ooc, passage from canon: Sir Joseph Blaine discusses Stephen.
From The Yellow Admiral:
Sir Joseph glanced at their effective date, well before Maturin's departure for Spain, nodded and went on, 'To revert to Dr Maturin, for whom we here are particularly concerned, and on behalf of whom we should value any assistance your people can give us - one of these,' - holding up a parchment - 'refers to him. You probably know more about the late Duke of Habachtsthal than I do, the kind of men he privately mixed with, and the creatures he employed for some of his activities.'
'We have a very great deal of material. And the creatures, as you so justly call them, were the immediate cause of his self-murder.'
'Yes.' Blaine paused, and said, 'I will not make a long story of it, with circumstantial details, but only observe that he had conceived a hatred for Maturin, who had been the death of two of the friends in question, putting an end to their traitorous practices; and the creatures Habachtsthal employed about his revenge found out that before the Irish rising of ninety-eight he had been a friend of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, that he had committed some indiscretions in favour of Irish independence, and that with the help of hired Dublin informers and fresh evidence he might yet be taken up on a capital charge. Furthermore, he had brought back two transported convicts from Botany Bay before their time and without leave. Ordinarily I should have dealt with this situation much as you dealt with William Hervey's case; but with such high-placed and influential enmity, I dared not move for fear of making things even worse. Instead, I advised him to withdraw privately to Spain, together with his prot