s reflection does not seem to inspire Englishmen
generally with any feeling of shame. The evils of Ireland sit as lightly
on the English conscience as if England had done all which the most
enlightened and disinterested benevolence could suggest for governing
the Irish well, and for civilizing and improving them. What has ever yet
been done, or seriously attempted, for either purpose, except latterly,
by taking off some of the loads which we ourselves have laid on, history
will be at a loss to determine."[141]

Some of the officers connected with the relief works expressed their
opinion, that the failure of the potato crop and the deficiency of food
in the country were both exaggerated. They threw doubts on the veracity
of those with whom they conversed, and warned the Government to be
cautious about believing, to the full, the statements made by
individuals, committees, or newspapers. Sir Randolph Routh, the head of
the Commissariat Department, in a letter to Mr. Trevelyan, the
Assistant-Secretary to the Treasury, says: "In the midst of much real,
there is more fictitious distress; and so much abuse prevails, that if
you check it in one channel, it presents itself in another."[142] Again,
Assistant Commissary-General Milliken, writing to Sir R. Routh from
Galway, informs him that he met a considerable number of carts loaded
with meal and other supplies; and there did not, he said, appear that
extreme want and destitution that he had expected.[143] More than any
other did Lieutenant-Colonel Jones, Chairman of the Board of Works, keep
the idea of exaggerated and fictitious distress before the mind of the
Treasury, although he began his communications in a far different
spirit. Writing on the 1st of September to Mr. Trevelyan, he says: "The
prospects for the ensuing season are melancholy to reflect upon; the
potato crop may now be fairly considered as past; either from disease,
or from the circumstance of the produce being small, it has been
consumed; many families are now living upon food scarcely fit for hogs."
And again: "I am very much afraid that Government will not find _free
trade_, with all the employment we can give, a succedaneum for the loss
of the potato." 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 t