A 'cause célèbre'

When the claim was first made, the Lord-Lieutenant declined to pay a penny more. He reminded Birch that he had received nearly £2,000 in return for very little work, but the journalist did not wish to argue the rights or wrongs of his claim—he wanted money, or else he would bring them into court and open his mouth. This frightened Lord Clarendon, who compromised with Birch by paying him the sum of £2,000 to withdraw his action. The journalist accepted, and turned his attention to the Chief Secretary, who wisely refused to be blackmailed, and accordingly, in the month of December, 1851, the élite of Dublin crowded the approaches to the Four Courts, to witness the spectacle of a viceroy in the witness-box being cross-examined by counsel for the plaintiff. There were rumours that the most sensational disclosures would be made, and in official circles there was much trepidation. By now the viceroy had learned the lesson that to attempt to conciliate a blackmailer was the most stupid form folly could assume. He agreed to submit himself to cross-examination—the only course if he desired to free himself from his late confederate.

Birch boldly stated his case, and described how he had been sent for by the viceroy's private secretary, and bought over by the Government. He had been instructed to reply to the attacks of the Nation, and, so he said, given a free hand in the spending of money. One story is good until another is told, and Birch's was largely discounted when the defence made its explanation. Lord Clarendon confessed that he had paid £3,700 altogether to Birch, and had received practically nothing in return. Of this sum £2,000 had been paid to the journalist to abandon an action he had entered against the viceroy, claiming £4,800 and £3 10s. costs. The action tried was ostensibly against Sir William Somerville, the Chief Secretary, but everybody knew that it was merely another attempt on the insatiable Birch's part to extract more money from the Lord-Lieutenant.

The trial lasted several days, but when the jury were allowed to retire, they made short work of Birch, whose cross-examination had killed his chances of success. Four minutes' deliberation was sufficient for the jurymen to bring in a verdict for the defendants, to whom they awarded costs to the amount of sixpence. It was a blow to the prestige of Lord Clarendon, though the right-minded admitted his honesty in declining to be blackmailed by an adventurer. Naturally, the opposition party made great capital out of it, and the Nation attained the dignity of a classic. For many weeks its pages were never without a reference to the cause célèbre, one of these being a neat epigram, which read:

'"Lord C. has grown most awfully religious,"
Said Corry Conellan with a rueful air;
"At least, his trepidation is prodigious
As to how in the next World he'll fare!":

With all the stubbornness of an English gentleman, the viceroy remained on at his post. He was anxious to discover the solution to the problems of the day. English money poured into the country to relieve the famine-stricken areas, and the landlords were helped also, but this did not augur tranquillity in the future. In despair the viceroy began a policy of favouring the patriotic party; he tried conciliation, made advances, and offered the hand of friendship, only to be called a coward, and earn the distrust of his own party. He then reversed his policy with the usual result—nobody was pleased, and when in 1852 Lord Clarendon's term came to an end, he was adjudged by all classes to have failed, although in such times Clarendon's failure was not without its personal compensations. He had the satisfaction of knowing that no man could have succeeded, and history has proved that to be a fact. His subsequent career is part of the history of England, for he was Foreign Secretary from 1853 to 1858, an epoch rendered memorable by the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny. In 1870 he died suddenly, seventy years of age.

Earl of Eglinton and Winton

A remarkable sportsman