MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.
A.D. 1822
On the meeting of parliament in January, one of the first subjects taken into consideration was the state of Ireland. For some years that country had been comparatively peaceable, but distress and outrage were again walking hand in hand in every part. To repress the spirit of lawless outrage, the Marquess of Londonderry—Lord Castlereagh, who had succeeded to that title at his father’s death—introduced and carried two bills for arming the administration with additional powers, the insurrection act, and the suspension of the habeas corpus. Several members wished the state of Ireland to be thoroughly investigated; but this did not accord with the views of ministers. At length a famine, from the failure of the potatoe-crop in 1821, spread over the country, and disease waited in its train. A fever, of the typhus kind, swept off its thousands, while starvation carried off its thousands more. Government, on discovering this, placed £500,000 at the disposal of Lord Wellesley, the lord-lieutenant, to be dispensed in charitable relief, or in employing the poor on works of public utility, and private charity afforded even more effectual aid; but still the people of Ireland could not be wholly rescued from the calamity which had overtaken them. Many were snatched from the jaws of death by this timely relief, but many more perished.