October 4th, 1847: A second Queen's Letter fails to elicit many subscriptions for Ireland. An earlier letter from Queen Victoria read in all Church of England churches, coupled with a day of "Fast and Humiliation" last March, raised almost £172,000 for the destitute Irish. (The emphasis on atonement reinforced providentialist interpretations of the Famine.) But now public opinion has turned against assisting Ireland and only £30,000 is donated.
Chancellor Wood tells Lord Clarendon that the editor of the Times received 62 letters by one post from clergymen who objected to making a collection. Several refused to collect and Wood's preacher in Whitehall "took the opportunity of pointing out the ingratitude of the Irish".
The second appeal arouses a vitriolic debate in the columns of the Times. One protagonist asks: "Why should the United Kingdom pay for the extravagance of Ireland?" An Anglican minister says that giving any more money to Ireland would be "about as ineffectual as to throw a sackful of gold into one of their plentiful bogs". The Times is against "begging for Ireland" and suggests that any money raised by the Queen's Letter should be given to the English poor.
Burgoyne, the Relief Commissioner, is compelled to point out that in Ireland "absolute famine still stares whole communities in the face".
Lord John Russell, disappointed by the recent election which weakened his control over the Whigs, feels caught between resentment on both sides of the Irish Sea: British opinion thinks too much has been done for Ireland, while the Irish "seem always to act in the manner most opposite to that which is usual in other countries. The expenditure of £10 million to save the people from starving has thus raised a bitter spirit of hostility".
The government has remitted half the money loaned for relief. Wood is convinced that if further concessions are made, Irish taxpayers will never again take repayments seriously. Not for the first and perhaps last time, Russell allows his better instincts to be overruled by the parsimonious Treasury.
He writes lamely to Clarendon, who has softened somewhat since his appointment as Lord Lieutenant: "I fear you have a most troublesome winter ahead of you . . . and here we have no money." There is a financial crisis in Britain.
In Ireland, not even the strength of the British army can wring rates from places where nothing is left to seize. Lord Sligo warns: "Public funds must feed our poor or they must die, and how are these funds to be produced? Not in Sligo, for a stone is not bread."
Increasingly, hard-pressed landlords solve their financial difficulties by evicting smallholders.
Henry Grattan MP, powerless because of the abolition of his father's parliament, remarks that the Lord Lieutenant has no power and Downing Street no heart.