s
population, by which the revenue of the exchequer must be increased,
rather than encourage emigration, by which the revenue would suffer
diminution, or than leave the labouring classes in their present state,
by which poverty, crime, and the charges of Government must be
inevitably extended."[281]

Previous to the Famine there was a large and steady emigration from
Ireland for many years, independent of Government aid. The total
colonial and foreign emigration between 1831 and 1841 amounted to
403,459, to which the returns add 25,012, for probable births, that item
being calculated at one and a-half per cent. per annum; making a total
of 428,471. These figures give a yearly average of nearly 43,000.[282]
Of these, 214,047 embarked from Irish ports, 152,738 from Liverpool;
and ten per cent. was added for imperfect returns. The largest number of
those who went from Ireland _direct_ to the colonies or foreign
countries, from any one port, embarked at Belfast, viz., twenty per
cent. of the whole. From Cork nearly the same. From the ports of Ulster
there went 76,905. From the ports of Munster 70,046. From Leinster
34,977, and from Connaught only 32,119. Those emigrants who embarked
from Irish ports proceeded as follows:--189,225 to British America,
namely, 107,792 males and 81,233 females; to the United States of
America 19,775, namely, 10,725 males, and 2,950 females; to the
Australian colonies, there went 4,553, in the proportion of 2,300 males
and 2,253 females; and 494 persons embarked for the West Indies--300
males and 194 females.[283]

Within the decade of years comprised between 1831 and 1841, emigration
was at its minimum in 1838, the number that left our shores in that year
being only 14,700; it rose to its maximum in 1841, namely, 71,392. It
rose still higher in 1842, the emigrants of that year being set down at
89,686. The year 1843 was named by O'Connell the Repeal year; the people
were filled with the hope of soon seeing a parliament in College Green,
and to this fact may probably, be attributed the great falling off in
emigration; the number for that year being only 37,509. It increased in
1844 to 54,289; and in 1845--the eve of the Famine, to 74,969 persons.

In the year 1846, as might be expected, emigration from Ireland reached
a height which it had never attained before in a single year; the
number, as estimated by the Emigration Commissioners, being 105,955.
Besides which between the 13th of January