LE CARON, HENRI (whose real name was THOMAS MIL LER BEACH) (1841-1894), British secret service agent, was born at Colchester, on Sept. 26, 1841. At nineteen he went to Paris, where he found employment in business connected with America. He crossed the Atlantic in 1861 and enlisted in the Northern army, taking the name of Henri Le Caron. In 1864 he married a young lady who had helped him to escape from some Confederate marauders; and by the end of the war he rose to be major. In 1865, through a companion in arms named O'Neill, he was brought into contact with Fenianism, and having learnt of the Fenian plot against Canada, he mentioned the designs when writing home to his father. Le Caron, from that time till 1889, acted for the British government as a paid military spy. He remained for years on intimate terms with the most extreme men in the Fenian organization. His services enabled the British government to take measures which led to the fiasco of the Canadian invasion of 1870 and Riel's surrender in 1871, and he supplied full details concerning the various Irish-American associations, in which he himself was a prominent member. He was in the secrets of the
"new departure" in 1879-1881, and in 1882 had an interview with Parnell at the House of Commons, when the Irish leader spoke sympathetically of an armed revolution in Ireland. For 25 years he lived at Detroit and other places in America, paying occasional visits to Europe, and all the time carrying his life in his hand. The Parnell commission of 1889 put an end to this. Le Caron was subpoenaed by The Times, and in the witness-box the whole story came out. He published the story of his life, Twenty-five Years in the Secret Service. He died on April 1, 1894. The report of the Parnell commission is his monument.
See references under PARNELL.