f free trade, who kept the
Navigation Laws in full force, in order to protect the monopoly of
English shipowners; and who, rather than share with other nations the
profits arising from carrying the food which would have saved the Irish
people, _protected that monopoly_, and left their fellow subjects to die
of famine, rather than withdraw the protection. Talk of Lord John and
his free trade government after that.

In the letter already quoted from the _Commissariat Series_ (p. 409),
and bearing date the 24th of December, Mr. Trevelyan, on the part of the
Government, says to Sir R. Routh: "You write as if it were in our power
to purchase grain and meal at our discretion, but I can assure you that
this is far from being the case. The London and Liverpool markets are in
a more exhausted state than you appear to be aware of, and the supplies
which are to be expected till April, are so totally inadequate to
filling the immense void which has been created by the failure of the
potato crop, the deficiency of the Spring crops, and the foreign demand,
that they give us no confidence.... You must therefore bear in mind, and
impress upon all those with whom you are acting, that even the stock of
food at your disposal has a certain fixed limit, and that it must be
economized, and made to last the requisite time, like any private stock.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer will, on no account, permit you to
undertake to provide food for any portion of the Eastern district of
Ireland. What we have is insufficient even for the Western district, for
which we have undertaken.... No exigency, however pressing, is to induce
you to undertake to furnish supplies of food for any districts, except
those for which we have already undertaken."

This letter, written, as all Mr. Trevelyan's were, by the authority of
the Treasury, assumes that the Government had a full knowledge of the
state of the food markets. And, no doubt, it was their bounden duty to
collect such knowledge, by trusty agents, despatched at the earliest
moment, to investigate and report upon the harvest-yield in Europe and
America. Yet, at the very time it was written, President Polk's message
to Congress, delivered in Washington on the 8th of December, arrived in
England, containing the following passage: "The home market alone is
inadequate to enable them [the farmers] to dispose of the immense
supplies of food which they are capable of producing, even at the most
reduced prices,