"
At the end of December he reports to the Treasury a conversation he had
had with an assistant-engineer from Roscommon, who told him his belief
was, that there were much more provisions in the country than was
generally supposed. He had every day, he said, good potatoes at eight
shillings a cwt. When the disease appeared, the people who held conacres
threw them up, and the potatoes remained undug. Those that were sound
continued so up to the late frost; and the people had, by degrees, been
taking them up. This engineer expected a considerable quantity,
serviceable for food, would be found during the ploughing of the land in
spring.
But the wail of starving millions reached the Lord Lieutenant from
every side, and, in compliance with it, he authorized the "Extraordinary
Baronial Presentment Sessions" to be held. At those sessions the tone of
the speakers was, on the whole, kind and liberal; acknowledging the
universality of the failure of the potato crop, and the necessity of
making immediate provision against its consequences. Sometimes the
presentments for the public works were very large--far beyond the entire
rental of the barony; yet they may not have been too great to meet the
starvation which the assembled ratepayers saw everywhere around them.
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