The tinge of disappointment which peeps forth in the later allusion of Secretary Orde to O'Leary may have been influenced by a circumstance casually noticed by his biographer. We have seen from a well-informed local journal of the day, that venal writers had received instructions to endeavour to sow the seeds of dissension. It will be shown that O'Leary was specially intimate with the proprietor of the Castle organ, and O'Leary would be one of the first writers on whom Orde's thoughts could not fail to fall. O'Leary's biographers say, but without giving dates, that he recoiled from the proposal to write in the organ of the Irish Government. Indeed, in a pamphlet, previously published, he records his dislike to anonymous compositions.[594] An eloquent divine, the Rev. Morgan d'Arcy, in preaching the funeral panegyric on Father O'Leary, travelled slightly out of his path to touch on this point. He said:-- The well-timed and effectual exertions of this extraordinary man, could not fail to attract the notice of Government, and, consequently, were not suffered to remain unrewarded by his gracious and beneficent sovereign; but, though he received with all becoming gratitude this unsolicited and well-earned mark of royal remuneration, yet such was his disinterestedness, and the noble independence of his spirit, that when, soon after, a very considerable annuity had been offered him to become the supporter of a periodical publication,[595] which then was, and still continues to be, the foul vehicle of misrepresentation, slander, and calumny on the Irish people; indignant at the insulting proposal, he rejects it with becoming contempt, though by his refusal he was sure to incur the displeasure of a certain description of men, and through their influence might apprehend a discontinuance of his pension; yet, destitute as he was of all earthly property beside, sooner than prostitute his heaven-sent talents, he leaves his native country and repairs to this metropolis, to enjoy the boasted and enviable blessings of British protection and British liberty. The preacher's reference here would be to the year 1789, when O'Leary removed permanently to London. It was in '89 that the great struggle on the Regency Question, which will be dealt with later on, raged between the camps of Whig and Tory in Ireland.