There seems to have been an understanding among the _employes_, that the
true state of things, in its naked reality, was not to be given in their
communications to Government. It was to be toned down and modified.
Hence the studied avoidance of the word Famine in almost every official
document of the time. Captain Caffin's letter was written to a friend
and marked "private;" but having got into the newspapers, it must, of
course, be taken notice of by the Government. Mr. Trevelyan lost no
time, but at once wrote, enclosing it to Sir John Burgoyne. To use his
own words on the occasion, the receipt, from the Commander of the
Scourge, of "the awful letter, describing the result of his personal
observations in the immediate neighbourhood of Skull," led him (Mr.
Trevelyan) to make two proposals on the part of the Treasury. And
indeed, it must be said, well meant and practical they were. The first
was, to send two half-pay medical officers to Skull, to try and do
something for the sick, many of whom were dying for want of the
commonest care; and also to combine with that arrangement, the means of
securing the decent interment of the dead. The second proposal was to
provide carts, for the conveyance of soup to the sick in their houses in
and around Skull; a most necessary provision, inasmuch as the starving
people were, in numerous cases, unable to walk from their dwellings to
the soup kitchen; besides which, in many houses the whole family were
struck down by a combination of fever, starvation and dysentery.
Pages:
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664