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.”