“I have the honor to state for your Lordship’s information that very large subscriptions for the relief of Irish & Scotch distress have been made in this Province. I have no means of ascertaining with accuracy the amount which has been raised but I am disposed to think from enquiries which I have made that it does not fall short of £20,000 (about £2million today - Ed.). To this fund, the inhabitants of all creeds and origins have liberally contributed. It will be gratifying to your Lordship to learn that several of the Indian tribes have expressed a desire to share in relieving the wants of their suffering white Brethren. The sum subscribed by them already exceeds £175 (about £17,500 today - Ed.).”
But if Ireland’s dire distress was far away, it was not long before the people of Canada became aware of the fever on their own doorsteps, an unrelenting threat. On the 4th of June, 1847, Québec’s Morning Chronicle was trying to calm public fears about Grosse-Île itself, stating that although the state of the people on the ships was wretched indeed the rumours going around about the number of people who were sick or who had died up to then were greatly exaggerated. However, in the same edition, they had published a disturbing letter from Alexander Mitchell, master of the Argo, which was anchored at Grosse-Île. Unless a comprehensive relief plan was put into effect immediately the situation would become quite alarming, he said.
“There is not one of my sick removed out of the ship, not for the want of will on the part of Dr. Douglas here, but the want of accommodation to put the sick in, on shore; there are many of the ships here in the same state – the only relief we get is in carrying them to the grave which is a daily occurrence. While I am writing, I have three corpses on board, and have had more or less every day since I wrote you last, with the exception of yesterday. We have now some eight or nine cases of fever on board, and it will no doubt get worse.”
And that’s just what happened, as the Captain had predicted. By the time
the letter was being drafted nineteen people had died on board and a
further twenty three would die on the Argo itself before the end of the affair
and a further twenty nine in the quarantine hospital, a total of sixty nine all
told, according to the official documents.
On the 7th June 1847 the Montreal Witness published an editorial
dealing with the Governor General’s address from the throne at the start
of the legislative session. If urgent decisions were being taken in secret
to deal with the most calamitous situation, which they were, the
reorganisation of the postal services and miscellaneous bills were the
main topics aired in public by James Bruce Elgin, or Lord Elgin as he
was better known, as he spoke on behalf of Alexandrina Victoria Hanover.
By this time the Medical Commissioners had got down to work and press
reports of the local crisis were spreading. The Québec Morning Chronicle
published a list of fifteen ships that had arrived during the previous week
with more than five thousand passengers together with the names of a
further fifty two ships, with almost 15,000 passengers that were expected
to arrive shortly. Alongside that list was a report on the health of Daniel
O’Connell as he journeyed to Rome. At the same time the Marine
Hospital in the city of Québec was overflowing with hapless Irish people,
immigrants who had been discharged from the quarantine in the belief
that they were well, and additional fever sheds were being erected.
It was not long before thousands of Irish reached Montreal on the steamers.
1,200 persons had been packed into each one and infectious disease
was spreading like wildfire. Typhus has an incubation period of seven
days. The disease itself then strikes with a sudden headache, a chill,
and a raging fever. Death comes late in the second week after that. There
were no antibiotics then nor preventative vaccines. The disease killed
60% of those infected. Very soon there were thousands of Irish people in
sheds in Montreal, with the numbers dying increasing at an alarming rate
day by day.
The crisis deepened. Fear spread. On the 15th of June four hundred and
ninety inhabitants of Pointe Levi, across the river from Québec city,
appealed to the Governor General not to permit hospitals or sheds for
the immigrants in their parish. They recommended other locations,
including the farm on Grosse-Île itself, but without mentioning Dr.
Douglas, who owned it, by name. On the 21st of June the Legislative
Assembly of the Province of Canada in Montreal established a Special
Committee, with power to summon witnesses and to ask for documents,
to inquire into the running of the quarantine station on Grosse-Île. Nine
members of the Legislative Assembly as well as three from the Executive
Council (the cabinet) were among those nominated. Four days later the
Legislative Assembly decided to send a humble address to the British
Queen beseeching her to save them from “…the infliction with which this
land has been visited, and is still further threatened, not to permit the
helpless, the starving, the sick and the diseased, unequal and unfit as
they are to face the hardships of a settler’s life, to embark for these
shores, which, if they reach, they reach in too many instances only to find
a grave.”
They called for the enactment of legislation that would ensure that the
emigrant ships were large and well ventilated, that passengers
would have sufficient space in them, that there would be a greater
provision of more wholesome food than currently provided, and that
adequate medical care would be available on board at all times.
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