convinced by the necessity to obey the proclamation, and to Parliament to indemnify the issuers.  The proclamations to which Lord Heytesbury refers may be useful as precedents, but they leave the matter where they found it in point of law; they give no sort of authority.  I have a strong impression that we shall do more harm than good by controlling the free action of the people in respect to the legal export of these commodities, or the legal use of them."[79]

The above passage naturally drew from Sir James Graham the following remarks:  “I enclose another letter from the Lord Lieutenant, giving a worse account of the potato crop as the digging advances, but stating that we are as yet unacquainted with the full extent of the mischief. I think that Lord Heytesbury is aware that the issue of proclamations is the exercise of a power beyond the law, which requires subsequent indemnity, and has not the force of law. The precedents which he cites illustrate this known truth; yet proclamations remitting duties, backed by an order of the Custom-house not to levy, are very effective measures, though the responsibility which attaches to their adoption is most onerous, especially when Parliament may be readily called together."[80]

Some days later the Lord Lieutenant announced to the Premier that Professors Lindley and Playfair had arrived in Dublin, and also gave a set of queries which he had placed in their hands—­all very useful, but one of special importance—­“What means can be adopted for securing seed potatoes for next year?” This communication contained the following passage:—­“There is a great cry for the prohibition of exportation, particularly of oats.  With regard to potatoes, it seems to be pretty generally admitted that to prohibit the exportation of so perishable a produce would be a very doubtful advantage.  Towards the end of next week we shall know, I presume, the result of the deliberations of her Majesty’s Government; and as by that time the digging will be sufficiently advanced to enable us to guess at the probable result of the harvest, I shall then intimate to the several Lieutenants the propriety of calling county meetings, unless I should hear from you that you disapprove of such proceedings.  The danger of such meetings is in the remedies they may suggest, and the various subjects they may embrace in their discussions, wholly foreign to the question before them."[81] Three days later (Oct. 27) he again writes to the Premier:  “Everything is rising rapidly in price, and the people begin to show symptoms of discontent which may ripen into something worse.  Should I be authorized in issuing a proclamation prohibiting distillation from grain?  This is demanded on all sides.”  There is no reply to this letter given by Sir Robert Peel in his Memoirs, and yet he must have written one.  He certainly wrote to the Lord Lieutenant between the 3rd and the 8th of November; for the Mansion House deputation was received