Chapter XXV: Conclusion: Bibliography 309 (8)

Pinkerton was instrumental in removing from both Turf and Society a foreigner of Teutonic origin who was known in his meteoric career as "the Prince." He had, it was found out after his demise, begun life as a waiter in Vienna, and possessing a famous gift of tongues as well as an unusual talent for self-education, passed successively to Berlin, Paris and London; here as a private secretary he entered the employment of a wealthy Englishman of profuse and eccentric habits. It was related of our "Prince," as middle-aged racing-men can tell to-day, that he obtained his first start in life by backing the Derby winner Sainfoin in 1890. To effect this _coup_ he had extracted from his employer's private desk eight bank-notes each of the value of £1000. Arriving somewhat late at Epsom, he handed the whole amount over to the bookmaker so well known in those days as "Chippie" Norton, who laid the market odds—at least 5 to 1 against. Sainfoin won the race, beating both Le Nord and Surefoot and "the Prince" requested Norton, as a favour, to let him have his bank-notes back, the balance, some £32,000, to be paid in the ordinary way. On the same evening the lucky winner replaced the notes, and on the following Monday received his bookmaker's cheque, told his employer the story of his good fortune, receiving from his patron introductions which gave him at once a social footing among racing men. The man's personality was admittedly a fascinating one and he quickly made his way among some of the best-known coteries in London. It may be remembered of him that, being Austrian, not long from Vienna, he professed as an eye-witness to have the true story of the tragedy of Meyerling which closed the lives of the Archduke Rudolf and Marie Vetsera. In a day when all London had the "correct version," with its attendant mysteries and political intrigues, the story of our "Prince" differed from others by reason of its simplicity. The Archduke (he used to tell), when deeply flown with wine, insulted the Baroness in presence of other guests. The lady left the room, returned with a revolver and shot her lover dead, turning the weapon on herself in a frenzy of remorse.

The adventurer's season of prosperity was not long and by the end of 1890 he had lost the bigger portion of what the late Mr Dick Dunn used to call his "Sanfoinery." He recovered, however, over the Lincoln which was won by a horse called Lord George and also followed Colonel North's famous luck with much advantage to himself. At the close of 1891 it was rumoured that "the Prince" was about to marry into a family whose standing was high in Scotland. It was about this time, however, that Pinkerton began to make inquiries and the result was in every way detrimental to the "Prince's" plans for domestication. He was soon on the run and in 1893 was found trying to beat the Pari Mutuel at Longchamps, when the exclusion of bookmakers from the enclosures put a term to his turf activities. This man was by no means the most important of Lord Pinkerton's victims, for the vigilant peer's system of espionage was influential enough to close the doors of society to men whose wealth and influence in Africa was second only to that of Rhodes himself, but who failed to come up to our peer's ideas of what was morally fitting for the great London world of those days. Pinkerton's self-appointed rôle was not looked upon at all times with favour by the more liberal-minded members of what Thackeray calls the Best English People and, indeed, when one considers the origin of some of the so-called noble families of England, Ireland and Scotland, we think the social purist carried his apostolate just a little too far. Suicide was, in at least one case, the end of a victim whose social ostracism Pinkerton had brought about, and when several of his victims conspired to bring about a situation that publicly showed up the noble regenerator in a character which was at the very least embarrassing, and as a result of which much mud continued to adhere after the disposal of the case in a magistrate's court, very few people were found to sympathise with the only social spy whom our peerage has probably ever produced.

We have elsewhere touched upon ecclesiastical espionage which, we may presume, is not confined to any particular Church. Its operations in certain bodies may be said from earliest times to have assumed the importance of an institutional principle. In view of our expression of opinion that espionage is a necessary condition of any essentially autocratic polity, we are only consistent in supposing that any Church which requires from its adherents a total submission of the Will to its arbitrary authority can only maintain its semblance of doctrinal and disciplinary freedom by the most guileful arts and methods; and it is not necessary to enunciate the doctrine of Private Judgment to show that intellectual or political liberty can flourish only where its principles fully prevail. It is easy, but altogether supererogatory, for the once great religious congregations to disclaim—now that they are shorn of the secular and political influence which was undoubtedly theirs in the darker ages—all possession of secret systems by which they once so effectively kept men's minds under their sway. It is only necessary to read the story of the Inquisition in Venice, in Spain, in Portugal, to learn how these Church-ruled communities fared under the iron tutelage of their congregational overlords. There is to be found, indeed, a strong analogy between the demoralised soul of modern spy-ridden Prussia and that of Spain in the days of the Inquisition, when, under the pretence of winning men to salvation, crimes were committed in the name of the Cross beside which the short but horrific annals of modern Hunnism stand spectral and anæmic in their comparative bloodlessness. Napoleon was, as usual, correct in his view that men who sought the refuge of the cloister were of a kind who neither wanted the world, nor were wanted by the world; it was unfortunate, however, that the wish and will to segregate oneself from secular activities, far from killing those characteristics of intrigue which we associate with the business of worldly life, had the effect merely of emphasising them in the chosen narrower sphere and, by a natural reaction, of turning their currents to baser uses and abuses than would have been possible in the larger freedom of the world. We speak, of course, of the Dark Ages.

It is not our intention to go into the question of ecclesiastical espionage; but inasmuch as the Inquisition's operations in Europe were based mainly, in respect of its bloody triumphs, on the work of a vast network of espionage which assured to the Inquisitors their periodical supply of victims it is only fair, without taking sides, that the story should be told. Our authority for the following account of espionage as it was used by the Inquisition—the name itself suggests its spying character—is Joseph Lavallée, a French Catholic, who has dealt authoritatively with the whole subject of the Inquisition. Lavallée writes in effect:

The Inquisition was at Rome known as the Holy Office, all the members of which were nominated by the Pope. They were bound to do his bidding without question; they were removable at his pleasure and he could recall them without any formality, or even without letting them know the cause of their disgrace. We need no longer wonder, therefore, at the intrigues and crimes to which these men had recourse in order to preserve their places. The business of the Roman Inquisition was to examine the books, the opinions, the doctrines, the public and private conduct of those who were brought before its tribunals; in virtue of their office they were bound to make a report of all their proceedings, and it was almost always upon their statements that the cardinals formed their judgments and decrees. The number of subordinate officers was immense and these mainly constituted the _corps d'espionnage_ proper, forming the _Hermandad_, or Brotherhood, and the _Cruciata_, or Crusade. When any particular crime was necessary in order to "establish" a case, no matter how revolting or iniquitous or sacrilegious, the Office could always find among its spies men and women both competent and willing to execute its orders. Whatever crime they might commit, the secular power had no authority over them; they were amenable only to the Inquisition, and it is not to be wondered at if the very dross and scum of human kind eagerly sought out the work of espionage as being most congenial. In Spain and Portugal, the Holy Office was known as the Inquisition. Its bands of informers were mostly drawn from the most unmanageable pupils of the schools; they were sent into the world at maturity, ostensibly to earn a living, but in reality to carry out the work of the Inquisition in the capacity of spies, as the historian Infessura tells us. The supreme council of the Inquisition was composed of the Grand Inquisitor and five members, one of them a Dominican necessarily. The number of "familiars," or spies, surpasses belief and was in the proportion of one to every family in Madrid and Valladolid of that period. As in Italy, they were placed above the ordinary civil courts and were amenable only to the Inquisition.

In order to qualify as an Inquisitor, or to hold any office in the Inquisition, it was necessary for the candidate to be descended, and to be able to prove his descent, from a line of "perfect Christians." Having given this proof, he was obliged to take an oath of secrecy and fidelity to the Inquisition, the violation of which was punishable with death. The body of informers were bound by the same oaths, and if it was necessary to procure the "removal" of any person or persons, these men were employed as _agents provocateurs_, death being the alternative if ever they disclosed the methods of their Christlike patrons and employers. As we have seen, both the _Hermandad_ and the _Cruciata_ were the Inquisition's agents throughout the Peninsula, and were employed mostly for the purposes of watching and seizing victims. The smallest hamlets swarmed with these vermin and they were mainly drawn by the Inquisitors from the worst characters in the country. They themselves were often victims of the Inquisition, whose influence had destroyed all kinds of secular industry in order that the Church should profit by it, and members of both brotherhoods served for the lowest wage the system which had robbed them of all chance of procuring an honourable livelihood. In order to possess the better claim upon their patrons, they had devoted all the faculties of mind and heart to perfecting the arts of espionage, and no system has ever produced more crafty, more ruthless, more persevering servants. When once their attention was fixed upon a victim, it was but of small importance that he was innocent, for his doom was settled from that moment. If his reputation, his rank, his riches did not allow of his immediate seizure, then recourse was had to stratagem. All means, however vile or base, were allowed; they employed all arts, they assumed all characters, they made use of every dress, they adopted every possible method of circumventing and capturing their prey. Caresses, flattery, entertainments, gold, were all employed in forwarding their designs; months and years often passed before a victim was entrapped, but the _Hermandad_ never lost a victim once it had fixed its eyes upon his belongings. The _Cruciata_ was formed with the object of watching over members of the Catholic body and seeing that its members performed their religious duties. It is not difficult to conceive to what a degree of hypocrisy such an establishment must have brought a nation, and if "most Catholic Spain" were Catholic at all in those days, it was rather from fear of the _Cruciata_ than from love of God. So then the Inquisition had two first-class _corps d'espionnage_ which formed two active armies, always on the alert and always moving among the masses, through which both their political and their spiritual ascendancy remained assured.

That few could escape the attentions of these spies must be evident when we consider that the Inquisition characterised as Heretics all who taught, wrote, or spoke against the Church, its teachings, its hierarchy and priesthood, or even those who wrote in favour of methods or teachings belonging to non-Catholic bodies, or who simply criticised the Church. To be a suspect was practically to be a man who was already dead. To have spoken irreverently of holy things, or to have failed to inform of those who had so spoken, to have read forbidden books, or to have lodged or entertained an heretical friend—these were sufficient to condemn a man, and according to the principles of the Inquisition, a man was obliged to inform against his father, his brother, his wife, his children, under pain of himself being brought within the notice of the Inquisitors. As it happened, the larger percentage of men and women who became its victims were such as possessed large means which the ecclesiastical powers desired to possess. Jews, Moslems, non-Catholics of all sorts were, equally with Catholics, amenable to the Inquisition for specified "crimes," all of which were punishable by death if the accused were unable to justify themselves. Public report, secret information, discovery by means of spies and voluntary accusation were the four ways employed by the Inquisition, in order to bring matters under its jurisdiction. Flight was impossible in view of the ubiquitous _Hermandad_, and the summary seizure of an accused person and his immediate incarceration constituted the usual procedure, once the spies had reported to headquarters. These spies, or "familiars," as they were called, were invariably supported by the Inquisitors, even if evidence had to be fabricated in order to make up a plausible case. What was the quality of the Justice dispensed may be gathered from the following facts: first, the names of witnesses deposing against the accused were never given to these last; secondly, witnesses were not obliged to prove their depositions; thirdly, all and sundry who cared to volunteer testimony were accepted, so that men who were notorious for infamy, for perjury and for the most scandalous vices were welcomed to bear witness to the "truth"; fourthly, two hearsay witnesses were equivalent to one ear-witness; fifthly, the spies were always accounted the most reliable witnesses, notwithstanding that they were in the pay of the Inquisition. Finally, a son might be witness against his father, a father against his son, a wife against her husband, a husband against his wife, a domestic against his master, or a master against his servant—an inexhaustible source of treachery, revenge and the worst qualities of the human heart. The tortures to which the accused were subjected in order to make them confess to the commission of crimes of which they were guiltless were of three kinds. In the first place the victim was taken to a vault which lay sometimes as many as one hundred feet below the surface of the highway. According to the nature of the charge, he was put through the torture of dislocation by being fastened as to his extremities, with cords, then raised by means of a pulley, kept some time in suspension and suddenly let fall to within a foot of the ground. If on repetition this means was found insufficient to make the "subject" confess, his Christian tormentors resorted to the water-trough, laying him on his back, binding him as to the legs, and having stopped his nostrils, poured water from a considerable height in such a way that its weight fell upon the throat. Occasionally the master of ceremonies turned off the flow, not, however, to give the victim relief, but to prevent his death by suffocation. Perhaps, even then, he refused to surrender, and in order to cure his obstinacy a couple of religious smeared his feet with lard or oil, stretched him on the ground with the soles exposed to a terrific fire, and after half-an-hour's subjection to this ordeal invited him to speak. If he refused, he was put through the torture once more and then removed to a dungeon where he invariably found some others in apparently as bad a plight as his own, who, as soon as he was brought in, began to curse the Inquisition and all connected with it. These were nearly always spies whose evidence constituted subsequently that on which the unfortunate man was eventually condemned to death. The executioners of the torture-room were as a rule monks clothed in cassocks of black buckram, with the head and face concealed under a cowl of the same colour, with holes for the eyes, nose and mouth. A Prior was accustomed to supervise the torture, assisted by a clerk who referred to his spy agents as occasion required, or summoned them from an adjoining hall, where most of them wiled the time away at dice, in order to fortify all accusations against the victim. Sometimes an innocent man, in the vain hope of saving his life, confessed his guilt. He was then accounted a happy repentant and, by a special favour, was permitted to be strangled before being cast into the flames. Those who persisted in their obstinacy were summarily burned to death.

In modern foreign congregational colleges the divisions of the school take the form of junior boys, middle grade and seniors, and as communication of the youths of one grade with those of any other grade are most strictly forbidden, mainly on the ground of morality, a considerable system of espionage is from the outset part of the institution's plans. In foreign schools the spies of any particular grade are officially known by the other boys, just as monitors are known in ordinary schools. The functions of the foreign school-spy go, however, very much farther than those of the monitor, and so busy is he in the performance of his duties, that espionage enters into the minds and habits of foreign youths from their earliest years. When the late Cardinal Vaughan—a typical Englishman if membership of a territorial family of half-a-score of generations counts for anything—was laying plans for the founding of a Catholic school in England, he visited many of the principal colleges in France with the object of obtaining ideas for his proposed foundation. Everywhere he was depressed at the absence of individual liberty and the ever-present prevalence of espionage. Nor was he consoled very much, on once asking the distinguished head of such an establishment what provision was made for training youths in the proper use of individual freedom, to hear that the school authorities saw to it that no freedom whatever was allowed except under the eyes of the official supervisors. Neither does the system fail in its application among the members of any governing confraternity itself in which the lay-brothers are spied upon by the functionaries in minor orders, and these in their turn by clerics in higher orders, the superior exercising espionage upon the entire community while the sport begins again in inverse order, and the chief finds out that his reports dealing with the subordinate end of the line are fully supplemented by spies who report with equal completeness on his own end of the game. Contemplative Orders, as they are called, are not, it may be said, confined to the Roman Catholic Church, and we presume monastic espionage is as prevalent among the non-Catholic monks as among the Catholic.

XVII

AMERICAN SECRET SERVICE

It is customary for Americans to declare that they possess no system of espionage in their country, and as a rule this is true of American life under normal conditions. Putting aside the questions of purely detective work and criminal investigation, and in these spheres of police activity America is probably served as well as any other country in the world, we may safely say that there is too much individual or social freedom in the United States to warrant the permanent existence of anything like organised espionage. Nevertheless, politics plays a rôle in every state of the Union, the complexity and strenuousness of which are not known in any other country in the world, and wherever the political game is pursued with resoluteness and vigour, we may depend upon it that all factions possess what Americans themselves very aptly describe as "inside information" regarding what is taking place in other opposing camps; all the more so, indeed, as success in political campaigns in America means possession and employment of a kind of patronage which is invariably expressed in terms of dollars and cents. Such information can only come by way of emissaries planted in the midst of political enemies, and there is attached to every political organisation a selected body of men who make it their business, for due consideration, to work in other camps on behalf of particular factions. This kind of political espionage is, it may be said, quite as common in England, or Canada, or Australia, or France, or Germany as in the United States, for as it has been said: "So long as there are governments so long will there be political spies, and so long as there are attempts being made to overturn governments by force, so long will political espionage remain a necessity." As in England, or Scotland and Ireland, so in America there is little in the way of systematised espionage, even among the vast community of German-Americans who might be supposed to revert to type, as the Darwinians put it. Over there, as in these Islands, espionage is only organised for expediency's sake and according to the exigencies of any particular scandal, social or commercial, which may require the intervention of the agent of stealth and observation.

Yet, how many Americans are themselves aware that Charles the First sent his agent Randolph to America in order to report on the condition of the Colonies which were even then discussing the question of severing themselves from the British bond? Louis the Sixteenth also sent Baron de Kalb to inquire into the revolutionary spirit which, as a result of the importation of French encyclopædism, preceded the Declaration of Independence, and upon the Baron's favourable report, gave the Revolutionaries that aid which led in the end to their triumph. Of Hale we have spoken at fuller length, but have yet to tell how General Washington had his own secret agents within the British lines, from whom he received constant intelligence as to what was taking place in Howe's and Clinton's camp. Major Tallmadge, whom we have mentioned in the story of André, was the agent through whom the information was transmitted. At first it was written in sympathetic ink, then a new invention and imported by General Lafayette, which only disclosed its message when the paper on which it was written had been dipped in another fluid. Once the invisible ink was made visible by the application of the chemical reagent which developed it, the manuscript appeared as if it had been written in the ordinary way. Washington was, however, a particularly cautious man. He suspected that the British might very well possess this same sympathetic ink, and conveyed a message to Tallmadge that the latter's spy "should avoid making use of the stain (ink) upon a blank sheet of paper which is the usual way of its coming to me. This circumstance alone is sufficient to excite suspicion. A much better way is to write a letter in the Tory-style with some mixture of family matters, and between the lines in the remaining part of the sheet communicate with the stain the intended intelligence. Such a letter would pass through the hands of the enemy unsuspected, and even if the agents should be unfaithful or negligent, no discovery would be made to his prejudice, as these people are not to know what is concealed writing in the letter and the intelligent part of it would be an evidence in his favour."

James Rivington, editor and printer of _The New York Gazette_, was another agent in the secret service of Washington. By 1781 this man, realising that the British were unlikely to succeed in quelling the rebellion, undertook, in the interests of his own person and property—for earlier he had sided with the British—to furnish the American commander-in-chief with important information. This he conveyed to the general, written on tissue-paper and bound in the cover of school books. Although Rivington was thus aiding the revolutionary Whigs, he kept up his daily abuse of them in his newspaper, retaining the confidence and good will of the Tory leaders and residents. When in the autumn of 1783, the British evacuated New York, Rivington was, of course, suffered to remain, while other Tories were driven away and their estates confiscated. Major Tallmadge mentions Rivington as "a gentleman of business, of education and of honour," a somewhat stilted way of describing the journalist who, owing to his position, was able to mix with the loyalist families on a friendly and familiar footing, the revolutionary authorities paying him at the rate of £100 a month for services rendered. Soon after the Declaration of the War of Independence the new government of the United States made the then considerable appropriation of £6000 annually for the purposes of secret service. This money continues to this day to be appropriated. It is drawn by the direction of the President in such sums as he may require for specific services, without any voucher being given beyond the certificate of the Secretary of the Treasury registering the fact.

In 1812, it is recorded, President Madison communicated to Congress the commission and correspondence of John Henry, a British agent, proving that while the two countries were still at peace "a secret agent of the British Government was being employed in certain States in fomenting disaffection to the constituted authorities of the nation, and in intrigues with the disaffected for the purpose of bringing about resistance to the laws, and eventually, in concert with a British force, of destroying the Union and forming the eastern part thereof into a political connexion with Great Britain." This work of an _agent provocateur_ naturally aroused great excitement throughout the whole of American Society. No one had really believed that there were persons in New England capable of any idea of secession, although British gold, it was well known, had been heavily subsidising the eastern Press in order to rouse up civil discord. To no avail, however; Henry passed, and the disquiet of the period gave way to a long period of rest and prosperity.

In the Mexican War large sums of money were spent on secret service, and in 1849 Congress made an appropriation of £10,000 for the purposes of enabling a body of spies to be formed who were under the personal direction of the President. After this war the "hire of interpreters, spies and guides for the army" was included among the incidental expenses of the Quartermaster's department, for which an appropriation has since annually been made by Congress. When the war for the suppression of the Southern Rebellion broke out in 1861, large sums were necessarily expended by the officers of the regular army and of the volunteers, on account of secret service. We note one account sent in by General Butler for the payment of fifty dollars for a hand-organ and a monkey. This item was disallowed by the Treasury officers, until it was explained that both organ and monkey had been bought at Annapolis to enable a young officer familiar with Italian to go through the enemy's country to Washington, disguised as an organ-grinder and notify the President of the great Northern uprising as well as of the approach of the Union troops for the rescue of the capital. There was undoubtedly a large number of what Frederick of Prussia termed "double-spies" in the Civil War, and many secret-service men who carried intelligence to Washington also carried Union information back to Richmond.

At this momentous period many of those in the secret service were convicts who had broken out of jail, and neither side derived much benefit from their employment. Blackmail, false charges and forgery were used by them solely with the purpose of obtaining money from their victims. Prominent merchants in New York and Boston were accused on false documentary evidence of defrauding their country. Their books and papers were accordingly seized and their owners paid exorbitant sums in order to avoid arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. One victim remonstrated with the President in the following words:—"It is hard that citizens enjoying a good name who had the misfortune to come into business relations with the Government, should be exposed to such a spirit [espionage]; that they should be dragged from their homes and hurried to a military prison; that they should be obliged to undergo a protracted trial by court-martial, damaging their good name, destroying their peace, breaking up their business and subjecting them to untold expense, when at the slightest touch, the whole case vanishes into thin air, leaving behind nothing but the incomprehensible spirit in which it had its origin." The informers continued, despite all remonstrance, to enrich themselves at the expense of wealthy business men in the North, and many spies then laid the foundations of fortunes which to-day may be counted in the tens of millions. The military spies were doing good work, at the same time, in the South, though it was afterwards admitted that the secret service of the Confederates was far more efficient than that of the Union, the reason being, it was said, that in the service of the South were scores of intelligent women of position who were successful in obtaining at Washington, New York and elsewhere in the North, correct information of the plans and intentions of the Union generals. This was the case in regard to the battle of Bull Run, when a Mrs Greenhow obtained from a Northern politician information as to the advance of the Federal troops. Indeed, the operations of wealthy women-spies in the secret service of the South, during the Civil War, is one of the most curious features of that event. Nor were they all Southern women; many of them were Northerners, and at all events every one of them owed her fortune and position to the principles for which the Union stood. These women watched and waited at official doors until chance or the unguardedness of an employee allowed them to learn the particular secret intelligence they were looking for; they stole maps and plans and most of them had taken lodgings close by the War Office, to which they were wont to invite young departmental secretaries to whom they offered the pleasures of the tea-table and an enlightened discussion of Federal iniquities. Mr Perley Poore, writing in the well-known magazine, _The Chautauquan_, in January 1887, says: "They smuggled the information which they obtained, in the linings of honest-looking coats and hid the army secrets in the mysteries of innocent-looking bustles; they burned signal lights from garret-windows and crossed the Potomac below Alexandria at dead of night and with muffled oars. At one time the Government had caught and hived over a dozen of these busy Confederate bees in a house at Washington where, in a few days, they beguiled the young officers charged with guarding them and carried on their vocations as before." One of the best known of these creatures was Belle Boyd, the daughter of a Federal official; according to report she was sharp-featured, black-eyed, quick-tongued, of wonderful energy and spirits, twenty-five and—very free. She wore a revolver in her belt, rode a mettlesome horse and easily attracted the attentions and interest of the younger officers from whom she extracted valuable information, though what the officers extracted in return, we are not told. Boyd organised her own corps of women spies who were very much of the same type and character, and if not worse than herself, were apparently no better than they ought to have been.

Many stories are told of the ease with which Confederate secret-service men obtained first-class information from the departments. A young Englishman, member of a Washington firm of stationers who executed contract work for the Government, was once inveigled into giving away an important piece of military intelligence to a secret-service sleuth who had shadowed him from the capital to New York. Both took up lodgings at the Brevoort House, became acquainted and spent several evenings together. The Englishman casually allowed it to be known that he was on terms of particular intimacy with departmental officials and his friend suggested on leaving New York that they should correspond. A few weeks later, the Briton received a letter, addressed to him at Washington, asking if it were true that the blockaded port of Galveston was to be opened—could he find out the facts for a certainty from his official friends. Suspecting nothing, the stationer inquired at Washington and was duly informed as to governmental intentions by a secretary who really knew. He conveyed the news to his friend and was only reminded of the occurrence a few days afterwards when he was arrested and sent under guard to New York. Here he found that a noted blockade-runner had been arrested with the Washington letter in his pocket. The prisoner proved to be his friend of the Brevoort House who eventually received a long sentence, the Englishman escaping only through the intervention of the British Consul. The stationer received, however, no more favours from his official friends and lost a certain fortune through his lack of caution.

At the close of the war many spies who had worked for both the North and the South made their appearance at Washington, where most of them were taken into the services of the war department, at that time under the direction of Lafayette Baker in respect of its _corps d'espionnage_. When, in the course of time, President Johnson was impeached by the Republican party, Baker, a man of great cunning and resource, set about impressing the public with the value of his services to the country. He sought to prove that a Mrs Cobb had given bribes to members of the Cabinet in order to procure the pardon of ex-Confederates. The funds employed in the impeachment of Johnson were contributed by the distillers, and the secret service of the Treasury Department conceived and organised the "whisky ring," formed of Government officials and distillery magnates. The whisky taxes were divided and about one-half was paid into the Treasury, while the "ring" divided what remained. When the distillers slackened in their production the officials urged them to greater activity, the result being that although the ring included almost every revenue official in the West, many politicians of note and well-known personages in Washington, the fraudulent gains amounted to millions of dollars and for years even minor participants in the combine were pocketing some $500 (£100) a week as their share in the transaction. General Babcock, one of General Grant's personal staff, who was considered to be a member of the ring, was subsequently tried at St Louis, but acquitted, although public opinion always regarded him as guilty and made no concealment of its view that it was only Grant's influence which had procured him his acquittal. During the presidency of the victorious Federal commander, the Secret Service flourished at Washington and was mainly connected with the wire-pulling activities of politicians who saw large profits in contracts for municipal improvements, a form of "political" enterprise which has also become common in Europe since Baron Haussmann, of Paris, showed how much money there is be made in the exploitation of "civic patriotism," as it is called. Mr Perley Poore must be quoted in full in order to demonstrate the method of the Washington ring and its agents. He writes:

"Among its other operations was the execution of a plot concocted by General Babcock and District-Attorney Harrington to blacken the reputation of Mr Columbus Alexander who had made himself obnoxious to the ring. A certain detective one day informed Mr Alexander that he could obtain and deliver to him the private account-book of a contractor which would show the entire rascality going on. These books had already been delivered by the contractor to District Attorney Harrington who locked them up in his safe. The next night two professional burglars were hired to enter the office, blow open the safe and carry the books to Mr Alexander's house. That day Harrington had informed the police that he feared a burglary was about to be attempted and the superintendent, with the whole detective force, was on hand at the appointed hour. When the burglars had performed their work, they walked boldly out at the front door of the District Attorney's office, where they were kindly received by Harrington and his friend A. B. Williams. The principal burglar, having pocketed his fee, bade his confederates good-night and walked home. His assistant, in pursuance of the agreement, started for Mr Alexander's house, followed by the detectives and representatives of the ring. He lost his way unfortunately and Williams was obliged to direct him. He rang the bell for fifteen or twenty minutes, but failed to arouse anybody. He was then arrested by the detectives and locked up. Subsequently he signed an affidavit, at the instigation of Harrington, setting forth that he had been hired by Mr Alexander to blow open the safe in the District Attorney's office and bring the contractor's books to his house.

"The affair was immediately investigated. Harrington and the secret-service officials involved themselves in an inextricable mass of perjury, and then the detective first employed by Harrington came forward and revealed the whole conspiracy. The feeling against the scoundrels who had thus plotted to ruin the character of an upright and honourable man was very bitter. The masks were torn from their faces and they stood revealed in their true colours. The few honest men who had been deceived by their pretences into defending their acts repudiated them utterly. This exposure of the wrong-doings of the Secret Service led to the refusal of Congress to make any appropriations for its pay, with the exception of a small force attached to the Treasury Department. The old Capitol prison was converted into dwelling-houses and nearly all the agents were scattered over the country, many of them becoming connected with private secret-service organisations. As a general rule, these fellows are inferior in intellect and ability, if not in honesty, to the professional rascals whom they occasionally arrest. They often lay traps for weak men in crimes designed for them, and find vulgar employment by those seeking divorce from matrimonial bonds. Secret Service is certainly not a necessity in a Republic in times of peace, and when their virtues and their weaknesses during the War for the suppression of the Rebellion are impartially summed up, it will be difficult to decide whether those who professedly served the Union were a blessing or a curse to it."

The Customs House of the great City by the Hudson has its own _corps d'espionnage_, the object of which is to defeat the large number of tourists returning from summer trips to Europe, who attempt the next-to-impossible feat of "beating the Customs" by smuggling heavily excisable goods. Under the Roosevelt and McKinley regimes, when high tariffs were the ruling order, even rich men and women resorted to all manner of expedients in order to defeat the excisemen in West Street landing-stages. In the year 1905 matters had come to such a pass that a definitely organised system of espionage was adopted with a view to curtailing the operations of wealthy smugglers who could well have afforded to pay the heavy duties involved. The services of stewards and stewardesses on board the liners were not only requisitioned, both men and women being given pass-keys for the purpose of privately inspecting the luggage of suspected passengers, but women, apparently of wealth and standing, were also commissioned to travel to and fro between European and American ports and use all the means at their disposal to induce sister American tourists to give up, confidentially of course, a correct estimate of their purchases in Paris and London, the same information being duly transmitted to the New York Customs as soon as vessels berthed, or touched at Sandy Hook. Not only were the maids and valets of suspected smugglers suborned, but even, in London and Paris, the counter salesmen connected with fashionable outfitters and jewellers, as well as invoice clerks, were paid a fixed rate of reward for all information given to American Consular agents in Europe which might help the transatlantic port authorities to discover the delinquents and their private contraband on arrival at New York. Then there was the trick of the weighing-machine, guaranteed to take avoirdupois to the smallest fractions—plausible women spies and officious stewards and stewardesses making it their pleasure to have each saloon passenger "scaled" in order to show how beneficially sea-travel affected the health. At the Customs offices at New York these machines stood ready, in duplicate, to weigh any fair suspect who might possibly have swathed her form in contraband silks or other prohibited commodities, and a comparison with weight-lists previously supplied by obliging stewardesses was sure to decide the question as to whether or not she was to be made the object of a personal visitation by the official female searchers of the Port. In the case of one lady who was weighed off Queenstown, the indicator then recording 10 stone 6 lb., or 146 lb., duly registered by a stewardess, it was found that the duplicate machine at New York made her turn the scale at 168 lb., the result being that she was found to be carrying dutiable goods concealed on her person worth many hundreds of dollars excise tax to the authorities.

Much is told of the alleged system of newspaper spies employed by English and American "yellow" papers, which are said by the uninitiated to employ their corps of spy detectives in the same way as an established secret service employs its special agents. In America it is quite certain that since the so-called "yellows" depend to the larger extent on the providing of purely "police" news to their clients, a certain amount of espionage becomes part of the work of the daily reporter. During the course of the notorious Thaw trial, in the last decade, witnesses of all sorts—including the young wife of Thaw—were subjected to the attentions of reporters who, by following their social movements, were able to add suggestive tit-bits to the "stories" appearing daily and nightly in the papers, and much to the surprise and annoyance of their victims. As far as we know, however, nothing of the kind has yet entered into the processes of British journalism.

XVIII

NAPOLEON, HIS MISTRESS AND—A SPY

The authorities for the following story are these:—_Correspondence of Napoleon_, vol. v.; _Memoirs of Bourrienne_, vol. ii.; _Memoirs of Prince Eugene_, vol. i.; _Memoirs of the Duchesse d'Abrantés_, vol. iii. Except to very minute students of the Napoleonic legend, it is not very well known, nor could the episode be said to rise very much above the commonplace, were it not for the extraordinary personality of the central figure around whom the incidents play. It is simply with a view to showing the operations of what has been called "the long arm of British diplomacy" that we tell the tale of an attempt to put a term to Bonaparte's ambitions as early as 1798, when the Corsican had only reached his thirtieth year. It is customary to say that historic figures, no matter how great or spectacular their enterprises, are never—or rarely ever—so magnificent, in the classical sense, to the eyes of their contemporaries as they prove afterwards to succeeding generations. It took the battle of Austerlitz, for example, to force Benjamin Constant and Madame de Staël, to say nothing of the Bourbon Princes, as well as a host of public men of note, into a full and final realisation that in the person of Napoleon an elemental force had appeared in Europe whose activities in the world were not to stop till, to use the great soldier's own memorable phrase, Nature had ceased to require him as an instrument of its designs. And we all know the story of how the younger Pitt received the intelligence of that conflict of a December midday: "Roll up the map of Europe," he is alleged to have said, "it will not be required these ten years"—which was prophecy with almost mathematical accuracy, if we may use such a term. The truth is, however, that seven years previously, British diplomacy had already gauged the significance of the new world-portent, and by 1800 plans were already laid to fight the coming menace to the principle of the balance of power. The fact itself holds a lesson for all who fatuously imagine that the history of the world is enacted in a series of accidents and that the business of diplomatic agents consists in meeting and dealing with these accidents as they automatically appear. The work of all great foreign ministers whom the world has known has, on the contrary, consisted in providing for contingencies long foreseen and patiently awaited. What Prussia's unique foreign expert worthy of that name in the story of its whole diplomacy—Bismarck—achieved in this way as preparatory to the campaigns of 1864, 1866 and 1870, British Diplomacy is always and eternally achieving. To the process of its perennial vigils and deliberate acts we may apply the famous remark: "There it is, the great engine, it never sleeps," and as the custodian of the set principle that no single Power shall overrule the rights of other nations, men are beginning at last to realise what in reality it represents, and that not only is Great Britain now and for ages invincible and indestructible, but that in her self-charged world-rôle of defending the Right there is that which, if need were, shows the mind of watchful Providence itself.

When, in 1798, Bonaparte set out for his Egyptian campaign, there were already in active existence two redoubtable forces with which his ambition was destined to become fatefully engaged—namely, Nelson and British diplomatic vigilance. Long before his début on the Nile, British Secret Service had put all its forces in motion in order to upset his designs against England's Eastern dominions, and not one of these designs was unknown to Downing Street. Egypt then, as now, was in respect of its commercial activities almost wholly under the domination of English political and monetary influences, the result being that from the moment of his arrival at Cairo, an extraordinary web of espionage had already been woven round the Corsican. It is suggestive enough that the means which the secret agents of London proposed to employ for the undoing of the young conqueror of Italy were based mainly on the idea that Napoleon was easily susceptible to feminine influences. His quasi-public heart-affairs with Madame Colombier, Caroline Bressieux, Madame Saint-Huberti, Desirée Clary and the woman Turreau, in Paris, had misled the British Cabinet, strangely enough, with the notion that he could be destroyed through the agency of ministering angels of the venal variety. At all events, the system of espionage was conceived upon Bonaparte's supposed foible and its direction was undertaken by Sir Sidney Smith—whose interminable after-dinner tales of his exploit at St Jean d'Acre were afterwards to win him the title of "Long Acre"—assisted by John H. Barnett, a secret-service agent in British employ.

Bonaparte, it is known, had allowed but very few women to follow his army to Egypt, among these few being the wives of some of his principal generals. One of his inferior officers, a certain Fourès, just lately married, had, however, transgressed the orders of the Commander-in-Chief, to the extent of taking his bride-wife with him to Egypt dressed as a man-servant. In this disguise Madame Fourès was successful in reaching the Nile, where she assumed her regular woman's attire, took lodgings in Cairo and proceeded to lead an ordinarily domesticated life with her husband. It was not long, however, before the story of the lady's deceit came to the ears of Bonaparte through Junot, a connoisseur in feminine attractions, and the youthful General was moved by curiosity to see the rare bird that had eluded his vigilance and transgressed his rigorous orders—all the more so, perhaps, as Junot declared that this one was a veritable bird of paradise in respect of her personal charms and other _allèchements_. Accordingly, he so arranged matters that in the course of a review of his army all the French ladies in Cairo should be present to witness the manœuvres of the troops. Among them came the youthful Madame Fourès, whom Junot pointed out discreetly to his General. Evidently the latter was satisfied with his cursory inspection, for he turned to his famous lieutenant, instructing him to issue invitations to a dinner on the subsequent day to which certain ladies were to be invited, including Madame Fourès, whose husband was, however, not among the invited guests. Naturally, the Captain felt slighted. He was well known to be a man of fire-eating disposition—as John Barnett, who knew him personally, could fully testify—and his first inclination was to issue a direct challenge to his superior officer, Junot, whose propensities, where pretty women loomed large, were known throughout the army to be what the late Mr Labouchere used to term patriarchal. Then, on second reflection, he urged his wife to refuse the invitation. Now Madame Fourès was just in the newly wedded stage of her personal emotions, and every man of experience is aware that a bride in that stage is more susceptible to the external symptoms of the love-passion than at any other time. Indeed, the lady had already divined from Bonaparte's ardent glance the state of his feelings towards her. And although she practically, to use an Americanism, already "saw her finish," the truth would seem that she did not much care where she was to end. At all events, she declined to obey the Captain, twitting him with jealousy, and accepted the invitation for herself alone. It had been prearranged that Bonaparte was not to be of the invited party, but was to make his appearance during the course of the dinner, which arrangement was duly carried out, Bonaparte being presented to all the guests on his arrival.

Was it not Wellington who declared that "Bonaparte was no gentleman"? In any case, after presentation to Madame Fourès, the young General took a seat opposite to hers and began to stare the lady out of countenance, exceedingly to her embarrassment. Then quickly finishing a cup of coffee and with a curt word of adieu he passed from the room. Some moments after, Junot, whose place was beside that of Madame Fourès, in turning his chair, upset the lady's coffee into her lap. Apologising profusely for his awkwardness, the soldier, assisted by General Dupuy, sought to remedy the disaster with the aid of sponges and serviettes, only to find that the stain began to travel all over the skirt and was, for that day at least, irremovable. General Dupuy affected to be on the verge of tears. "Junot," said he, "perhaps it would be better to allow Madame Fourès to arrange her dress in some adjoining room." And Junot led the Captain's wife to an adjoining room, in which was—Bonaparte.

At this juncture our mind travels back, anachronistically enough, perhaps, to the late Artemus Ward, his "morril bares and wax figgers," and we feel inclined to ask the honourable printer to "put sum stars here." We prefer, however, to fall back on the profound observation of a French historian who deals with this episode. He says: "Madame Fourès entered that adjoining room with a blot upon her dress which was bad enough. It was nothing, however, to the blot upon her character when she came out." The lady was, it appears, wholly complacent, and as the presence of her husband was now a matter of embarrassment both to herself and Bonaparte, the latter took immediate steps to assure the return of Captain Fourès to France—ostensibly as the bearer of sealed orders to the Directory.

"My dear Fourès," said Berthier to him in accordance with this decision, "you are luckier than the rest of us, for you are going to see France once more. The Commander-in-Chief has decided to entrust you with a mission of the highest importance, knowing as he does your ability and reliability. Your future lies in your own keeping. The orders are that you shall leave at once with dispatches."