“I am warranted in saying,” he concludes, “that by the 10th of May there will not be a single potato for twenty miles around Clonmel.”

[98] There were twenty principal Government Food Depots established in various parts of Ireland in 1846, at which the following quantities were issued:—­

Tons.   cwts.   qrs.   lbs. 
Indian Corn            30     00     00     00
Indian Corn Meal   11,593     11     00     19
Oat Meal              528     00      3     24
Biscuit                 6      3     00      7
------     --     --     --
Total              12,157     15      0     22

R.J.  ROUTH, Commissary General.

—­Famine Reports.  Commissariat Series.  Vol. 1, p. 2.

The number of Relief Committees in this, the first year of famine, was 600.  In 1847, they numbered nearly 2,000.

[99] “On Monday at five o’clock, the public notification of the resignation of the Ministry was made by Sir Robert Peel to a crowded house, and in a remarkable speech....  It included an unparliamentary eulogium on Mr. Cobden, whom it mentioned, to the surprise of the House, by name, and it terminated with a panegyric of himself, elaborate, but rather clumsily expressed.”—­Lord George Bentinck, a Political Biography, by Benjamin D’Israeli.

“On the conclusion of this speech cheers burst forth on all sides ...  The House adjourned to the 3rd of July.  Sir Robert Peel went out resting on the arm of his friend, Sir George Clerk, the member for Stamford.  A great crowd thronged the approaches, on seeing him all took off their hats, opened their ranks to let him pass, and accompanied him in silence to the door of his house.”—­Memoirs of Sir Robert Peel, by M. Guizot

[100] See Baines’ History of the Cotton Manufacture.

[101] Benjamin D’Israeli.

CHAPTER V.

LORD JOHN RUSSELL Prime Minister—­He confers important offices on some Irish Catholics—­His address to the electors of London—­Its vagueness—­Addresses of some of the other new Ministers—­The Irish difficulty greater than ever—­Young and Old Ireland—­The Times on O’Connell and English rule in Ireland—­Overtures of the Whig Government—­O’Connell listens to them—­The eleven measures—­Views of the advanced Repealers—­Lord Miltown’s letter to O’Connell—­Dissensions in the Repeal Association—­The “Peace Resolutions”—­O’Connell’s letters—­He censures the Nation newspaper—­Debate in the Repeal Association—­Thomas Francis Meagher’s “Sword Speech”—­The Young Ireland party leave Conciliation Hall in a body—­Description of the scene (note)—­Reflections—­Sir Robert Peel’s Speech after his resignation—­Lord John Russell’s speech at Glasgow—­His speech on the Irish Coercion Bill—­His speech after becoming Prime Minister—­The Potato Blight re-appears—­Accounts from the Provinces—­Father Mathew’s letter—­Value of the Potato Crop of 1846—­Various remedies,