From the end of August to the beginning of October several communications passed between the Premier and Sir James Graham, relative to the failure of the potato.  During that period the accounts were very varied, partly from the disease not having made very much progress, and partly because there was not as yet sufficient time to examine the crop with care; but a perusal of the correspondence which reached the Government, so far as it is given in Sir Robert Peel’s Memoirs, and his speeches in Parliament, prove that the accounts in newspapers, and above all in letters received and published by the Mansion House Committee, did not overstate the failure, but rather the reverse—­this fact is more especially evident from the joint letter of Professors Lindley and Playfair already quoted.

Of all the ministers, Sir James Graham seems to have had the greatest share of the Premier’s confidence; Sir Robert thus writes to him from Whitehall on the 13th of October:—­“The accounts of the state of the potato crop in Ireland are becoming very alarming.  I enclose letters which have very recently reached me.  Lord Heytesbury says that the reports which reach the Irish Government are very unsatisfactory.  I presume that if the worst should happen which is predicted, the pressure would not be immediate.  There is such a tendency to exaggeration and inaccuracy in Irish reports, that delay in acting upon them is always desirable; but I foresee the necessity that may be imposed upon us at an early period of considering whether there is not that well grounded apprehension of actual scarcity that justifies and compels the adoption of every means of relief which the exercise of the prerogative or legislation might afford. I have no confidence in such remedies as the prohibition of exports or the stoppage of distilleries.  The removal of the impediments to import is the only effectual remedy.”

Sir James Graham wrote to the Premier from Netherby on the same day enclosing a communication from the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, which is not given in the Peel Memoirs, but which Sir James says, “conveys information of the most serious kind, which requires immediate attention.”  He goes on to give it as his opinion that the time had come when speculation was reduced to certainty, as the potatoes were being taken out of the ground; it was therefore the duty of the Government to apply their attention without delay to measures for the mitigation of this national calamity.  He refers to Belgium and Holland, and says it is desirable to know, without loss of time, what has been done by our Continental neighbours in similar circumstances.  Indian corn might, of course, he says, be obtained on cheap terms, “if the people would eat it,” but unfortunately it is an acquired taste.  He thinks the summoning of Parliament in November a better course than the opening of the ports by an Order in Council.[74] On receipt of the above Sir Robert again wrote to the Home Secretary:  “My letter on the awful question of the potato crop will have crossed yours to me.  Interference with the due course of the law respecting the supply of food is so momentous and so lasting in its consequences, that we must not act without the most accurate information.  I fear the worst.  I have written to the Duke also.”