on the Government, in order to mitigate the calamitous state of the country. 1.  The first measure he proposed was the immediate stoppage of distillation and brewing, 2.  Next, that the export of provisions of every kind to foreign countries should be immediately prohibited, and our own ports open to receive provisions from all countries.  From this prohibition he, strangely enough, excepted England, although he had just shown that it was England which was carrying away our provisions with the most alarming rapidity.  He probably made this exception to induce the Government to lend a more willing ear to his other propositions.  He adduced the example of Belgium, Holland, and even of Russia and Turkey, in support of this view; all these countries having closed their ports against the exportation of provisions, under analagous circumstances. 3.  But all this, he said, was not enough; the Government must be called on to assist the country in buying provisions—­called on, not in a spirit of begging or alms-seeking—­but called on to supply from the resources of Ireland itself money for this purpose.  Let our own money be applied to it.  The proceeds of the Woods and Forests in this country are, he said, L74,000 a year; money, which instead of being applied to Irish purposes, had gone to improve Windsor and Trafalgar Square—­two millions of Irish money having been already expended in this manner.  This is no time to be bungling at trivial remedies; let a loan of a million and a half be raised on this L74,000 a year, which, at four per cent., would leave a portion of it for a sinking fund; let absentees be taxed fifty per cent., and every resident ten per cent.  By these means abundant funds would be found to keep the people alive.  Let there be got up in each county machinery for carrying out the relief:  let the projected railways be commenced, and let the people be put to work from one end of the country to the other, and let them be paid in food.  He concluded, amidst the applause of the gentlemen present, by moving, that a deputation do wait on His Excellency to lay this plan before him, and to explain to him the pressing necessity which existed for its adoption.

To the Tory Government of the day, especially to a politician like Lord Heytesbury, the scheme, in all likelihood, appeared very extravagant, and yet at this distance of time, and with the history of that terrible period before us, it was, on the whole, sound, statesmanlike, and practical.

In accordance with O’Connell’s suggestion, a deputation was appointed to wait on the Lord Lieutenant.  He received them at the Phoenix Park, on Wednesday, the 3rd of November.  They were coldly received.  This may be in part accounted for by the fact, that the two or three previous years were remarkable for the great Repeal agitation; O’Connell himself having baptized the year 1843, the Repeal year.  Then the State trials came, in which the Repeal leaders fought the Government, inch by inch, putting it to