When enclosed in his cell, Emmet became the object of apparent concern and affection on the part of two acquaintances: the accomplished advocate and litterateur, Mr. Leonard M’Nally, and Dr. Trevor, Superintendent of Prisons. If these persons had stepped out of an ancient epic or some fancied tragedy to show what human genius could do by way of creating hypocrites, no plaudit ever yet given could be worthy of the play. They were both moral monsters, paragons of evil, beyond the Florentine or Elizabethan imagination. How they played with the too noble and trusting creature in their hands, how they tricked him with illusory plans of escape, and beguiled him into inditing documents which were promptly handed over to headquarters, need not detain us, though it supplies a long thrilling chapter in the humanities. Emmet’s first move was to empty his pockets of coin for the gaoler, under the man’s promise that he would carry in person a communication to Miss Curran. The recipient was not that distracted maid, but the Attorney-General. The Lord Lieutenant wrote to the Hon. Charles Yorke on September 9 as follows: “A curious discovery has been made respecting Emmet, the particulars of which I have not time to detail to you fully. There were found upon him two letters from a woman, written with a knowledge of the transactions in which he had been engaged, and with good wishes for the success of any future attempt. He has been very anxious to prevent these letters being brought forward, and has been apprehensive that the writer was arrested as well as himself. Till yesterday, however, we were entirely ignorant of the person who had written these letters, which are very clever and striking. The discovery was made last night by a letter from Emmet, intercepted on its passage from Kilmainham Prison to Miss Sarah Curran, youngest daughter of Curran the lawyer. Wickham has seen him, and he professes entire ignorance of the connection; but I think he must decline being counsel for Emmet in a case in which his daughter may be implicated. It is a very extraordinary story, and strengthens the case against Emmet.” A rumour of the fate of his letters was allowed to reach Emmet, and cut him to the quick. He wrote at once begging that the third letter (surely with news of his arrest, and with such assurances and sorrowful endearments as the occasion called for), might not be withheld; and in exchange for the service demanded, knowing that the Government already feared what that eloquent tongue might have to say in court, he offered to plead guilty, and go dumb to the grave. He who had staked so much on the purity of his public motive, he who cared only, and cared fiercely, for the clearing of his name from the misconceptions of posterity, he who was one of the elect souls loving his love so much because he loved honour more—he, Robert Emmet, was willing to forfeit every chance of his own vindication for the sake of the sad girl brought into abhorrent publicity by his rashness. He said he had injured her; he pleaded for the delivery of the letter, and offered his own coveted silence as the price of it. “That was certainly a fine trait in his character,” said Grattan, who looked upon him as a visionary broken justly upon the wheel of things ordained. Sarah never received her letter. But the discovery that there had been a correspondence between herself and the arch-rebel was a highly important-looking circumstance, and with all apologies to its distinguished owner, the Priory at Rathfarnham was ordered to be searched. Mr. Curran was not at home, but he returned in season to meet Major Sirr and the armed escort riding down his drive-way, and aglow with virtuous wrath at the possibility of suspicion alighting upon him or his, he went to clear himself before the Privy Council. Though his action secured its ends, being voluntary and merely formal, it was a singular humiliation to the paternity concerned. But the culminating shock he had to endure arose from another cause. Sarah’s apartments had been searched; Emmet’s glowing letters, openly alluding to his purposes, had been seized, and tied up and carried away. Here was complicity indeed! and the knowledge of it came upon him like a thunderbolt.