" But neither this
passage, nor anything in the subsequent part of the letter, sufficiently
explains what he had written eleven days before, namely, that everything
was rising rapidly in price.
During the last days of October two very desponding reports were made to
the Premier by Dr. Playfair, in the latter of which he says that Dr.
Lindley was after making a tour of the potato shops of the city; that he
had examined the potatoes, "carefully picked as good," and warranted to
be sound, and that he had found "nineteen bad for fourteen good."
The first Cabinet Council assembled at the Premier's house on the 31st
of October, on which occasion he read for his colleagues all the
information received either by himself or the Home Secretary, after
which the sitting was adjourned until next day, November the 1st, when
he put his views before them in the shape of an elaborate memorandum. He
begins by calling their attention to the great probability of a famine
in Ireland consequent upon the potato blight. The evil, he thinks, may
be much greater than the reports would lead them to anticipate, but
whether it is or is not, the Cabinet cannot exclude from its
consideration "the contingency of a great calamity.
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