This interview called forth much sarcastic commentary from the press. "And so," writes the _Nation_, "there is a military gentleman in Dublin, having the control of all public relief operations throughout the country, whose answer to all deputations--whose sole fixed idea--whose Bible and Articles-of-War--appears to be the 'strict rules' and 'the enlightened principles of political economy.' People come to him from the extreme west, and tell him there is in their parish neither potatoes nor corn--that they have neither stores at home, nor trade from other places; and ask him, as 'Commissary-General,' and public relief officer, what he is to do with them? The epauletted philosopher strait replies that trade must take its course (such was the word of command), that 'nothing was more essential to the welfare of a country' (so it was written in the orderly book) 'than strict adherence to the principles of free trade;' and that if the deputation doubted it, they might read Burke." A leading morning journal remarked, that Sir R. Routh's reply to the Achill deputation had not even the merit of originality; for there was an Eastern story, in which it was related how a deputation of Sheiks came, once upon a time, to the Calif, and announced the sad intelligence that all their date trees had withered, and his subjects were perishing throughout the region whence they had come. They demanded assistance: but before the Calif could make any reply, an old Moollah, who stood by, told them to return home _and read the Koran,--Freeman's Journal_.
[163] Treasury Minute, Sept. 29. Commissariat Series, p. 63.
[164] Letter to Mr. Trevelyan, dated 19th Sept. Commissariat Series p. 80.
[167] MS. Memoir of his experience during the Famine, kindly written for the author by Daniel Donovan, Esq., M.D., Skibbereen.
[168] Commissariat Series, part I, p. 46.
[169] Commissariat Series, part I, p. 55.
[172] Mr. Trevelyan gives the following caution to the Commissary-General at Malta: "I am told that the Egyptian wheat is mixed with the mud of the Nile; and if such be the case, it will, of course, be washed before it is ground."--Commissariat Series, p. 156.
_Salm_ was the word used at Malta for "quarter," being, probably, a corruption of the Spanish _salma_, a ton.
