It was at Leinster House that "Lord
Edward"--he is to this day always thus known by the people of Ireland,
who never think it needful to add his surname--after having joined "the
United Irishmen," had interviews with the informer Reynolds, who, it is
believed, afterward betrayed him.

Lady Sarah Napier, mother of Sir William Napier, the well-known
historian of the Peninsular War, and other eminent sons, was aunt to
Lord Edward, being sister of his mother. These ladies were daughters of
the duke of Richmond, and Lady Sarah was remarkable as being a lady to
whom George III. was passionately attached, and whom, but for the
vehement opposition of his mother and her _entourage_, he would have
married. In a journal of this lady's I find the following interesting
account of the search for her nephew: "The separate warrant went by a
messenger, attended by the sheriff and a party of soldiers, into
Leinster House. The servants ran to Lady Edward, who was ill, and told
her. She said directly, 'There is no help: send them up.' They asked
very civilly for her papers and for Edward's, and she gave them all.
Her apparent distress moved Major O'Kelly to tears, and their whole
conduct was proper."

Lady Edward Fitzgerald (whose husband had served under Lord Moira in
America) was at Moira House on the evening of her husband's arrest.
Writing from Castletown, county Kildare, two days after that event, Lady
Louisa Connolly, Lord Edward's aunt, says: "As soon as Edward's wound
was dressed he desired the private secretary at the Castle to write for
him to Lady Edward and tell her what had happened. The secretary carried
the note himself. Lady E. was at Moira House, and a servant of Lady
Mountcashel's came soon after to forbid Lady Edward's servants saying
anything to her that night." She continued, after Lord E.'s death, to
reside at Moira House till obliged by an order of the privy council to
retire to England, where she became the guest of her husband's uncle,
the duke of Richmond.[2]

Lady Moira, who so kindly befriended Lady Edward, was unquestionably a
very remarkable woman, and had considerable influence, politically and
socially, in the Dublin of her day. Although an Englishwoman, she became
in some respects _ipsis Hibernis Hibernior,_ and for a very long period
prior to her death never quitted the soil of Ireland. Had the Irish
aristocracy generally been of the complexion of those who assembled in
the more intimate reunions at Moi