" Doubtless Colonel Jones soon discovered such views as
these to be distasteful to his superiors; so, like a prudent servant, he
puts them aside, and in his after communications adopts the very
opposite tone. He writes to Mr. Under-Secretary Redington[144] on the
13th of October, from Athlone, this piece of information, intended, he
says, for his Excellency: "On the 11th instant I posted from Dublin to
Banagher. Along the entire line of road I observed the farmyards well
stocked with corn, the crop of the past harvest, unthreshed"--thus
assuming that the four millions of people who lived almost exclusively
on potatoes had such things as farmyards and corn to put in them. In the
same month he writes again to Mr. Trevelyan, that he hears from more
quarters than one that the early potatoes, which were left in the
ground, now prove to be sound. Although small in size, he says, still
from one-third to one-half may be considered available for food. "On my
way here from Athlone," he again writes, "I went into a field where a
man was digging potatoes. The crop looked good, and he told me that it
was an early crop, and that he considered that about half were sound;
and I therefore hope that there is much more food of that description
than the general outcry about famine would lead strangers to suppose.
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