[56]
Thus was the cultivation of the potato extended in various ways, until
it had become the principal food of nineteen-twentieths of the
population long before the Famine of '47.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Raleigh earned this property by some terrible services. He was an
officer in the expedition of the Lord Deputy Gray, when he attacked the
Italian camp on _Dun-an-oir_, at Smerwick harbour in Kerry. After some
time the Italians yielded, but on what precise terms it is now
impossible to say, the accounts of the transaction are so various and
conflicting. Indeed, O'Daly says the English were the first to send a
flag of truce. Anyhow, the Italian garrison, which had come to aid the
Irish, fell into the power of the English, and here is Dr. Leland's
account of what followed:--"Wingfield was commissioned to disarm them,
and when this service was performed an English company was sent into the
fort. The Irish rebels found they were reserved for execution by martial
law. The Italian general and some of the officers were made prisoners of
war, but the garrison was butchered in cold blood; _nor is it without
pain that we find a service so horrid and detestable committed to Sir
Walter Raleigh_.
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