“Yes, and so there was on your ship, but a heartless captain and a greedy mate stood between the food and water and the passengers. There is abundance of everything within sight of here, yet our countrymen are perishing by the score, because the government of Canada is deaf to their cries.”
“What interest can the Canadian government have in acting so?”
“No interest. It is more heedlessness than intent. The politicians are too absorbed in their paltry strifes to give heed to a few thousand Irish emigrants dying at their door.”
“It sounds incredible.”
“That is because you do not know politics and politicians here. I tell you, Gerald, I have been in Canada now three years, and (always barring the tools of the Irish landlords) if there be a more despicable creature than the office-hunting Canadian politician, I have yet to see him.”
“If I must act, I should go first to Quebec to see after my people. They were promised ten shillings a head, to be paid by Lord Palmerston’s agent at Quebec, and a deed from the Canadian government for a hundred acres a family.”
“Faugh! Not a shilling, not an acre did they get. I saw them. Lord Palmerston has no agent in Quebec, the government will give no free grant of land. Mere lies told the poor crathurs to get them to leave Ireland.”
“Well, then, I could at least make an example of the captain of our ship.”
“Not a bit of it; you are deceiving yourself. The prosecution would have to be taken by the emigration agent, and he would not, if he could help it. Then, where are your witnesses? You would be bled of your last dollar by the lawyers and do nothing. No, Gerald, there is no use of thinking of leaving here. Providence has guided you to Grosse isle and here is your work. Come, man, get up and do it.”