The royal visit accomplished, Dublin returned to its old condition of squalor. Agitation was rife, fostered by the pens and voices of a group of brilliant Irishmen. They had started the _Nation_ newspaper, and had made it one of the most powerful organs in the country; other offshoots of the Young Ireland Press helped to pepper the Government, and as there was no champion on the English side, the patriots appeared to have matters all their own way. Arguments were unanswered, and were, therefore, accepted as infallible, and this condition of things continued for a time until the viceroy and his secretary, Mr. Corry Conellan, decided to have a newspaper champion of their very own. Sir William Somerville, the Chief Secretary, was called into the conference, and ways and means discussed. There can be no doubt of the fact that the Lord-Lieutenant could have had the aid of any one of a dozen clever journalists, but ashamed, perhaps, of their methods, they enlisted in their service a person of the name of Birch, whose only claim to notoriety was the proprietorship of the _World_, and a conviction ending in six months' imprisonment for having threatened to publish a defamatory article about a public official unless the latter paid for its suppression. Lord Clarendon was, of course, unaware of his hireling's police-court experiences, and he agreed with his private secretary's recommendation of Mr. Birch. The latter was, therefore, regularly supplied with {253} opinions from the Castle upon all subjects relating to Ireland, and week by week the _World_ did its best to counteract the effect produced by every issue of the _Nation_. It was a feeble attempt on Birch's part, who possessed neither the wit nor the talent of the _Nation_ writers, and his employers tired of his futilities. The hack was given notice, and his _World_ was abandoned by the viceregal party. But Mr. Birch was a gentleman with a knowledge of a greater world; he decided that Lord Clarendon and his Chief Secretary could be made to pay, and so he concocted a list of services rendered and demanded a honorarium of L7,000 for his trouble. [Sidenote: A 'cause celebre']