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Chapter NiNe 339
man charged with the provision of famine relief was Charles Trevelyan, Assistant Secretary to the Treasury. Under his supervision, a programme of public works was set up. But, alas, due to insuicient funding and political wrangling, coupled with the fact that many of the suferers were too weak to undertake any work-too weak even to plant crops if seed was given to them to plant, the programme largely failed. In March 1847 the Board of Works was employing 700,000 people, with an average wage of around a shilling a day: the cost of subsidized food for an ordinary family was double that amount. As the endless repetition of distress stories began to dull the sympathy of those who were in a position to help, the infamous workhouses were left to cope with the problem.
It should not be forgotten that of all the countries who helped Ireland during this terrible period, the Government and people of the United States subscribed most generously and many shiploads of the aforementioned Indian corn and Indian meal were sent to aid the starving people. But sad to say, as the author and historian Seamus McManus wrote:
“.a shipload of American corn coming into an Irish port to feed the people, would pass a shipload of Irish corn going out of the Irish port to England-corn which the hungering people had to sell to pay the landlord’s rent and escape losing their homes and their all. The government was pressed to close the ports and keep the food in the country, but refused to do so.”
Hundreds of thousands of people, leeing the vicissitudes of the times boarded the countless large and small ships that sailed from almost every western harbour to the United States and Canada. Thousands of these fugitives never made the promised lands as they fell victim to famine-fever and ship-fever, many at the hands of unscrupulous skippers, and their bodies thrown overboard.
So many died in this manner that these emigrant vessels came to be known as “coin ships.” What follows is a record of the deaths which occurred on a selection of these vessels; The Larch, carrying 440 passengers of whom 108 perished; The Queen,carrying 493 pas- sengers-137 perished; The Avon, carrying 552 passengers -236 perished; The Virginius, carry- ing 476 passengers-267 perished. It is told that one vessel which was carrying 600 passengers docked with less than 100 survivors. Many of those who did survive the voyages were not allowed ashore on the mainland because of the fevers which they bore with them. Instead, these unfortunates were put ashore on islands of Canada and the United States where they died in great numbers and were buried in mass graves. In fact six thousand Irish are buried