part in a burial.[239]

The incumbent of Skull, the Key. Robert Traill Hall,[240] a month after
Captain Caffin's letter was published, says, "the distress was nothing
in Captain Caffin's time compared with what it is now." On reading
Captain Caffin's letter, one would suppose, that destitution could not
reach a higher point than the one at which he saw it. That letter fixed
the attention of the Government upon Skull, and yet, strange result,
after a month of such attention, the Famine is intensified there,
instead of being alleviated.

Mr. Commissary Bishop had charge of the most famine-visited portion of
the Co. Cork (Skibbereen always excepted), including West Carbery,
Bantry and Bere. He seems to have been an active, intelligent officer,
and a kind-hearted man; yet his communications, somehow, must have
misled the Government, for Mr. Trevelyan starts at Captain Caffin's
letter, as if suddenly awakened from a dream. Its contents appeared to
be quite new, and almost incredible to him. No wonder, perhaps. On the
29th of January, a fortnight before the publication of Captain Caffin's
letter, Mr. Bishop writes to Mr. Trevelyan: "The floating depot for
Skull arrived yesterday, and has commenced issues; _this removes all
anxiety for that quarter_." On the day before Captain Caffin's letter
was written, Mr. Bishop says: "At Skull, in both east and west division,
I found the distress, or rather the mortality had pretty well
increased." And this, notwithstanding the floating depot. Yet in the
midst of the famine-slaughter described by Captain Caffin, Mr. Bishop is
still hopeful, for he says: "The Relief Committees at Skull and
Crookhaven exert themselves greatly to benefit the poor. There is an
ample supply of provisions at each place."[241] How did they manage to
die of starvation at Skull?--one is tempted to ask. Yet they did, and at
Ballydehob too, the other town of the parish; for, three weeks after the
announcement of the "ample supply of provisions," the following news
reaches us from the latter place, on the most reliable authority. A
naval officer, Mr. Scarlet, who was with the "Mercury" and "Gipsey"
delivering provisions in the neighbourhood of Skull, on his return to
Cork, writes, on the 8th of March, to his admiral, Sir Hugh Pigot, in
these terms: "After discharging our cargoes in the boats to Ballydehob,
we went on shore, and on passing through the town we went into the ruins
of a house, and there were two women l