In February, 1847, fourteen applications were made to the Board of Health, for providing temporary hospital accommodation; in March, they received fifty-one such applications; in April, fifty-three, in May, fifty-two; in June, twenty-two; in July, sixty; in August, forty-eight; in September the number was ten, and in October only eight. The applications to the Board of Health for temporary fever hospitals in 1847 were 343; the entire number of such applications up to 1850, when the Board closed its labours, were 576, of which 203 were refused.

Relapse was a remarkable feature of this famine-fever. "Relapses were so common," writes Dr. Freke from a western county, "as to appear characteristic of the epidemic; in several cases they have occurred so frequently as three, or even four times in the same individual." At Nohaval, Kinsale Union, out of 250 cases 240 relapsed.

The cases received into the permanent and temporary fever hospitals of Ireland in the year 1845, were 37,604; in 1846 they increased to 40,620; and in 1847 they rose to the enormous amount of 156,824 cases![272] of which, according to the Report of the Board of Health, 95,890 were admitted into temporary hospitals,[273] in which the percentage of deaths was ten two-fifths; more males dying than females, the percentage of deaths among males being eleven one-fifth, and among females nine six-tenths. But the mortality in the fever sheds sometimes rose to fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, and in a few instances to twenty-eight and twenty-nine per cent.; the cause being previous dysentery (on which cholera sometimes supervened) and starvation. In Eyrecourt, Ballinrobe Union, the death-rate rose to twenty-nine one-third per cent.; in West Skull to twenty; and in Parsonstown to twenty-nine five-eighths. The principal complications of this famine-fever, according to the Commissioners of Health, were dysentery, purpura, diarrhoea, and small-pox; and they further say of it that it was, perhaps, unparalleled for duration and severity.[274]

The average weekly cost of each patient in the temporary hospitals, including the salary of the medical officer, was four shillings and one halfpenny.

"Some approximation to the amount of the immense mortality that prevailed may be gleaned from the published tables, which show that within that calamitous period between the end of 1845 and the conclusion of the first quarter of 1851, as many as 61,260 persons died in the hospitals and sanitary institutions, exclusive of those who died in the Workhouses and auxiliary Workhouses. Taking the recorded deaths from fever alone, between the beginning of 1846 and the end of 1849, and assuming the mortality at one in ten, which is the very lowest calculation, and far below what we believe really did occur, above a million and a-half, or 1,595,040 persons, being one in 4.11 of the population in 1851, must have suffered from fever during that period. But no pen has recorded the numbers of the forlorn and starving who perished by the wayside or in the ditches, or of the mournful groups, sometimes of whole families, who lay down and died, one after another, upon the floor of their miserable cabins, and so remained uncoffined and unburied, till chance unveiled the appalling scene. No such amount of suffering and misery has been chronicled in Irish history since the days of Edward Bruce, and yet, through all, the forbearance of the Irish peasantry, and the calm submission with which they bore the deadliest ills that can fall on man, can scarcely be paralleled in the annals of any people."[275]

An unusual disease on land, scurvy, appeared during the Famine. The Commissioners of Health attribute its appearance (1) to the want of variety of food: the potato being gone, they say, the people did not understand the necessity for variety, and men, such as railway porters, who had wages enough to buy food, took scurvy for want of this variety, coffee and white bread being their common dietary. (2) Another cause was the eating of what was called "potato flour," got from rotten potatoes; it was not flour at all, and did not contain the elements of the potato, but consisted wholly of starch as foecula. (3) The use of raw or badly cooked food also brought on scurvy; and the Commissioners of Health, therefore, strongly recommended the giving of food in a cooked form.[276]

Emigration played a very leading part in the terrible drama of the Irish Famine of 1847; indeed, it was the potato failure of 1822, and the consequent famine of 1823, which first gave emigration official importance in this country. A Parliamentary Committee was appointed in the latter year, before which Mr. Wilmot Horton, the Under Secretary of State, explained in detail a plan of emigration from Ireland, then under the consideration of Government, and which was afterwards carried into effect. The emigrants were sent to Canada; and Peterborough, at the time a very insignificant place, was fixed upon as their head quarters. On two subsequent occasions, Mr. Horton stated this emigration to have been eminently successful, which was fully corroborated by the evidence of Captain Rubidge, before the Lords' Committee of 1847, on "Colonization from Ireland." But this emigration, as well as that of 1825, both of which were superintended by the Hon. Peter Robinson, was on a very limited scale. The number taken out to Canada in the first emigration was only 568 persons, men, women, and children. The Government supported them for eighteen months after their landing, which very much increased the expense; each of those emigrants having cost the country L22 before they were finally settled. In 1825 Mr. Robinson took out 2,024 emigrants under the same conditions, but in this instance the expense was slightly diminished, the cost of each person being L21 10s. These emigrants also prospered, but the money outlay in each case was so considerable, that the experiment could not be extended, nor, in fact, repeated.[277]

From this period, committees continued to sit on the subject of emigration, almost year after year; emigration from Ireland, even in the absence of famine, being considered of the highest importance—and why? Chiefly, because Irish labourers were lowering the rate of wages in the English labour market—so it is stated in the report of the Select Committee of 1826, in the following words:—"The question of emigration from Ireland is decided by the population itself; and that which remains for the legislature to decide is, whether it shall be turned to the improvement of the British North American colonies, or whether it shall be suffered and encouraged to take that which will be, and is, its inevitable course, to deluge Great Britain with poverty and wretchedness, and gradually, but certainly, to equalize the state of the English and Irish peasantry. Two different rates of wages, and two different conditions of the labouring classes, cannot permanently co-exist. One of two results appears to be inevitable; the Irish population must be raised towards the standard of the English, or the English depressed towards that of the Irish. The question, whether an extensive plan of emigration shall or shall not be adopted, appears to your Committee to resolve itself into the simple point, whether the wheat-fed population of Great Britain shall or shall not be supplanted by the potato-fed population of Ireland?"[278]

The same reasons are given by the same Committee in 1827, and they are again repeated in 1830, by another Committee, whose duty it was to inquire into the state of the Irish poor.

The famous Devon Land Commission, which was called into existence in 1842, presented its voluminous report to Parliament in 1845, which was founded on the examination of eleven hundred witnesses, whose evidence was taken on the spot in every county in Ireland; the Commissioners having visited more than ninety towns for the purpose;—that Commission recommended emigration from Ireland, but in a cautious and modified way. The Commissioners say:—"After considering the recommendations, thus repeatedly made by Committees of Parliament upon this subject, and the evidence of Mr. Godley, in which the different views of the subject are well given, we desire to express our own conviction, that a well-organized system of emigration may be of very great service, as one among the measures which the situation of the occupiers of land in Ireland, at present calls for. We cannot think that either emigration, or the extension of Public Works, or the reclamation or improvement of land can, singly, remove the existing evil. All these remedies must be provided concurrently, according to the circumstances of each case. In this view, and to this extent only, we wish to direct attention to the subject of emigration."[279]

A Select Committee of the House of Lords, on the operation of the Poor Law in Ireland, spoke approvingly of emigration as a relief to the labour market at home, and it therefore recommended, "that increased facilities for the emigration of poor persons should be afforded, with the cooperation of the Government."[280]

One Parliamentary Committee, at least, condemned emigration in terms both decided and remarkable; it was the Committee of Public Works appointed in 1835. In its second report this passage occurs:—"It may be doubted, whether the country does contain a sufficient quantity of labour to develope its resources; and while the empire is loaded with taxation to defray the charges of its wars, it appears most politic to use its internal resources for improving the condition of its population, by which the revenue of the exchequer must be increased, rather than encourage emigration, by which the revenue would suffer diminution, or than leave the labouring classes in their present state, by which poverty, crime, and the charges of Government must be inevitably extended."[281]

Previous to the Famine there was a large and steady emigration from Ireland for many years, independent of Government aid. The total colonial and foreign emigration between 1831 and 1841 amounted to 403,459, to which the returns add 25,012, for probable births, that item being calculated at one and a-half per cent. per annum; making a total of 428,471. These figures give a yearly average of nearly 43,000.[282] Of these, 214,047 embarked from Irish ports, 152,738 from Liverpool; and ten per cent. was added for imperfect returns. The largest number of those who went from Ireland direct to the colonies or foreign countries, from any one port, embarked at Belfast, viz., twenty per cent. of the whole. From Cork nearly the same. From the ports of Ulster there went 76,905. From the ports of Munster 70,046. From Leinster 34,977, and from Connaught only 32,119. Those emigrants who embarked from Irish ports proceeded as follows:—189,225 to British America, namely, 107,792 males and 81,233 females; to the United States of America 19,775, namely, 10,725 males, and 2,950 females; to the Australian colonies, there went 4,553, in the proportion of 2,300 males and 2,253 females; and 494 persons embarked for the West Indies—300 males and 194 females.[283]

Within the decade of years comprised between 1831 and 1841, emigration was at its minimum in 1838, the number that left our shores in that year being only 14,700; it rose to its maximum in 1841, namely, 71,392. It rose still higher in 1842, the emigrants of that year being set down at 89,686. The year 1843 was named by O'Connell the Repeal year; the people were filled with the hope of soon seeing a parliament in College Green, and to this fact may probably, be attributed the great falling off in emigration; the number for that year being only 37,509. It increased in 1844 to 54,289; and in 1845—the eve of the Famine, to 74,969 persons.

In the year 1846, as might be expected, emigration from Ireland reached a height which it had never attained before in a single year; the number, as estimated by the Emigration Commissioners, being 105,955. Besides which between the 13th of January and the 1st of November, 278,005 immigrants arrived at Liverpool from Ireland; but the Irish labourers who, at that time, annually visited England, and who were variously estimated at from 10,000 to 30,000, are included in the number. For the protection of the emigrants, additional agents were appointed by the Government at Liverpool and some Irish ports; and the annual vote in aid of colonial funds, for the relief of sick and destitute emigrants from the United Kingdom, was increased from L1,000 to L10,000.[284]

In the spring of 1847, a gigantic emigration scheme was launched. It was said to have emanated from, and was certainly patronized by members of the so-called Irish party, which, with so few elements of cohesion, was inaugurated at the Rotundo meeting; but the father of the scheme seems to have been Mr. J.E. Godley. By it, two millions of Irish Catholics were to be transferred to Canada in three years; it being a leading feature in the scheme to send none but Catholics. It was, the promoters said, to be an Irish Catholic colony, with a distinct and well marked Irish nationality,—in fact, a New Ireland! There was a memorial on the subject which extended over fifty one pages of a pamphlet, and which was prepared by Mr. Godley with much ability. It went very fully into the whole scheme. This, accompanied by a short explanatory letter, was presented to the Prime Minister on the last day of March.

The memorialists assumed that the cultivation of the potato could not be persevered in, and that Ireland, in her existing condition, could not grow enough of corn food for six millions of people. Hence the necessity for an extensive emigration. They are not, they say, to be ranked among those who believe Ireland incapable of supporting its existing population in comfort, under other circumstances; far from it. On the contrary, they do not doubt that if "the social economy" of Ireland were made to resemble that of England, the population of Ireland might be larger than it then was. It was only under existing circumstances that the population of Ireland was redundant, and all they desired was a temporary decrease.

In the letter which accompanied the memorial to the Premier, the memorialists put their views, shortly, as follows:—1. The present condition of Ireland is such, that there must be, for some years, a vast increase of emigration, they, therefore, urge the necessity of what they call "systematic colonization," both for the advantage of the emigrants themselves, and the good of the colony to which they would emigrate. They think this colonization, "on a very large scale," ought to be made from Ireland to Canada, and that the State ought to lend its assistance to promote it. 2. In the second place they lay it down as an essential part of their scheme, that religious provision must be made for the emigrants. 3. They think there would be great advantage in enlisting private enterprise, in the form of agency, to carry out the plan. 4. Furthermore, there must be a willingness on the part of the nation to accept an income and property tax, for the purpose of defraying the cost of emigration: and, 5. To help the emigrants to settle on the land, "aids to location," as Mr. Godley called them, must be provided.

How was this vast scheme to be carried to a successful issue? A joint-stock company, to be called "The Irish Canadian Company," was to undertake the entire management of it. This Company was to be legalised by Act of Parliament, and recognised by the Canadian Government. It was to transmit to Canada and settle there a million and a half of the Irish people in three years, being at the rate of half a million a year. To do this, L9,000,000 was to be lent by the Government, at the rate of L3,000,000 each year, on the security of Irish property and an Irish income tax. This tax was to be one per cent. the first year, two per cent. the second year, three per cent. the third year, and to stand at three per cent. until the first instalment of the loan could be paid, and was, of course, to cease altogether when the last instalment was paid. Repayment was to be made at the rate of six and a half per cent., per annum, which would extinguish principal and interest in twenty two years.

The L9,000,000 so lent and to be so repaid, was to be expended in this manner: The passage money of each individual was computed at L3; of this the Government was to advance one pound, the emigrants themselves finding the other two in some way—to be given by friends—saved from wages—obtained from their landlords—however the L2 was to be found,—that sum was to be provided by the emigrant. One pound to each of one million and a-half of emigrants would absorb L1,500,000 of the L9,000,000. The joint-stock company that was to work the concern must, of course, have profits, and be paid for its labours; it was, therefore, to have a bonus of L5, or a sum of about that amount, for each emigrant it would prove to the satisfaction of Government that it had located in Canada. It was to have other profits. It was to be empowered to lend money to the district councils in Canada, to effect local improvements, and the interest of this money was to be a portion of its profits. All the emigrants were to be settled on the land in Canada; this would be bought in its rude state by the company, and resold at a profit, when it had improved it, and established upon it those "aids to location" enumerated further on. This bonus of L5 on each, emigrant would amount to L7,500,000, which, together with the L1,500,000 mentioned above, would absorb the L9,000,000.

As already stated, it was a marked characteristic of this systematic emigration, or colonization, that it was to be exclusively Catholic, and that a number of priests, proportioned to the number of emigrants, should be appointed to accompany them and settle down with them. This Mr. Godley held to be absolutely necessary. Before the Lords' Committee on Colonization he is asked: "Has any mode occurred to you by which a more compacted social organization might be given to emigration, carrying with it more of the characteristics and elements of improved civilization than at present exists?" He answers: "Yes. I have explained my views upon the subject at considerable length elsewhere. I think that the nucleus of an Irish Roman Catholic emigration must be ecclesiastical, I think they are debarred from going upon the land and settling socially, by the want of the ordinances of their church; I think that the first and most important element, in an Irish social settlement must be religious and ecclesiastical."[285] Again he is asked: "At the present moment, has it come within your knowledge, that the want of such spiritual care and assistance checks the progress of settlement among Irish emigrants, and, consequently, to a certain extent, discourages emigration?" "Certainly," Mr. Godley answers, "it prevents them from going upon the land all over America." "How does it," he is further asked, "prevent them from going upon the land?" "In this way," he replies, "they being too poor to take the priest with them to the wilderness, in order to partake of the ordinances of their church, and to enjoy spiritual advice and comfort, remain in the towns, where they are simply labourers, and are checked in going upon the land as rural settlers."[286] Question 1819: "How do you propose that the priests should be paid?" Answer: "By a grant from this country or from Ireland." Question 1820: "Do you mean simply the expense of their emigration, not as a permanent endowment in the colony?" Answer: "I never entered so exactly into the detail as to say in what manner I thought the endowment might be best effected, and, consequently, I do not consider myself as committed to any particular plan of endowment. The probability is, that the most effective way of endowing them would be, to a certain extent, in money, and to a certain extent by land in Canada; but that is a part of the plan which I did not consider necessary to draw out in detail." The following question and answer explains what Mr. Godley meant by "aids to location:"—Question 1848: "What is the practical mode in which you would set about the establishment of a colony?" Answer: "I would open the country by means of roads and bridges, build mills, endow a clergyman, and build a school. Those are the leading features of a social settlement to which I think a company, or any body that wanted to establish a settlement, ought to attend first."

The memorial to Lord John Russell, praying that the Government would give its sanction and support to Mr. Godley's scheme of colonization, was signed by one archbishop, four marquises, seven earls, three viscounts, thirteen barons, nine baronets, eighteen members of parliament, some honourables, and several deputy-lieutenants. The memorialists were, in all, eighty—that is, eighty of the leading peers, members of parliament, and landowners approached the First Minister, to beg that he would aid them in sending two millions of Irish Catholics to Canada, to reclaim the land in that colony. Everybody knows that the statement of Sir Robert Kane is accepted as a truth, that there are in Ireland four and a-half millions of barren acres, the greater portion of which would richly, and promptly, repay for their reclamation. Yet the Government Bill for beginning that reclamation was withdrawn by the Prime Minister, and no single voice was raised in favour of going on with it; moreover, he said his reason for withdrawing it was, the opposition which the House of Lords offered to it. Yes; they would have no reclamation of Irish lands, but they would submit to bear increased taxation in order to send the Celtic race by the million to delve in Canada!—yet, even for that it became the Irish people to be duly grateful, inasmuch as it was a decided improvement upon the older colonization scheme of "To h——or Connaught."[287]

The colonization scheme met with little or no support in Ireland. It was suspected. It was regarded as a plan for getting rid of the Celt by wholesale. A Protestant gentleman, Mr. Thomas Mulock, thus comments on the memorial: "And is it come to this, O ye lords and gentlemen! representatives of the Irish party, with prospective adhesions after the Easter holidays from the vast majority of Irish Protestant proprietors,—do you avow yourselves to be in the position of landowners, who stand in no relation of aristocracy or leadership, government or guidance, succour or solace to millions of the people, who famish on the territorial possessions from which you derive your titles, your importance, your influence, your wealth. Has confiscation been mellowed into the legal semblance of undisputed succession, only to bring about a state of things which the most ruthless ravagers of nations never permanently perpetrated?"[288]

The memorial was extensively circulated. Amongst many others, one was sent to the Right Rev. Dr. Maginn, Coadjutor Bishop of Derry. He replied in terms scathing as they were indignant. The following is an extract from his letter:—"In sober earnestness, gentlemen, why send your circular to a Catholic bishop? Why have the bare-faced impudence to ask me to consent to the expatriation of millions of my co-religionists and fellow-countrymen? You, the hereditary oppressors of my race and my religion,—you, who reduced one of the noblest peoples under heaven to live in the most fertile island on earth on the worst species of a miserable exotic, which no humane man, having anything better, would constantly give to his swine or his horses;—you, who have made the most beautiful island under the sun a land of skulls, or of ghastly spectres;—you are anxious, I presume, to get a Catholic bishop to abet your wholesale system of extermination—to head in pontificals the convoy of your exiles, and thereby give the sanction of religion to your atrocious scheme. You never, gentlemen, laboured under a more egregious mistake than by imagining that we could give in our adhesion to your principles, or could have any, the least confidence, in anything proceeding from you. Is not the ex-officio clause in the Poor-law Bill your bantling, or that of your leader, Lord Stanley? Is not the quarter of an acre clause test for relief your creation? Were not the most conspicuous names on your committee the abettors of an amendment as iniquitous as it was selfish—viz., to remove the poor-rates from their own shoulders to that of their pauper tenantry? Are not they the same members who recently advocated, in the House of Commons, the continuation of the fag-end of the bloody penal code of the English statute book, by which our English brethren could be transported or hanged for professing the creed of their conscience, the most forward in this Catholic emigration plan? What good could we expect from such a Nazareth?"[289]

The Prime Minister did not take up the great colonization scheme. He said, in the House of Commons, on the 29th of April, that he declined, on the part of the Government, assuming the responsibility of providing for the absorption of the great excess of labour then existing in Ireland. "I deny," said Lord John, "on the part of the Government, the responsibility of completely, still less suddenly, resolving that question. What we can do, and what we, the Government, have endeavoured to do is, to mitigate present suffering."

The Government was of opinion that emigration, left to itself, would transfer the starving people to the United States and British America, as quickly as they could be provided for in those countries. This calculation turned out to be correct enough, as the following figures will show:—Emigration from Ireland in the year 1845 is set down at 74,969; it increased in 1846 to 105,955, although the Famine had not to the full extent turned the minds of the people to seek homes in the New World. The emigration of 1847 more than doubled that of 1846, being 215,444; ti fell in 1848 to 178,159, but in 1849 the emigration of 1847 was repeated, the emigrants of that year being 214,425, of which 2,219 were orphan girls from the Workhouses. The magnitude of the exodus was maintained in 1850, that year giving 209,054 voluntary exiles; but the emigration in 1851, which year closed the decade, quite outstripped that of any previous year, the figure in that year standing at 257,372.[290]

The census of 1841 shows the population of Ireland to have been in that year 8,175,124. Taking the usual ratio of births over deaths, it should have increased in 1851 to 9,018,799, instead of which it fell to 6,552,385; thus, being nearly two millions and a-half less than it should have been. These two millions and a-half disappeared in the Famine. They disappeared by death and emigration. The emigration during the ten years from 1842 to 1851, both inclusive, was 1,436,862. Subtracting this from the amount of decrease in the population, namely, 2,476,414, the remainder will be 1,039,552; which number of persons must have died of starvation and its concomitant epidemics; but even this number, great as it is, must be supplemented by the deaths which occurred among Famine emigrants, in excess of the percentage of deaths among ordinary emigrants.

During the Famine-emigration period this excess became most remarkable and alarming. The deaths on the voyage to Canada rose from five in the thousand (the ordinary rate) to about sixty in the thousand; and the deaths whilst the ships were in quarantine rose from one to forty in the thousand. So that instead of six emigrants in the thousand dying on the voyage and during quarantine, one hundred died. Subtracting six from one hundred, we have ninety-four emigrants in the thousand dying of the Famine as certainly as if they had died at home. Furthermore, great numbers of those who were able to reach the interior died off almost immediately. Sir Charles Trevelyan, the Government official, from whose Irish Crisis I take the above figures, adds these remarkable words: "besides still larger numbers who died at Quebec, Montreal, and elsewhere in the interior."[291]

89,738 emigrants embarked for Canada in 1847. One in every three of those who arrived were received into hospital, and the deaths on the passage or soon after arriving were 15,330, or rather more than seventeen per cent. As the deaths amongst emigrants, in ordinary times, were about 3/4 per cent., at least sixteen per cent. of those deaths may be set down as being occasioned by the Famine. But seventeen per cent., high as it seems, does not fully represent the mortality amongst the Famine emigrants. Speaking of those who went to Canada in 1847, Dr. Stratten says: "Up to the 1st of November, one emigrant in every seven had died; and during November and December there have been many deaths in the different emigrant hospitals; so that it is understating the mortality to say that one person in every five was dead by the end of the year."[292]

This would give us twenty per cent. of deaths up to the end of 1847; but the mortality consequent upon the Famine-emigration did not stop short at the end of December; it must have gone on through the remainder of the winter and spring, so that, everything considered, twenty-five per cent. does not seem too high a rate at which to fix it for that year. It is, however, to be taken into account, that the mortality amongst Irish emigrants in 1847 was exceptionally great, so, in an average for the six years from 1846 to 1851 we must strike below it. Seventeen per cent does not seem too high an average for those six years.

We have not such full information about those who emigrated to the United States as we have of those who went to Canada; the Canadian emigrants had certainly some advantages on their side; for, until the year 1847 there was no protection for emigrants who landed at New York. In that year the Legislature of the State of New York passed a law, establishing a permanent Commission for the relief and protection of emigrants, which, in due time, when it got into working order, did a world of good. Previous to this, private hospitals were established by the shipbrokers (the creatures of the shipowners), in the neighbourhood of New York. A Committee appointed by the Aldermen of New York in 1846 visited one of those institutions, and thus reported upon it: "The Committee discovered in one apartment, 50 feet square, 100 sick and dying emigrants lying on straw; and among them, in their midst, the bodies of two who had died four or five days before, but who had been left for that time without burial! They found in the course of their inquiry that decayed vegetables, bad flour, and putrid meat, were specially purchased and provided for the use of the strangers! Such as had strength to escape from these slaughter-houses fled from them as from a plague, and roamed through the city, exciting the compassion—perhaps the horror—of the passers by. Those who were too ill to escape had to take their chance—such chance as poisonous food, infected air, and bad treatment afforded them of ultimate recovery."[293]

It may be fairly assumed that the mortality amongst the emigrants who went to the United States was at least as great as amongst those who went to British America. The emigration from Ireland for the above six years was, as already stated, 1,180,409, seventeen per cent. of whom will give us 200,668, which, being added to 1,039,552, the calculated number of deaths at home, we have ONE MILLION, TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY THOUSAND DEATHS resulting directly from the Irish Famine, and the pestilence which followed in its track.

The mortality on board some of the emigrant ships was terrible; and, whatever the cause, the deaths in British ships enormously exceeded those in the ships of any other country.[294] The "Erin Queen" sailed with 493 passengers, of whom 136 died on the voyage. The scenes of misery on board of this vessel could hardly have been surpassed in a crowded and sickly slaver on the African coast. It appears, writes Dr. Stratten, that the "Avon," in 552 passengers, had 246 deaths; and the "Virginius," in 476, had 267 deaths.[295] An English gentleman, referring to a portion of Connaught in which he was stationed at the time, writes thus: "Hundreds, it is said, had been compelled to emigrate by ill-usage, and in one vessel containing 600 not one hundred survived!"[296]

Much sympathy was shown in Canada for the poor emigrants, and their orphans were, to a great extent, adopted by charitable families. The legislature of the State of New York, and many of its leading citizens, showed a laudable desire to aid and protect emigrants, in spite of which the most cruel and heartless villainies were practised upon the inexperienced strangers the moment they landed; in fact, before they landed the ship was surrounded by harpies, who seized their luggage and partly by violence, partly by wheedling and misrepresentation, led them where they pleased, and plundered then at will.

The legislature of the State of New York, in 1847, appointed a Committee to inquire into the frauds practised upon emigrants. It made its report in January 1848. In the fourth page of that Report these words occur: "Your Committee must confess, that they had no conception of, nor would they have believed the extent to which these frauds and outrages have been practised, until they came to investigate them." The first set of robbers into whose hands the emigrants fell were called "runners." They are described in the Report as a class who boarded the emigrant ship and brought the emigrants to their special lodging-houses in spite of them, and in spite of the authorities. They took charge of their luggage, pretending that nothing would be demanded for the storage of it, the price claimed for which afterwards was exorbitant, and the luggage was held until it was paid.

The frauds committed with regard to passage tickets were if possible more grievous than those practised by the runners. "The emigrant," says the Report, buys a ticket at an exorbitant price, with a picture on it representing a steam-boat, railway cars, and a canal packet drawn by three prancing horses, to bring him to some place beyond Albany. He gets a steam-boat ticket to Albany. Here his great ticket, with the pictures, is protested; he has to pay once more, and instead of railroad cars and a packet-boat, he is thrust into the steerage or hold of a line boat, which amongst other conveniences is furnished with false scales for weighing his luggage.

A few extracts from the testimony of some of the witnesses examined before the Committee will show how unexaggerated was the Report.

Henry Vail is examined: he testifies that he is employed by E. Mathews. His practice is to get all he can for tickets; he retains whatever is over the proper price and gets his monthly pay besides. The only exception to his getting all he can, is, he declares upon his oath, that he "never shaves a lady that is travelling alone. It is bad enough," in his opinion, "to shave a man."[297] Charles Cooke said, in his examination, that he had been employed by many offices. He heard Rieschmueller tell passengers to go to the d——l, they could not get less than twelve dollars as deck passengers on the lake, and he made them believe they must get their tickets from him, which they did. "Rieschmueller told me," said Cooke, "that all he was compelled to pay for a passenger to any port on the lakes was from two dollars to two and a-half. Wolfe told me that two dollars was the price, and all luggage free."[298] Mervyn L. Ray swore that he knew Mr. Adams to take twelve dollars for a passenger to Buffalo, when he (Ray) would have given him the same fare at two dollars.

One of the witnesses, T.R. Schoger enters into some details. 1. The first fraud, he says, practised on emigrants is this:—the moment the vessel arrives it is boarded by runners, whose first object appears to be to get emigrants to their respective public houses. Once there they are considered sure prey. There are, of course, rival establishments; each has agents (runners) and bullies. There is often bloodshed between them. The emigrant is bewildered. He is told he will get meals for sixpence a piece—he never gets one less than two shillings, and he is often charged a dollar a meal. 2. The next ordeal is called booking; that is, he is taken to the forwarding office, and told it is the only office, the proprietors being owners of boats, railways, etc. The runner gets one dollar for everyone booked. 3. The next imposition is at Albany; it is there the great fraud is perpetrated. If they find the emigrant has plenty of money they make him pay the whole passage over again,—repudiating all that was done at New York. 4. The next is the luggage. It is falsely weighed, and the emigrant is often made to pay five or six times more than the proper charge. "The emigrant," adds Mr. Schoger, "now thinks himself out of his difficulty, but finds himself greatly mistaken. The passengers are crowded like beasts into the canal boat, and are frequently compelled to pay their passage over again, or be thrown overboard by the captain."[299] The mates of the ships often took the property of emigrants; their locks were picked and their chests robbed; for none of which outrages was there the slightest redress.[300]

Before the legislature took any effective action in protecting the emigrants who landed at New York, many philanthropic and benevolent societies were formed for that purpose. Of those societies one Hiram Huested gave the following testimony on oath: "I am sure, there is as much iniquity amongst the emigrant societies as there is amongst the runners."[301]

What with shipwrecks, what with deaths from famine, from fever, from overcrowding; what with wholesale robbery, committed upon them at almost every step of their journey, it is matter for great surprise indeed, that even a remnant of the Famine-emigrants survived to locate themselves in that far West, to which they fled in terror and dismay, from their humble but loved and cherished homes, in the land of their fathers. The Irish race get but little credit for industry or perseverance; but in this they are most unjustly maligned, as many testimonies already cited from friend and foe, clearly demonstrate. If one more be wanting, I would point to a fact in the history of the worn-out remnant of our Famine-emigrants, who had tenacity of life enough to survive their endless hardships and journeyings. That fact is, the large sums of money which, year after year, they sent to their friends—every penny of which they earned by the sweat of their brow—by their industry and perseverance.

Thus write the Commissioners of Emigration, in their thirty-first General Report: "In 1870, as in former years, the amount sent home was large, being L727,408 from North America, and L12,804 from Australia and New Zealand. Of this sum there was remitted in prepaid passages to Liverpool, Glasgow, and Londonderry, L332,638; more than was sufficient to pay the passage money for all who emigrated that year! Imperfect as our accounts are," continue the Commissioners, "they show that, in the twenty three years from 1848 to 1870 inclusive, there has been sent home from North America, through banks and commercial houses, upwards of L16,334,000. Of what has been sent home through private channels we have no account."[302]

A public writer, reviewing the Commissioners' Report, says: "Even this vast sum does not represent more than the one half of the total sent home. Much was brought over by captains of ships, by relatives, friends, or by returning emigrants." No doubt, a great deal of money came through private channels, but it is hardly credible, that another sixteen or seventeen millions reached Ireland in that way. It is only guess-work, to be sure, but if we add one-fourth to the sum named in the Report, as the amount transmitted by private hand, it will probably bring us much nearer the truth. This addition gives us, in all, L20,417,500.

There, then, is the one more testimony, that the Irish race lack neither industry nor perseverance. For the lengthened period of three and twenty years, something like L1,000,000 a-year have been transmitted to their relatives and friends by the Irish in America. In three and twenty years, they have sent home over TWENTY MILLIONS OF MONEY. Examine it; weigh it; study it; in whatever way we look at this astounding fact—whether we regard the magnitude of the sum, or the intense, undying, all-pervading affection which it represents—it STANDS ALONE IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.

FOOTNOTES:

[269] Census of Ireland for the decade of years ending 1851. Tables of deaths, vol. I, p. 277. Quotation from Dublin Quarterly Medical Journal.

[270] See "Census of Ireland, from 1841 to 1851." Tables of Deaths, vol. 1, p. 296.

[271] Dr. H. Kennedy, in Dublin Quarterly Journal.

[272] Census Returns.

[273] Those admissions increased to 110,381 in 1848.

[274] The percentage of deaths in the cholera, which succeeded to this fever in 1849, was forty-two one-fifth.

[275] Census of Ireland for the year 1851. Report on tables of deaths.

[276] Report of Commissioners of Health.

[277] It is pleasant to know that the settlement at Peterborough has continued to flourish, as the following extract from the late John F. Maguire's "Irish in America" will show.—"The shanty, and the wigwam, and the log-hut have long since given place to the mansion of brick and stone; and the hand-sleigh and the rude cart to the strong waggon and the well-appointed carriage. Where there was but one miserable grist mill, there are now mills and factories of various kinds. And not only are there spacious schools under the control of those who erected and made use of them for their children, but the 'heavy grievance' which existed in 1825 has long since been a thing of the past. The little chapel of logs and shingle—18 feet by 20—in which the settlers of that day knelt in gratitude to God, has for many years been replaced by a noble stone church, through whose painted windows the Canadian sunlight streams gloriously, and in which two thousand worshippers listen with the old Irish reverence to the words of their pastor. The tones of the pealing organs swell in solemn harmony, where the simple chaunt of the first settlers was raised in the midst of the wilderness; and for miles round may the voice of the great bell, swinging in its lofty tower, be heard in the calm of the Lord's day, summoning the children of Saint Patrick to worship in the faith of their fathers."—The Irish in America, by John F. Maguire, M.P. London, 1868, p. 110.

[278] Quoted in Report of Committee of the House of Lords on Colonization from Ireland in 1847, p. vii.

[279] Quoted in Report of Committee of the House of Lords on "Colonization from Ireland" in 1847, p. 10.

[280] Sessional Papers, 1846, No. 24.

[281] Sessional Papers, 1835.

[282] The Census Commissioners, whose Emigration Statistics I use, do not add the one and a-half per cent. for probable births; hence they state the number of emigrants between 1831 and 1841 at 403,459 only.

[283] Census Returns for 1851—Tables of Deaths, p. 227-8.

[284] Census of Ireland for the year 1851—Report on Table of Deaths, p. 278. Thorn's Directory for 1848, p. 126.

[285] Question 1790, and Answer.

[286] Questions and Answers 1797 and 1798.

[287] A million and a-half of emigrants was the number contemplated by Mr. Godley's scheme, but his opinion was that there would be "a parallel stream of half a million, drawn out by the attraction of the new Irish colony, which, would make the whole emigration two millions."

The following is a list of those who signed the memorial for colonization in Canada:—Archbishop Whately, the Marquis of Ormonde, the Marquis of Ely, the Marquis of Sligo, the Marquis of Headfort, the Earl of Devon, the Earl of Desart, the Earl of Rosse, the Earl of Lucan, the Earl Fitzwilliam (modified assent), the Earl of Glengall, the Earl of Limerick, Viscount Massareene, Viscount Adare, Viscount Castlemaine, Lord Farnham, Lord Jocelyn, Lord Dunally, Lord Rossmore, Lord Oranmore, Lord Blayney, Lord Clonbrock, Lord Wallscourt, Lord Courtney, Lord Gort, Lord Sydney Osborne, Lord George Hill, Lord Stuart de Decies, Sir Walter James, Bart., M.P., Rt. Hon. Sir A.J. Foster, Bart., Sir Charles Coote, Bart., M.P., Sir Vere de Vere, Bart., Sir Michael Bellew, Bart., Sir Thomas Staples, Bart., Sir Colman O'Loghlin, Bart., Sir Roger Palmer, Bart., Sir Ralph Howard, Bart., Col. Wyndham, M.P., E.J. Shirley, Esq., M.P., Lieut.-Colonel Taylor, M.P., D.S. Kerr, Esq., M.P., W. Hutt, Esq., M.P., Rt. Hon. Colonel D. Darner, M.P., Alex. M'Carthy, Esq., M.P., R.B. Osborne, Esq., M.P., Hon. James Maxwell, M.P., Major Layard, M.P., Jas. H. Hamilton, Esq., M.P., M.J. O'Connell, Esq., M.P., W.H. Gregory, Esq., M.P., W.V. Stuart, Esq., M.P., B.J. Chapman, Esq., M.P., D.R. Mangles, Esq., M.P., C.B. Adderley, Esq., M.P., W. Ormsby Gore, Esq., M.P., Hon. Stephen Spring Rice, Hon. Standish Vereker, Hon. James Hewitt, Thomas Fortescue, Esq., D.L., Major Blackball, D.L.; James Lendrum, Esq., D.L.; T.J. Fetherstone Haugh, D.L., Mervyn Pratt, Esq., D.L., E. Housley, Esq., D.L., Colonel A. Knox Gore, Lieut. Co. Sligo, George Vaughan Jackson, Esq., D.L., R.M. Fox, Esq., D.L., Edward Cane, Esq., Charles Hamilton, Esq., Charles S. Monck, Esq., William Monsell, Esq., Thomas S. Carter, Esq., Charles W. Hamilton, Esq., Richard Bourke, Esq., Fetherstone Haugh O'Neill, Esq., John Vernon, Esq., George Lendrum, Esq., Francis Latouche, Esq., Peter Latouche, Esq., John Robert Godley.—Report of House of Lords on Colonization from Ireland, p. 168.

[288] Public letter.

[289] Reply to M.J. O'Connell, Esq., M.P., W.H. Gregory, Esq., M.P., and John R. Godley, Esq., Secretaries to the Canadian Colonization Scheme; 9th of April, 1847.

[290] Taken from Thom's Almanack for 1853, p. 252. The census of 1851 only gives the emigration for the first three months of that year. The number of emigrants in 1852 was largely in excess of those of 1851.

[291] "At Quebec in particular, we read that 'the mortality is appalling;' it was denominated The Ship Fever."—British American Journal. "Upwards of L100,000 was expended in relieving the sick and destitute emigrants landed in Canada in 1847."—Nicholls' History of the Irish Poorlaw, p. 327—note.

[292] Dr. Stratten, in Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, quoted by Census Commissioners for 1851 in p. 305 of their Report on Tables of Deaths.

[293] "The Irish in America," by John Francis Maguire, p. 186.

[294] "Report of Commissioners of Emigration for the State of New York," quoted by Mr. Maguire.

[295] Dr. Stratten in "Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal."

[296] Twelve months' residence in Ireland during the Famine and the Public Works: by William Henry Smith, C.E., late conducting engineer of Public Works, p. 92.

[297] Report p. 27. Halliday pamphlets, vol. 1990.

[298] Report, pp. 29, 30.

[299] Report, pp. 33, 34.

[300] Ib., pp. 54, 55.

[301] Ib., p. 73.

[302] The report of the Emigration Commissioners for 1873 [just issued 28th October, 1874] gives the following facts. In the course of last year 310,612 emigrants sailed from the ports of the United Kingdom, being a larger number than in any year since 1854. Of these, 123,343 were English, 83,692 Irish, 21,310 Scotch, 72,198 Foreigners, who had merely touched at British ports, and 10,929 whose nationality was not ascertained. The remittances of Irish Emigrants to their friends at home were as usual very large, the total sum being, according to the information within reach of the Commissioners, L724,040. This includes the remittances of both the United States and Canada. Of this sum L341,722 came in the shape of prepaid passages, more than sufficient, says the Report, to defray the cost of steerage passages at L6 6s. each for the 83,692 Irish who emigrated within the year. Thirty-first General Report of the Emigration Commissioners, p. 4.



CHAPTER XV.

The Soup-kitchen Act—The harvest of 1847—Out-door Relief Act—Great extension of out-door relief—Number relieved—Parliamentary papers—Perplexing—Misleading—Sums voted—Sums expended—Sums remitted—Total Treasury advances under various Acts—Total remissions—Sum actually given as a free gift to meet the Famine—Charitable Associations—Sums collected and disbursed by them—Two Queen's Letters—Amount raised by them—Assisting distressed Unions—Feeding and clothing school children—Feeling about the Irish Famine in America—Meetings throughout the Union—Subscriptions—Money—Food—Number of Ships sent to Ireland with Provisions—Freight of Provisions—Ships of War—The "Jamestown" and "Macedonian"—Various Theories about the Blight—The Religious Theory—Peculiar—Quotations—Rev. Hugh M'Neill—Charles Dickens—The Catholic Cantons of Switzerland—Belgium—France—The Rhenish Provinces—Proselytism—Various causes for Conversions assigned—The late Archbishop Whately's Opinions—His Convert—He rejects the idea that Converts were bought—Statement of the late Archdeacon O'Sullivan—Dr. Forbes on the Conversions in the West—Mr. M'Carthy Downing's Letter—The Subscription of L1,000—Baron Dowse—Conclusion.

The Temporary Relief Act, popularly known as the Soup-kitchen Act, was limited to the 1st of October, 1847. The Government determined that after its expiration relief should be given through the Poorlaw system only. In preparation for this arrangement, an Act (the 10th & 11th Vic. cap. 31,) was passed in June, sanctioning outdoor relief. The harvest of 1847 was a good one, but so utterly prostrate was every interest in the country, that the outdoor relief system soon expanded into alarming proportions. In February, 1848, the cost of outdoor relief was L72,039, and in March it rose to L81,339. The numbers and cost were then both at their maximum, and according to the best estimate which can be formed, the number of outdoor poor relieved was 703,762, and of indoor 140,536, making an aggregate of 844,298 persons, irrespective of more than 200,000 school children, who were, as stated above, fed and in part clothed by "the British Association." So that the total number receiving relief in March, 1848, exceeded a million of persons; being about one out of every seven of the population.

The parliamentary papers issued from time to time, detailing the sums granted on account of the Irish Famine, are, for the most part, very perplexing; because, being usually printed on the motion of some member of parliament, they only give the precise information called for, and only up to the period at which it was called for; so, not only are they perplexing, but they are often misleading, although correct enough in themselves. Then again, it sometimes happens, that the sum voted by parliament is not entirely expended on the object for which it was granted. To give an instance of this: there is a parliamentary paper before me, ordered on the 2nd of December, 1847, which says, the amount voted under the Temporary Relief Act was L2,200,000, of which sum there was expended L1,676,000. Sir Charles Trevelyan gives the sum expended as L1,724,631. The only way of accounting for this seeming discrepancy is, that Sir Charles's statement was published later than the blue book, and that an outlay was still going on under the above Act, after the blue book had been published, which brought the expenditure up to the sum stated by him.

Here, besides the difference as to the actual sum expended, we have a considerable difference between the sum voted and the sum expended. But there is yet another thing connected with the Famine advances, which is very likely to mislead. The usual course was, that the money issued from the Treasury to meet the Famine, was in part a free grant, and in part a charge upon the land. It is only simple justice to state clearly how much of this money was a free grant, and how much of it was levied off Ireland, as a tax. The proportion is given in the Acts of Parliament, but it happens that the proportion eventually paid was less than what was levied: so that the proportions as given in the Acts of Parliament have to be altered to the extent of the remissions made.

In the short statement I am about to give, I follow Sir Charles Trevelyan's figures; being Secretary to the Treasury, he must have known the sums actually advanced by the Treasury, and the sums returned to it in payment of the loans granted.

Amount finally charged under Amount advanced from the Treasury. the Consolidated Annuities Act.

L s. d. L s. d. Under 9th Vict., cap. 1, 476,000 0 0 238,000 0 0 Under 9th and 10th Vict., cap. 107,"The Labour-rate Act," 4,766,789 0 0 2,231,000 0 0 Under 10th Vict., cap. 7, "The Temporary Relief Act," 1,724,631 0 0 953,355 0 0 Loans for building Workhouses, 1,420,780 0 0 122,707 0 0 Loans to pay debts of distressed Unions, 300,000 0 0 300,000 0 0 Grants by Parliament at various times: 1845, 1846, 1847, 1848, and 1849, 844,521 0 0 .... ——————- ———————- Total, L9,532,721 0 0 4,845,062 0 0

During the years 1846, 1847, and 1848, the following sums were also expended by the Board of Works: For arterial drainage, 470,617 10 3 Works under the Labouchere letter, 199,870 9 2 For land improvement. 520,700 0 . ————————- Total, L10,723,908 19 5

In the above ten millions seven hundred thousand pounds, it may be fairly assumed, we have all the monies advanced by Government to mitigate the effects of the potato failure. Our next duty is to inquire how much of this sum was paid back by Ireland, and how much of it was a free gift from the Treasury.

The money advanced under the Labouchere letter for land improvement, and for arterial drainage cannot, of course, be regarded as a free gift towards staying the Famine; arterial drainage and land improvement go on still, through money advanced by Government. The works under the Labouchere letter were, no doubt, intended to give reproductive employment during the Famine, but the cost of them was a charge upon the land and not a free gift.

The money spent on arterial drainage and land improvement, under the Labouchere letter and various drainage Acts, during the years 1846, 1847 and 1848, was, as given above, L1,191,187 19s. 5d., which being deducted from L10,723,908 19s>. 5d. leaves the sum of L9,532,721, of which there was finally charged to this country L4,845,062. Deducting this from the L9,532,721 we have L4,687,659 as the amount of money given by Government as a free gift to Ireland to sustain the people through the Great Famine. To this, however, there is to be added a sum of about L70,000 paid for freights. The American people, when they had collected those generous contributions of theirs, and when they had resolved to send them in the form of food to Ireland, began to make arrangements for paying the freights of their vessels, but all trouble and anxiety on this head was removed by the action of the English Government, which undertook to pay the freights of all vessels carrying to Ireland, food purchased by charitable contributions. Those freights finally reached about L70,000. The addition of this sum brings the whole of the Government free gift towards the Irish Famine to L4,757,659.

The amount collected and disbursed by charitable Associations can be only approximated to. There is a list of those subscriptions, as far as they could be ascertained, given in the Report of the Society of Friends. They amount to L1,107,466 13s., but the compiler of the Report was of opinion that the sums so collected and distributed could not have fallen far short of a million and a-half.

No effective means were taken to ascertain the moneys sent to Ireland by emigrants until the year 1848; however, Mr. Jacob Harvey, a member of the Society of Friends, from inquiries made by him in New York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, computed the remittances from emigrants in 1847 at L200,000, but it is highly probable that the actual amount was far in excess of that; for we find in the next year, 1848, there came to Ireland through the banks and commercial houses alone, L460,180; which sum may also be regarded as a contribution towards the Irish Famine. I think we are justified in naming L300,000 for 1847, instead of L200,000, Mr. Harvey's estimate, these two sums make L760,180, which being added to the acknowledged amount of public subscriptions, we have a total of L1,867,646, 13s. as the amount voluntarily and charitably contributed to our Famine-stricken people. But if we take one million and a-half to represent the actual charitable subscriptions, as assumed by the Report of the Society of Friends, and add to it the money sent by emigrants in 1847 and 1848, we will have the enormous sum of L2,260,180.

The most important of all the Associations called into existence by the Famine was "The British Association for the Relief of extreme distress in Ireland and Scotland." There are about 5,550 distinct subscriptions printed in the Appendix to its report, but the number of individual subscriptions was far beyond this, for, many of the sums set down are the result of local subscriptions sent to the Association from various parts. This Association established about forty food depots in various districts. They were, of course, most numerous in the South and West—most numerous of all in Cork, the wild and difficult coast of which county was marked by a line of them, from Kinsale Head to Dingle Bay.

Noblemen and gentlemen of high position volunteered their services to the Association, and laboured earnestly among the starving people. Amongst them may be named the Count Strezelecki, Lord R. Clinton, Lord James Butler, and Mr. M.J. Higgins, so well known on the London press by his nom de plume of "Jacob Omnium."

Besides the sums contributed directly to the Association, the Government gave it the distribution of the proceeds of two Queen's letters, amounting in the aggregate to L200,738 15s. 2d.[303] In August, 1847, when the Association was about to enter upon what it calls the second relief period, it found itself in possession of a clear cash balance of L160,000. It had to consider how this sum could be most beneficially applied during the ensuing winter. The Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Trevelyan, in that month wrote to the chairman, recommending the Association to select, through the Poorlaw Commissioners, a certain number of Unions, in which there was reason to believe the ratepayers would not be able to meet their liabilities, and that the Association should appropriate, from time to time, such sums as the Poorlaw Commissioners might recommend, for the purpose of assisting to give outdoor relief in certain districts of such Unions. After much deliberation the Association accepted this advice, and asked for the names of the most distressed Unions. A list of twenty-two was supplied to it in September. Some others were added later on. The grants of the Association were issued in food, and the Assistant Poorlaw Commissioners aided in the distribution of it. Under this arrangement the advances made by the Association from October to July amounted to L150,000.

A peculiar feature of this relief system, adopted and carried into effect by the advice of Count Strezelecki, was the giving of clothing and daily rations to children attending school. This was done in twenty-seven of the poorest Unions, and with the best results. By the first of January, 1848, the system was in full operation in thirteen Unions, and 58,000 children were on the relief roll of the Association. The numbers went on increasing until, in March, there were upwards of 200,000 children attending schools of all denominations, in twenty-seven Western Unions, participating in this relief. The total sum expended on food for the children amounted to L80,854, in addition to which L12,000 was expended on clothing for them.

On the 1st of November, 1848, L12,000 was still to the credit of the Association. By a resolution, it was handed over to the Poorlaw Commissioners for Ireland; and so closed the labours of the British Relief Association, so vast in its operations, so well managed, so creditable to all engaged in it, and such a lasting testimony to the generous charity of the subscribers.

Such frequent reference has been made in these pages to the "Transactions" of the Relief Committee of the Society of Friends, during the Famine, and so much use has been made of the information contained in that carefully compiled book, that I will only here repeat the amount of the charitable offerings confided to them for distribution. It was:—L198,326 15s. 5d.

The General Central Relief Committee for all Ireland, which met in College Green, received in contributions L83,934 17s. 11d., but of this, L20,000 was given by the British Association. The Marquis of Abercorn, the most Rev. Dr. Murray, Archbishop of Dublin, the Lord Mayor, the Provost of Trinity College, Lord Charlemont, O'Connell, the Dean of St. Patrick's, and several other noblemen and gentlemen were members of this Committee. The president was the present Duke of Leinster, then Marquis of Kildare. It remained in existence just one year, from December, 1846, to December, 1847.

"The chief source," says the "Transactions" of the Society of Friends," whence the means at our disposal were derived, was the munificent bounty of the citizens of the United States. The supplies sent from America to Ireland were on a scale unparalleled in history."

When authentic intelligence regarding the Irish Famine reached America, a general feeling of sympathy was at once excited. Beginning with Philadelphia, in all the great cities and towns throughout the Union, meetings were almost immediately held to devise the best and speediest means of relieving the starving people of this country. "All through the States an intense interest, and a noble generosity were shown. The railroads carried, free of charge, all packages marked 'Ireland.' Public carriers undertook the gratuitous delivery of any package intended for the relief of the destitute Irish. Storage to any extent was offered on the same terms. Ships of war approached our shores, eagerly seeking not to destroy life but to preserve it, their guns being taken out in order to afford more room for stowage."[304]

The total contributions received from America by the Central Relief Committee of the Society of Friends, were,—Money, L15,976 18s. 2d.—Provisions, 9,911 tons, valued at L133,847 7s. 7d. Six hundred and forty-two packages of clothing were also received, the precise value of which could not be exactly ascertained. The provisions were carried in ninety-one vessels, the united freights of which amounted to L33,017 5s. 7d.[305]

The total number of ships which carried provisions, the result of charitable contributions, to Ireland and Scotland in 1847, is set down at one hundred and eighteen; but as only four of these went to Scotland, one hundred and fourteen of them must have come here. The total freightage paid to those ships by Government, was L41,725 8s. 5-1/2d; but as I find in another part of the Blue book, that between L60,000 and L70 000 was paid by Government for freights on the cargoes of provisions consigned to the Society of Friends and to the British Association, and which I have above assumed to be L70,000, we may take it for granted that something like twenty thousand tons of provisions were consigned to both Societies, the money value of which was about L280,000.

Two American ships of war, the "Jamestown" and "Macedonian," carried cargoes of provisions to Ireland, for which no freight was charged.

The "Jamestown," a sloop of war lent by the government for the voyage, was freighted by the people of Massachusetts with 8,000 barrels of flour. She sailed from Boston on the 28th of March, 1847, and arrived at the Cove of Cork on the 12th of April, after a most prosperous voyage. The people of Cove immediately held a public meeting, and adopted an address to her Commander, Captain Forbes, which they presented to him on board. The citizens of Cork addressed him a few days later; and the members of the Temperance Institute gave him a soiree, at which the Rev. Theobald Mathew assisted.

The "Macedonian," another ship of war, arrived later on, conveying about 550 tons of provisions, a portion of which was landed in Scotland. Both ships were manned by volunteers.

On the appearance of the potato blight scientific men earnestly applied themselves to discover its cause, in the hope that a remedy might be found for it. Various theories was the result. There was the Insect Theory; the Weather Theory; the Parasitical Theory; the Electrical Theory; the Fungus Theory; the Fog Theory. But whilst philosophers were maintaining their different views;—whilst Sir James Murray charged electricity with being the agent of destruction, and Mr. Cooper cast the blame upon the fogs; whilst Professors Lindley, Playfair, and Kane were busy with their tests, and retorts, and alembics; and whilst others again—microscope in hand—were in active pursuit of the Aphis vastator, or Thrips minutissima, a not inconsiderable class of persons, departing widely from all such speculations, discovered, beyond all doubt, that Popery was the true cause of the potato blight.

"As this predicted system" [popery], says a pamphleteer, "is an idolatrous one, any treaty with it must be opposed to God's will, and call down his wrath upon those nations who have commerce with it: more particularly upon nations wherein its hideous deformities are most signally manifested. Now, how have we seen in the first part of this work, that He has repeatedly punished? By famine and pestilence! Oh, beloved countrymen of every diversity of creed, in the heart-rending scenes around us do we witness punishment for national idolatry, systematic assassinations, performed occasionally with a refinement of cruelty worthy of incarnate devils."[306]

"This much is certain" writes a public journalist, "that our country is scourged with famine." Three causes are then given for the scourge; the second of which is, "Idolatry in the professing people of God, especially when sanctioned by the rulers of the country." After quoting examples from the Old Testament of the manner in which God punished idolatry, he proceeds: "It [idolatry] is just as true of the millions of Ireland as it was of the millions of Judah: 'They worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made.' And to complete the resemblance to apostate Israel, and fill the measure of our national guilt, the prevalent idolatry is countenanced and supported by our government. The Protestant members of the Houses of Lords and Commons have sworn before God and the country that Popery is idolatrous; our Queen, at her coronation, solemnly made a similar declaration,—yet, all have concurred in passing a Bill to endow a college for training priests to defend, and practise, and perpetuate, this corrupt and damnable worship in this realm. The ink wherewith the signification of royal assent was given to that iniquitous measure was hardly dry when the fatal rot commenced its work of destruction; and as the stroke was unheeded, and there was no repentant effort to retrace the daring step of the first iniquity, but rather a disposition to multiply transgression, we are now visited with a second and a severer stroke of judgment."[307]

The Rev. Hugh M'Neill preached a "Famine" sermon in St. Jude's, Liverpool, and published it under the title of "The Famine, a rod;" a rod that was meant to scourge England for tolerating Popery, of which he said: "That it is a sin against God's holy law to encourage the fables, deceits, false doctrines, and idolatrous worship of Romanism, no enlightened Christian—no consistent member of the church of England can deny."[308] "She [England] is fondly anticipating, as the result of generous concession, that she shall witness Roman Cooperation in general Liberty! Alas, for the Romans! With equal reason might she expect the Ethiopian to change his skin, or the leopard his spots. With the rich and responsible inheritance of an open Bible before her, and with free access to the illustrations of authentic history, this absurdity is England's sin, England's very great sin. There can be little doubt, that except repentance and amendment avert the stroke, this will prove England's plague, England's great plague, England's very great plague."[309]

It may be urged that the Rev. Hugh M'Neill is a man of extreme views. Be it so; but his extreme views seem rather to have advanced his interests than to have offended his superiors, for he is now Dean of Ripon.

Let us hear another and a very different stamp of man.

"I don't know whether I have mentioned before," writes Charles Dickens, "that in the valley of the Simplon, hard by here, where, (at the Bridge of St. Maurice over the Rhone), this Protestant canton ends and a Catholic canton begins, you might separate two perfectly distinct and different conditions of humanity, by drawing a line with your stick in the dust on the ground. On the Protestant side, neatness; cheerfulness; industry; education; continual aspiration, at least, after better things. On the Catholic side, dirt; disease; ignorance; squalor; and misery. I have so constantly observed the like of this, since I first came abroad, that I have a sad misgiving, that the religion of Ireland lies as deep at the root of all her sorrows even as English misgovernment and Tory villainy."[310]

Charles Dickens is looked upon not only as the strenuous denouncer of vice, but as the happy exponent of the higher and purer feelings of human nature also. For three-fourths of his life he wrote like a man who felt he had a mission to preach toleration, philanthropy—universal benevolence. He had travelled much. He had been over Belgium and France; he was through the Rhenish Provinces; in all which places the people are Catholics; they have received the highest praise from travellers and writers for their industry; their thrift; their cleanliness; Charles Dickens saw all this, but it never occurred to him to credit their religion with it. When the contrary occurs, and when fault is to be found, Popery, like a hack-block kept for such purposes, is made responsible, and receives a blow. He had, indeed, a sad misgiving that the religion of Ireland lay deep at the root of her sorrows. Surely this is enough to try one's patience. We have passed through and out-lived the terrible codes of Elizabeth and James and Anne and the two first Georges, under which, gallows-trees were erected on the hill side for our conversion or extinction; we have even survived the iron heels and ruthless sabres of Cromwell's sanctimonious troopers; and we can go back upon the history of those times calmly enough now. But this "sad misgiving" of Mr. Dickens; this patronizing condescension; this contemptuous pity, is more than provoking. It is probable he had not the time or inclination to read deeply into Irish history, but he must have had a general knowledge of it more than sufficient to inform him, that there were causes in superabundance to account for the poverty and degradation of our people, without going to their religion for them. Instead of doing so, he should have confessed with shame and humiliation, that his own countrymen, for a long series of years, did everything in their power to destroy the image of God in the native Irish, by driving them like beasts of chase into the mountains, and bogs, and fastnesses, and over the Shannon. Our people suffered these things and much more for conscience sake; inflicted, as they were, by Mr. Dickens's countrymen, in the name of religion; in the name of conscience; in advancing, as they pretended, the sacred cause of the right of private judgment. He makes Popery responsible for the results.

Those who held that Popery was the real cause of the potato-rot were influential, if not by their numbers, at least by their wealth; so they set about removing the fatal evil energetically. Large sums of money were collected, and a very active agency was established throughout the West of Ireland for this purpose; with, it would seem, very considerable success. But whilst those engaged in, the work, maintained, that the conversions were the result of instruction and enlightened investigation, others believed that most of the converts were like the poor woman mentioned by the late Dr. Whately, in a conversation with Mr. Senior.

In 1852, Mr. Nassau Wm. Senior was on a visit with the Archbishop, at his country house, near Stillorgan, five miles from Dublin. Mr. Senior asked him, to what cause the conversions made during the Famine were attributable. The Archbishop replied, that the causes must be numerous. Some, he said, believed, or professed to believe, that the conversions were purchased; this of course was the Catholic view. He then related the following anecdote on the subject:

"An old woman went to one of my clergy, and said, 'I'm come to surrender to your Reverence—and I want the leg of mutton and the blanket.' 'What mutton and blanket?' said the clergyman. I have scarcely enough of either for myself and my family, and certainly none to give. Who could have put such nonsense into your head?' 'Why, Sir,' she said, 'Father Sullivan told us, that the converts got each a leg of mutton and a blanket; and as I am famished, and starving with cold, I thought that God would forgive me for getting them.'"[311]

Dr. Whately was president of the "Society for protecting the Rights of Conscience," and he indignantly denied that any reward or indemnity had been held out, directly or indirectly, by that Society, to persons, to induce them to profess themselves converts; and he adds: "not only has no case been substantiated—no case has been even brought forward." This may be true of that particular Society, but to deny that neither money nor food were given, to induce persons to attend the Scripture classes and proselytizing schools, is to deny the very best proven facts.

In the Tralee Chronicle of the 19th of November, 1852, Archdeacon O'Sullivan, of Kenmare (lately deceased), published an abstract of a Report of one of those Missionary Societies which fell into his hands. The expenditure of a single Committee was L3557 1s. 6d. The salaries of clerical and lay agents are set down at L382 0s. 11d. What became of the remainder of the money?

But here is testimony that Dr. Whately himself would scarcely impugn:

Dr. Forbes, in his "Memorandums made in Ireland" in 1852, visited Connaught, and examined many of the proselytizing schools. He speaks without any doubt at all of the children who attended those schools receiving food and clothing. It did not seem to be denied on any side. Here is an extract: "I visited two of the Protestant Mission Schools at Clifden, one in the town, and the other about a mile and a-half beyond the town, on the road leading to the mouth of the bay. In the former, at the time of my visit, there were about 120 boys and 100 girls on the books, the average attendance being about 80. Out of the 80 girls there were no less than fifty-six orphans, all of whom are fed and clothed out of the school funds, and a large proportion provided with lodgings also. Only two of these girls were children of Protestant parents; and in the boy's school there was only one born of parents originally Protestant.... At the probationary girls' school there were 76 on the books, at the time of my visit, their ages varying from eight to eighteen years. They are all Catholics, or children of Catholic parents; and out of the number no fewer than 40 were orphans. All the children at this school receive daily rations of Indian meal; 45 of them one pound, and the remainder half that quantity. Whether this is exclusive of the stirabout breakfast I saw preparing for them in the school, I forgot to ask. All the children of these schools read the Scriptures and go to the Protestant Church, Catholic and Protestant alike."[312]

But I turn with pleasure from this uninviting and uncongenial subject, to one more elevating,—to the all but unlimited private charity which was called forth by the Irish Famine. I have already endeavoured to give some idea of it, but of course an imperfect one. The feelings evoked, and the almost unasked alms bestowed with a noble Christian generosity, during that awful time, can be only fully known to Almighty God; the Great Rewarder. The Merciful Rewarder has recorded them, and that is enough, at least for the givers. However, there were some amongst them who should not be passed over in silence. Baring, Brothers & Co.; Rothschild & Co.; Smith, Payne & Smith; Overend, Gurney & Co.; Truman, Hanbury & Co.; The Duke of Devonshire; Jones, Lloyd & Co.; an English friend (in two donations); and an Irish landlord (for Skibbereen) subscribed L1000 each.

Irish landlords did not contribute very munificently to the Famine-fund; but here is L1000 from one, and for a special locality. Who was the retiring but generous donor? The following extract of a letter will answer the question; and throw light upon another remarkable offering sent every month to Skibbereen for more than a year.

"The first case of death clearly established as arising from starvation," writes Mr. M'Carthy Downing, "occurred at South Reen, five miles from the town of Skibbereen. The case having been reported to me, as a member of the Relief Committee, I procured the attendance of Dr. Dore, and proceeded to the house where the body lay; the scene which presented itself will never be forgotten by me.

"The body was resting on a basket which had been turned up, the head on an old chair, the legs on the ground. All was wretchedness around. The wife, emaciated, was unable to move; and four children, more like spectres than living beings, were lying near the fire-place, in which apparently there had not been fire for some time. The doctor opened the stomach, and repugnant as it was to my feelings, I, at his solicitation, viewed its contents, which consisted solely of a few pieces of raw cabbage undigested.

"Having visited several other houses on the same townland, and finding the condition of the inmates therein little better than that of the wretched family whom I had just left, I summoned the Committee, and had a quantity of provisions sent there for distribution by one of the relieving officers; and then published in the Cork and Dublin papers a statement of what I had witnessed.

"Many subscriptions were sent to the Committee in consequence, and I received from an anonymous correspondent a monthly sum varying from L6 to L8, for a period of more than twelve months.

"One subscription of L1000 came from another anonymous donor, and for years the Committee knew not who those generous and really charitable parties were; but I had always a suspicion that the giver of the L1000 was Lord Dufferin. The grounds for my supposition were, that during the height of the sufferings of the people, I heard that two noblemen had been in the neighbourhood, visiting some of the localities. One was Lord Dufferin, then a very young man, who alluded subsequently in feeling terms to the wretchedness and suffering which he had witnessed; the other, I heard, was Lord John Manners.

"In some years after, I met at the house of Mr. Joshua Clarke, Q.C., in Dublin, Mr. Dowse, then a rising barrister, now a Baron of the Court of Exchequer, who addressed me, saying, 'We are old acquaintances;' to which I replied that I thought he was mistaken, as I had never the pleasure of meeting him before. He said 'That is quite true, but do you remember having received monthly remittances during the severe pressure of the Famine in Skibbereen?' I answered in the affirmative; and thereupon he said, 'I was your correspondent, I remitted the moneys to you, they were the offerings of a number of the students of Trinity College.'

"I need scarcely say that the incident created in me a feeling of esteem and regard for Mr. Dowse, which has continued to the present moment.

"During the passing of the Land Bill through the House of Commons, in the year 1870, I proposed several amendments, in consequence of which I received a letter from Lord Dufferin, asking for an interview, which subsequently took place at his house, and lasted more than three hours. When about to leave, I said that I had a question to put to his Lordship, which I hoped he would not refuse to answer; and having received his assent, I said,—Lord Dufferin, are you the anonymous donor of a subscription of L1000 to the Relief Committee at Skibbereen twenty-three years ago? And with a smile, he simply replied 'I am.'

"I left with feelings of high admiration for the man."[313]

To conclude. Every reader, will, doubtless, form his own views upon the facts given in this volume; upon the conduct of the people; the action of the landlords; the measures of the Government; those views may be widely different; but of the bright and copious fountains of living charity, which gushed forth over the Christian world, during the Great Irish Famine, history has but one record to make,—posterity can hold but one opinion.

FOOTNOTES:

[303] The first Queen's letter produced L170,571 0s 10d.; the second only L30,167 14s. 4d.

[304] Transactions of Society of Friends during the Famine in Ireland p. 49.

[305] Ibid. Appendix vii, p. 334

[306] The connection between Famine and Pestilence, and the Great Apostacy. By Nagnatus, p. 49. P.D. Hardy, Dublin, 1847. Halliday Pamphlets, Vol. 1990.

[307] The Achill Missionary Herald for August, 1846, p. 88.

[308] The Famine, a rod. By the Rev. Hugh M'Neill, p. 23.

[309] The Famine, a rod, pp. 25, 26. The capitals and italics are Mr. M'Neill's.

[310] Letter quoted in "Forster's Life of Dickens," written in the Autumn of 1846. Vol. II. p. 233.

[311] "Journals, Conversations, and Essays relating to Ireland." by Nassau William Senior. Vol. II., Second Edition, p. 60.

[312] "Memorandums made in Ireland in the Autumn of 1852." By John Forbes, M.D., F.R.S., Hon. D.C.L. Oxon., Physician to Her Majesty's Household. Vol. I. pp. 246 and 247. Dr. Forbes was afterwards knighted.

[313] Letter of M'Carthy Downing, Esq., M.P., to the Author, dated Prospect House, Co. Cork, August 31st, 1874.



(NOTE A.)—ABSENTEEISM: MR. M'CULLOGH's DEFENCE OF IT EXAMINED.

The question of Irish Absenteeism has, for a long time, been discussed by politicians and political economists; some maintaining it to be a great evil; some admitting its injurious effects, but in a modified way only; whilst others, with Mr. J.R. M'Culloch, maintain that, by the principles of economic science, Absenteeism is no evil at all.

Apart altogether from the views of political economists, there are certain evils which result from Absenteeism. 1. There is that estrangement between landlord and tenant, which must naturally exist in cases where the tenant seldom or never sees his landlord; has no intercourse with him; is unacquainted with the sound of his voice, from which no word of kindly encouragement ever reaches him; never hears of him, except when the agent demands, in his name, the rent, which is to be sent to England, or to whatever foreign country he may reside in. Even though the argument were true, that his living out of Ireland inflicts no real pecuniary loss upon Ireland, the impression on the tenant's mind is different, and helps to increase the estrangement between him and his landlord, which so generally exists, and which all must lament as an evil. 2. It is an old and a commonly accepted adage, that affairs thrive under the master's eye, and that those things which he neither sees nor takes an interest in exhibit the signs of neglect. As a resident landlord rides over his property, improvements will frequently suggest themselves to his mind; some of them often easily and inexpensively done, although important from their usefulness. He is sure, at any rate, to know the condition of his estate, and he can, with a just discernment, encourage the industrious, help the weak, urge forward the slow, and have a friendly word for all, whether he approves, or is obliged to find fault. The value of this mode of dealing with the people cannot be over estimated, especially in Ireland, where a kind word from a superior goes a great way.[314] An agent manages the property of an absentee. There are many such agents who are just and considerate, but the traditional character of an Irish land agent, resulting from long experience, is, that he is a haughty oppressive man, who has other interests to serve besides those of his employer; and who makes his employer's interests subservient to his own. Whether he thinks it a duty he owes his master, or that he believes it gives himself importance, an Irish land agent is frequently in the habit of acting in a proud, browbeating manner towards the tenants under him. I have seen a most respectable body of tenants, with their rent in their hands, stand with cowed and timid looks in the agent's office; they kept at as great a distance from him as space would allow; they were afraid to tender the rent, and yet they feared to hang back too long, as either course might bring down the ire of the great man upon them. His looks, his gestures, the few words he condescended to utter—even his manner of counting bank notes, which he thumped and turned over with a sort of insolent contempt,—all went to prove that those fears were not ill-founded. The scene forcibly reminded me of a group of children in the Zoological gardens, before the cage of one of the fiercer animals; they view him with awe, and, on account of his size and spots, with a certain admiration, but they are afraid of their lives to approach him. It is usual for a resident landlord to have an agent too, but he is subject to the personal observation, and under the immediate control of the landlord, who can be easily appealed to, if a misunderstanding should arise between him and any tenant. It is always a great satisfaction to the weaker party to have an opportunity of going, as they say, to the "fountain-head." It is bringing one's case before a higher tribunal when one feels he has not got justice in the court below. 3. Whether it is or is not the fact, that the landlord by living at home and spending his fortune amongst his people adds to the aggregate wealth of the nation, it is certain that his doing so is a partial and immediate good to the locality in which he resides. Often does the Irish peasant point to the decayed village, and the crumbling mansion, as evidences that the owner of the soil is an Absentee. 4. There is a special reason given by at least one English writer, why Irish landlords ought to be resident, and thus endeavour to gain the confidence of their tenants; and that is, because nine-tenths of the Irish estates have been confiscated from the native owners, and are held by men who differ from their tenants in country and religion; and their non-residence, and consequent want of sympathy with the people, perpetuates in the minds of those people the bitter traditions of rapine and conquest; so that, instead of feeling they are the tenants of kind, considerate landlords, they are apt to regard themselves, in some sort, as the despised slaves of conquerors, who, if they do not still look upon them as "Irish enemies," do not certainly entertain for them the feelings which ought to find a place in the breasts of landlords who look upon their tenants as something more than mere rent producers.