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O'Rourke, John

"With Notices of Earlier Irish Famines"

Another Tory journal of the time, since amalgamated
with the former, made this letter the pretence of an attack on the
Mansion House Committee, accusing it of withholding Dean Hoare's letter,
because it gave a favourable account of the state of the potato crop,
and an unfavourable one of the peasantry--charging it with "fraud,
trickery and misrepresention," and its members with "associating for
factious purposes alone." In reply, it was clearly shown that the
Committee did not withhold the Dean's letter, even for an hour, and as
clearly shown that the _Evening Packet_, the journal in question,
antedated his letter by a day, in order to sustain its charge of
suppression.
The _Packet_ also omitted those portions of the letter which represented
the loss of the potato crop as extensive, and which called on the
Government to employ the people.[66]
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.


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