When in May 1846 Mitchel first met Carlyle in a delegation with Duffy in London, he wrote to John Martin describing the Scotsman's presence as "royal, almost Godlike", and did so even while acknowledging Carlyle's unbending unionism. Carlyle compared Irish efforts at repeal to those of "a violent-tempered starved rat, extenuated into frenzy, bar the way of a rhinoceros". In what might have been more galling for Mitchel, Carlyle increasingly was to caricature the Irish in same manner as he did the blacks of the West Indies, former slaves for whom he allowed nothing in extenuation. Like pumpkins in which he describes "blacks sitting up to the ears" Carlyle argued that in Ireland the ready potato crop discouraged labour: the Irish "won't work ... if they have potatoes or other means of existing".