given away by Government; none was to be sold under price, it being assumed that the people could earn enough to support themselves.  Government feared that, if they began to undersell the merchants and dealers, those classes would give up business, which, in the Government’s opinion, would be a very great evil.  Mealmongers and food dealers are generally very shrewd men; and it was believed, with much reason, that they succeeded in raising prices when it suited them, and in many cases in realizing even large fortunes, by working on the apprehensions of the Government in respect to this very matter.[159]

The Commissariat Relief Department was organized at the close of 1845, for the purpose of managing the distribution of Indian meal, imported at that time by Sir Robert Peel, to provide against the anticipated scarcity of the spring and summer of 1846.  Its head-quarters were in Dublin Castle, and its chief was a Scotch gentleman, Sir Randolph Routh—­a name which, like some others, must occur pretty frequently in these pages.  The Commissariat people, as is usual in such cases, began by instituting extensive inquiries.  They ordered their subordinates to furnish reports of the state of the potato crop throughout the country.

The Assistant Commissaries-General and others employed in this service, in due time, made their reports, which in the main agreed with the statements in the public journals, and with the opinion prevalent everywhere among the people; thus differing with those officers of the Board of Works who held that there were more sound potatoes in Ireland than was generally admitted.  So early as the 11th of August, Mr. White, writing from Galway to Assistant Commissary-General Wood, makes a most unfavourable report of the state of the crop in Clare; the Blight, he says, was general and most rapid in its effects, a large quantity of the potatoes being already diseased, and a portion perfectly rotten.  “I am, therefore, clearly of opinion,” he continues, “that the scarcity of the potato last year will be nothing compared with this, and that, too, several months earlier."[160] Commissary-General Hewetson sent specimens of diseased potatoes to the Secretary of the Treasury in the middle of August, with this information:  “The crop seems to have been struck almost everywhere by one sweeping blast, in one and the same night.  I mentioned a hope that the tubers might yet rally, many of the stalks having thrown out fresh vegetation; I fear it is but a futile hope."[161] Just about the same time, Assistant Commissary-General Dobree reports to the same quarter:  “It is superfluous to make any further report on the potato crop, for I believe the failure is general and complete throughout the country, though the disease has made more rapid progress in some places than in others.  In a circuit of two hundred miles, I have not seen one single field free from it; and although it is very speculative to attempt a calculation on what is not yet absolutely realized, my belief is that scarcely any of the late potatoes will be fit for human food."[162]