_counting_ the potatoes they give their children." The good Rector of
Skull, Dr. Robert Traill, writes to Lord Bernard with prophetic grief.
"Am I to cry peace, peace, where there is no peace? But what did I find
in the islands? _the pits, without one single exception in a state of
serious decay, and many of the islanders apprehending famine in
consequence_. Oh, my heart trembles when I think of all that may be
before us."

Meantime the accounts of the progress of the disease were every day more
disheartening; the Government appeared to do nothing except publish a
few reports from those "Scientific men sent over from England," alluded
to by the Viceroy in his reply to the deputation of the 3rd of November.
The Mansion House Committee met on the 19th of that month and
unanimously passed the following resolutions, Lord Cloncurry being in
the chair:--

1. "That we feel it an imperative duty to discharge our consciences
of all responsibility regarding the undoubtedly approaching
calamities, famine and pestilence, throughout Ireland, an approach
which is imminent, and almost immediate, and can be obviated only
by the most prompt, universal and efficacious measures for
procuring food and employment for the people.

2. "That we have ascertained beyond the shadow of doubt, that
considerably more than one-third of the entire of the potato crop
in Ireland has been already destroyed by the potato disease; and
that such disease has not, by any means, ceased its ravages, but,
on the contrary, it is daily extending more and more; and that no
reasonable conjecture can be formed with respect to the limits of
its effects, short of the destruction of the entire remaining
potato crop.

3. "That our information upon the subject is positive and precise
and is derived from persons living in all the counties of Ireland.
From persons also of all political opinions and from clergymen of
all religious persuasions.

4. "We are thus unfortunately able to proclaim to all the
inhabitants of the British Empire, and in the presence of an
all-seeing Providence, that in Ireland famine of a most hideous
description must be immediate and pressing, and that pestilence of
the most frightful kind is certain, and not remote, unless
immediately prevented.

5. "That we arraign in the strongest terms, consistent with
personal