It will thus be seen that the proposed inquiry was sufficiently extensive; and I hardly need say that I entered upon the duty assigned me with a deep sense of the responsibility it involved. The working of the English Poor Law, afforded means for obtaining some insight into the character and habits of such of the Irish as had become resident in the metropolis and the larger towns of England, and I immediately instituted inquiries on the subject among the workhouse masters and other officers of several of the London parishes where the Irish labourers principally resided. They all assured me as the result of their experience, that the discipline of a workhouse operated with the Irish precisely as it did with the English poor. There was in fact no difference in this respect, nor any greater difficulty with regard to the one, than there was in the management of the other. This was so far satisfactory; but further examination and inquiry were necessary for giving entire confidence on this point, and these could best be pursued in Ireland whither I accordingly proceeded early in September. The evidence collected by the late commissioners of inquiry and appended to their Report, established so conclusively the existence of a state of poverty throughout Ireland, amounting in numerous cases to actual destitution,[73] that I felt it to be unnecessary to adduce any additional proofs on the subject. To this extent moreover, the evidence was fully borne out by previous investigations of committees and commissions on the state of Ireland. The fact of wide-spread destitution was therefore notorious, and its existence was universally admitted; so that in reporting to government at the end of my mission, I considered it enough to state as the result of my own inquiries, “that the misery now prevalent among the labouring classes in Ireland, appears to be of a nature and intensity calculated to produce great demoralization and danger;” and such being the case, it was doubtless the duty of government and the legislature to endeavour to devise a remedy for the one, and thus at the same time to guard against the other. ----- [73] Whether the number of persons in distress and requiring relief during thirty weeks in every year, amounted to 2,385,000, as estimated by the commissioners, may admit of question; but there can be no doubt that much distress prevailed, and that occasionally it was exceedingly severe. ----- [Sidenote: The author’s first report, Nov. 15, 1836.]