“The Ocean Plague: or, A Voyage to Quebec in an Irish Emigrant Vessel” (Robert Whyte, Boston: Coolidge and Wiley, 1848)
“Emigration has for a long time been considered by British political economists the most effective means of alleviating the grievous ills under which the Irish peasantry labor. It is not our province to inquire into its expediency; but viewing the subject with the single eye of common-sense, it is difficult to see the necessity of expatriating the superfluous population of a country.”
“The Ocean Plague: or, A Voyage to Quebec in an Irish Emigrant Vessel” (Robert Whyte, Boston: Coolidge and Wiley, 1848, page 2)
It is not our province to inquire into its expediency; but viewing the subject with the single eye of common-sense, it is difficult to see the necessity of expatriating the superfluous population of a country wherein hundreds of thousands of acres of land susceptible of the highest culture, lie waste—whose mines teeming with wealth remain unworked—and which is bordered by more than two thousand miles of sea coast, whose banks swarm with ling, cod, mackerel etc, while salt-fish is largely imported from Scotland.
This progressive and natural system of emigration, however, gave place within the last few years to a violent rush of famished, reckless human beings, flying from their native land, to seek food in a distant and unknown country.
The cause of this sudden change is easily ascertained. Every one is familiar with the wretched lot of the Irish peasantry—obliged to work for a miserable pittance, their chief reliance was upon the crop of potatoes grown by each family in the little patch of ground attached to their hut; a poor dependence indeed, not only as regards the inferiority of the potato as the sole diet of a people, but from the great uncertainty always attending its propagation.
In the year 1822, the deficiency was so general that the price quadrupled, and the peasantry of the south and west were reduced to actual starvation. To alleviate the distress a committee was formed in London, and sub-committees throughout England; and such was the benevolence of individuals, that large funds were in a short time at their disposal– a large sum, but how inadequate to meet the wants of some three or four millions of starving people?
Serious Warning
This serious warning it should be supposed would have opened the eyes of the country to the necessity of having something else as a resource under a similar emergency; but a plentiful season lulled them into forgetfulness of what they had suffered, and apathy concerning the future.
So abundant was the produce of the seasons 1842 and 1843, that the poorest beggar refused potatoes, and they were commonly used to manure the land. But the blight of the crop of 1845, and the total destruction of that of 1846, brought the country to the lowest ebb, and famine with its attendant, disease, stalked through the land.
Charity stretched forth her hand from far and near. America giving liberally of her abundance. But all that could be done fell far short of the wants of the dying sufferers. The government stepped forward, and advanced funds for the establishment of public works; this was attended with much advantage and mitigated a great deal of distress. But unfortunately, all the money had to be returned in the shape of onerous taxation upon the landowners.
The gentry became seriously alarmed, and some of them perceiving that the evil was likely to increase year after year, took into their consideration what would be the surest method of terminating it.
At length it was discovered that the best plan would be to get completely rid of those who were so heavy a burthen upon them, by shipping them to America; at the same time publishing to the world, as an act of brotherly love and kindness, a deed of crafty, calculating selfishness–for the expense of transporting each individual was less than the cost of one year’s support in a workhouse.
Tempting all the dangers of the deep
It required but little argument to induce the prostrated people to accede to their landlords’ proposal, by quitting their poverty-stricken country for “a land flowing with milk and honey” — poor creatures, they thought that any change would be for the better. They had nothing to risk, every thing to gain.
Never did so many souls tempt all the dangers of the deep, to seek asylums in an adopted country; and, could we draw a veil over the sad story of the ship pestilence,
“this migration of masses, numbering of late years more than 100,000 annually, now to nearly 300,000 annually, not in the warlike spirit of the Goths and Vandals who overran the Roman Empire, and destroyed the monuments of art and evidences of civilization, but in the spirit of peace, anxious to provide for themselves and their children the necessaries of life, and apparently ordained by Providence to relieve the countries of the old world, and to serve great purposes of good to mankind, —is one of the most interesting spectacles the world ever saw.”* (*Immigration into the United States. By J. Chickering. Boston, 1848. )