The Freeman's Journal of the 24th of November, in commenting on the way in which its Tory contemporary dealt with Dean Hoare's letter, says: "The Packet, in its last issue, has returned to its appointed task of denying that the failure of the potato crop is so extensive as to demand extraordinary measures on the part of the Government." Although, at the time, this could be nothing more than a bold guess, it is highly probable that the writer of it hit the mark, for in his memoirs, published by his literary executors, Earl Stanhope and Lord Cardwell, we find the Premier, in the middle of October giving this caution to the Lord Lieutenant: "I need not recommend to you the utmost reserve as to the future, I mean as to the possibility of Government interference."[67]
A few days after the Packet had published the above sentiment, the Evening Mail said, "there was a sufficiency—an abundance of sound potatoes in the country for the wants of the people." And it goes on to stimulate farmers to sell their corn, by threats of being forestalled by Dutch and Hanoverian merchants. In the beginning of December, a Tory provincial print, not probably so high as its metropolitan brethren in the confidence of its party, writes: "It may be fairly presumed the losses have been enormous.... We repeat it, and we care not whom it displeases, that there are not now half as many sound potatoes in the country as there were last December." The Editor seemed to feel he was doing a perilous thing in stating a fact which he knew would be displeasing to many of his readers.
FOOTNOTES:
[57] Morning Post, 11th September.
[58] Ipswich Gazette, 9th September.
[59] Cambridge Chronicle for September.
[60] But the disease was not so rapid as this in all cases.
[61] Freeman's Journal, Nov. 4.
[62] The letter is dated Cork, 22nd Nov., 1845
[63] All the italics in the above quotations are Mr. Foster's own.