“Copies of the Reports of Messrs. Griffith, Nimmo, and Killaly, the civil engineers employed during the late scarcity, in superintending the Public Works in Ireland; 16 April, 1823 (249).” “Report from the Select Committee on the employment of the poor in Ireland; 16 July, 1823 (561).” It is a remarkable testimony to the improvement effected by such works in the social habits of the people, that the district between the Shannon and the Blackwater, which was opened in four directions by the roads executed by Mr. Griffith, although formerly the seat of the Desmond Rebellion, and subsequently, in the year 1821, the asylum for Whiteboys and the focus of the Whiteboy warfare, during which time four regiments were required to repress outrage, became perfectly tranquil, and continued so up to the commencement of the late calamity. [8] The following remarkable passage is extracted from the Report of the Dublin Mansion House Committee, dated the 22nd October, 1831:-- “But while the Mansion House Committee thus congratulate themselves and the subscribers upon the success of their efforts to avert famine and disease for a season from so considerable a portion of the island, they owe it also to themselves and the subscribers to avow their honest conviction that similar calls will be periodically made on public benevolence, unless a total change be effected in the condition of the Irish peasant. What means should be adopted to remedy these evils it is not the province of this Committee to suggest; but they deem it their duty to call the attention of the subscribers particularly to this state of things, in the hope of some remedy being discovered and applied before public benevolence is quite exhausted by repeated drains on its sympathy.” On the 21st May, 1838, the Duke of Wellington made the following observations in the debate on the introduction of the Irish Poor Law:--“There never was a country in which poverty existed to so great a degree as it exists in Ireland. I held a high situation in that country thirty years ago, and I must say, that, from that time to this, there has scarcely elapsed a single year, in which the Government has not at certain periods of it entertained the most serious apprehension of actual famine. I am firmly convinced that from the year 1806, down to the present time, a year has not passed in which the Government have not been called on to give assistance to relieve the poverty and distress which prevailed in Ireland.” [9] The particulars of what took place on this occasion will be found in a letter from the Poor Law Commissioners to Sir J. Graham, dated the 9th June, 1842, and in a statement dated 18th August, 1842, prepared under the directions of the Irish Government, showing “the sums issued for the relief of distress in Ireland from the 17th June to the 17th August, 1842,” &c.