and L’Estrange, and from the burning sands of Margaritta, famine and yellow fever, which the orators and prophets of the Board of Health, instituted in Dublin for taking care of sick friends at a distance, forgot to predict.”

Mr Cox did not continue an O’Connellite. In 1835 we find him brought up before the magistrate at Arran Quay Police Office, charged by the reverend gentlemen of Church Street Chapel with having personally denounced in very violent language the collection of the O’Connell Tribute during its progress in the Chapel Yard.

“New York, *Nov. *20,1819.

I have determined to return home, nor am I prepared, by my very sad experience, to encounter any more of the frightful climate and other miseries incident to the infernal state of society in this country, with the wretched penury to be met with in all parts of this land.

“You may conceive some faint idea of the health of this place, when I assure you even New York, the most salubrious city here, was entirely reduced to a solitude during the last summer, which, to avoid, I made a most expensive excursion to Quebec, a distance of 570 miles. Not an Irishman in Savannah that did not fall a victim to the yellow fever, among them, Mr John Walsh, late of Usher’s Quay, and his son and daughter; not an acre of ground occupied by white men in this extensive region, that did not feel the scourge of every species of fever hitherto known, besides thousands of a new variety.

“Cobbett has gone home, and then surely I may venture, as I would prefer the dry gallows at home to an inglorious sweating death under American blankets. *

“P.S. - I *will have ready for publication, on my arrival, a novel in true Irish style, which, I will venture to say, will be much superior in originality, style, and composition, to any of Lady Morgan’s. What will the world say, when it is known I am turned novelist? Laughable, certainly, but true, as the existence of Essex Bridge. - Yours, “Walter Cox.”

We are not aware that the formidable rival to “O’Donnell” and “Florence MacCarthy” ever appeared.

From other letters of Cox in our hands, we find him in June 1821 residing at “Ingouville, Havre de Grace.” He expresses himself in very laudatory terms of La belle France; invites some old friends to visit him “for three months,” and by way of inducement promises no end of sparkling champagne.

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