On 25 October 1845 Mitchel wrote on "The People's Food", pointing to the failure of the potato crop, and warning landlords that pursuing their tenants for rents would force them to sell their other crops and starve. On 8 November, in an article titled "The Detectives", he wrote, "The people are beginning to fear that the Irish Government is merely a machinery for their destruction; ... that it is unable, or unwilling, to take a single step for the prevention of famine, for the encouragement of manufactures, or providing fields of industry, and is only active in promoting, by high premiums and bounties, the horrible manufacture of crimes!".