" They, therefore prayed that the ports of the kingdom might
be opened for the free importation of food. While the Corporation of
London did not, we may presume, exclude the peculiar distress of Ireland
from their sympathies, their real object in going to Windsor was to make
an anti-Corn Law demonstration. So much was this the case, that the
deputation consisted of the enormous number of two hundred gentlemen.
The Queen's reply to them was hopeful. She said she would "gladly
sanction any measure which the legislature might suggest as conducive to
the alleviation of this temporary distress, and to the permanent welfare
of all classes of her people."
It is a noticeable fact, and one to be deplored, that even the potato
blight was made a party question in Ireland. If we except the Protestant
and dissenting clergy, and a few philanthropic laymen, the upper
classes, especially the Conservatives, remained aloof from the public
meetings held to call attention to it, and its threatened consequences.
The Mansion House Committee, which did so much good, was composed almost
exclusively of Catholics and Liberals; and the same is substantially
true of the meetings held throughout the country--in short, the
Conservatives regarded, or pretended to regard, those meetings as a new
phase of the Repeal agitation.
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