“On the 29th of last month (July) I passed from Cork to Dublin, and this doomed plant bloomed in all the luxuriance of an abundant harvest. Returning on the 3rd instant (August) I beheld with sorrow one wide waste of putrefying vegetation. In many places the wretched people were seated on the fences of the decaying gardens wringing their hands and wailing bitterly the destruction that had left them foodless[500].” The relief-works and distribution of Indian meal, which had been estimated by the Government to last only to August, 1846, at a cost of £476,000 (one-half of it being a free grant), were resumed under the pressure of public opinion, in the winter of 1846 and spring of 1847, a cost of £4,850,000, one-half of the sum being again a free grant. Before the distress was over, other free grants and advances were made; so that, on 15 February, 1850, Lord John Russell summed up the famine-indebtedness of Ireland to the Consolidated Fund at £3,350,000, (which was to be repaid out of the rates in forty years from that date). Allowing an equal sum freely gifted from the national exchequer, the whole public cost of the famine would have been about seven millions sterling. The short crops in Britain in 1846 were an excuse for not interfering with the export of oats from Ireland. The imports of Indian meal were left to the ordinary course of the market, and the distribution to retail traders. The corn merchants of Cork, Limerick and other ports made fortunes out of the American cargoes, and the dealers throughout the country made large profits. To encourage the influx of foreign food-supplies, and to lower freights, the Navigation Laws were suspended for a few months, so that corn could be carried in other than British bottoms. When Parliament met in January, 1847, the distress in Ireland occupied the greater part of the Queen’s Speech.