[fn 4], The following poem written by Miss Jane Francesca Elgee (later Lady Wilde), a well known and popular author, was carried in The Nation:[69], What sow ye? There's a proud array of soldiers—what do they round your door? Famine spread across the British Isles, France, the low countries and Germany, and approximately 10-25% of Europe’s population perished. Read more about this on Questia. Perhaps the best-known estimates of deaths at a county level are those by Joel Mokyr. Other Canadian cities such as Saint John, New Brunswick; Quebec City and Montreal, Quebec; Ottawa, Kingston and Hamilton, Ontario also received large numbers of Famine Irish since Canada, as part of the British Empire, could not close its ports to Irish ships (unlike the US), and they could get passage cheaply (or free in the case of tenant evictions) in returning empty lumber holds. is a touching, insightful, informative look at the origins of our food. [115] There were a number of reasons for this, because the information was gathered from the surviving householders and others and having to look back over the previous 10 years, it underestimates the true extent of disease and mortality. In some cases, tenants were persuaded to accept a small sum of money to leave their homes, "cheated into believing the workhouse would take them in. ? The 1851 census reported that more than half the inhabitants of Toronto, Ontario were Irish, and in 1847 alone, 38,000 famine Irish flooded a city with fewer than 20,000 citizens.