The people assembled in considerable numbers in parts of the South calling for food or employment. A man died of starvation on the public works in Limerick. At a meeting in Newry for the purpose of taking measures against the scarcity, and whilst some were denying its existence in that locality, the Right Rev. Dr. Blake, the Catholic bishop, said, that since he had entered the meeting, a letter had been handed to him stating that a person had just died of starvation in High Street. In April and May potatoes had risen to a famine price in the provinces. They were quoted in Galway and Tuam at 6d. a stone, but in reality, as the local journals remarked, the price was double that, as not more than one-half of those bought could be used for food.
The humane and philanthropic, who went about endeavouring to save the lives of the people, often asked, as they travelled through the country, "Are the landlords making any efforts? "The common answer was, with very rare exceptions, "None whatever." The correspondent of a Dublin newspaper,[96] writing from Cashel, quotes a notice he had copied in Cahir, which was posted all about the town.
It ran thus:—
"The tenantry on the Earl of Glengall's estate, residing in the manor of Cahir, are requested to pay into my office on the 12th of May, all rent and arrears of rent due up to the 25th of March, otherwise the most summary steps will be taken to recover same.
"JOHN CHAYTOR,
"1st April, 1846."
The same correspondent, in a letter from Templemore, informs his readers that a certain noble proprietor was just after paying a visit to his estate in that locality, and he had no sooner taken his departure, than notices were served on his tenantry to pay the November rent. The tenants asked time, saying they had only a few black potatoes left. The bailiff's reply was characteristic, and no doubt truthful:—"What the d—— do we care about you or your black potatoes?—it was not us that made them black—you will get two days to pay the rent, and if you don't you know the consequence."[97]
When the relief depots, the local committees, and the public works got into gear, much was done during the summer months to alleviate the terrible distress; but as soon as the Government advances and subscriptions to the committees began to be exhausted, the cry for food was again heard from many parts of the country.[98]
At this time there were one hundred and twenty-three workhouses open, and great as the people's aversion was to them the inmates went on steadily increasing. In the month of December, 1845, the total number in those workhouses was 41,118; in March, 1846, 50,717; and on the 13th of June, the highest point attained during the year was arrived at, there being, on that day, 51,302 persons receiving in-door relief. On the 29th of August, owing, of course, to the harvest having come in, the number had fallen to 43,655. In ordinary years, when there was neither blight, nor fear of blight, it was deemed good husbandry to procure foreign seed potatoes, and if this could not be done, farmers at least tried to procure "strange" seed, grown at a distance from their own farms. A larger and in every way a better crop was the usual result of this practice. After the potato blight of 1845, the procuring of sound, and if possible of foreign seed, for planting in Ireland was of the utmost importance, and indeed Sir Robert Peel had included, in his new tariff, the admission of foreign potatoes free, in the hope of securing good seed for the planting of 1846; but as the Corn and Customs' Bill did not become law until the end of June, this provision could be of no avail for that year.
The Peel Government was defeated on the Irish Coercion Act on the 25th of June, and the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel announced their resignation on the 29th in the Upper and Lower Houses respectively. The Duke contented himself with the simple announcement; but Sir Robert made a speech, reviewing and defending his conduct whilst minister. Of Ireland he said little, except that he had the full intention of serving her in every way, by dealing with the land and other questions, telling us patronizingly, that she was entitled to a "complete equality of municipal and political rights." But this was only the old stereotyped liberality of a beaten minister—beaten on an Irish Coercion Act—speaking by anticipation from the Opposition benches, and endeavouring to plant thorns in the path of his successful rival. The sentiment, such as it was, was received with much cheers, and some murmurs. Strange enough the murmurs are not to be found in Hansard, although reported in the newspapers of the day.
The Liberal party being for a long time the free trade party, and Sir Robert Peel and his friends being only neophytes, he knew, even though they did carry free trade, that they could not claim the merit of doing so, only having taken it up, when it had attained such a position before the country as to make it all but irresistible. Neither did he wish the incoming Russell-Whig party to get credit for it; he therefore turned aside, in a rather unusual manner, and gave the merit of it to Mr. Cobden. "I said before, and I said truly," Sir Robert begins his eulogy on that distinguished man, "that in proposing our measures of commercial policy, I had no wish to rob others of the credit justly due to them. I must say with reference to honorable gentlemen opposite, as I say with reference to ourselves, that neither of us is the party which is justly entitled to the credit of them. There has been a combination of parties generally opposed to each other, and that combination and the influence of Government, have led to their success. But the name which ought to be associated with the success of those measures is not the name of the noble lord, the organ of the party of which he is the leader, nor is it mine. The name which ought to be, and will be associated with the success of those measures, is the name of one who, acting, I believe, from pure and disinterested motives, has with untiring energy, made appeals to our reason, and has enforced those appeals with an eloquence the more to be admired, because it was unaffected and unadorned: it is the name of Richard Cobden." Sir Robert's peroration to this speech was an elaborate one, and consisted in praises of himself. Here are his closing words: "I shall leave a name execrated by every monopolist, who from less honorable motives clamours for protection, because it conduces to his own individual benefit; but it may be, that I shall leave a name sometimes remembered with expressions of good will, in the abodes of those whose lot is to labour, and to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow, when they shall recruit their exhausted strength with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no longer leavened with a sense of injustice."[99]
Although Sir Robert Peel lived four years after this defeat, he never returned to the treasury benches. In opposition, however, he was almost as powerful as when minister; giving to Lord John Russell's Government an independent and most valuable support, without which it could not have continued to exist. On the 28th of June, 1850, he spoke in the House on the celebrated Don Pacifico's claims against the Greek Government, and refused his support to Mr. Roebuck's motion approving of Lord Palmerston's foreign policy. He rode out next day—SS. Peter and Paul's day—his horse shied and became restive, whilst he was saluting a lady on Constitution Hill; he was thrown heavily; on being taken up, partly insensible, he was conveyed to his house, where, having suffered much pain, he died three days afterwards.