Parliament was prorogued on the 20th of August, without anything having been done, either with the bills introduced by individual members, or in regard to the Report of the commissioners of inquiry. The recommendations of the commissioners seem indeed to have increased rather than lessened the difficulties attending any measure for the relief of the Irish poor, owing probably to the recommendations “not being of that simple and single nature” to which the home secretary adverted in his address to the house on the 18th of April. Public attention nevertheless continued to be directed to the subject with undiminished earnestness, and government felt the necessity of coming to some early and definite conclusion as to the steps to be taken in regard to it. [Sidenote: The author’s connexion with the subject.] We have now reached a portion of our narrative when the author will be compelled to speak of himself, and the part taken by him, first in devising a poor-law for Ireland, and next in superintending its introduction into that country; and he is very anxious to bespeak an indulgent consideration for the difficulty in which he is placed, by having been thus personally engaged in the transactions which he will have to describe. The great social importance of the Irish Poor Law, imposes upon him the duty of giving a full and complete account of all that took place with regard to it; and he feels that this duty cannot be rendered less imperative, by the fact of his official connexion with the measure. He will therefore proceed to detail the circumstances as they severally occurred; and it will be more simple, and may save circumlocution for him to speak in the first person, on the occasions in which he was himself immediately concerned. [Sidenote: Lord John Russell’s letter of instructions, August 22, 1836.]