" Although, at the
time, this could be nothing more than a bold guess, it is highly
probable that the writer of it hit the mark, for in his memoirs,
published by his literary executors, Earl Stanhope and Lord Cardwell, we
find the Premier, in the middle of October giving this caution to the
Lord Lieutenant: "I need not recommend to you the utmost reserve as to
the future, _I mean as to the possibility of Government
interference_."[67]
A few days after the _Packet_ had published the above sentiment, the
_Evening Mail_ said, "there was a sufficiency--an abundance of sound
potatoes in the country for the wants of the people." And it goes on to
stimulate farmers to sell their corn, by threats of being forestalled by
Dutch and Hanoverian merchants. In the beginning of December, a Tory
provincial print, not probably so high as its metropolitan brethren in
the confidence of its party, writes: "It may be fairly presumed the
losses have been enormous.... We repeat it, _and we care not whom it
displeases_, that there are not now half as many sound potatoes in the
country as there were last December." The Editor seemed to feel he was
doing a perilous thing in stating a fact which he knew would be
displeasing to many of his readers.
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