THE ENGLISH IN INDIA—CONTINUED.
TREATMENT OF THE NATIVES.
Rich in the gems of India’s gaudy zone,
And plunder, piled from kingdoms not their own,
Degenerate trade! thy minions could despise,
The heart-born anguish of a thousand cries;
Could lock, with impious hands their teeming store,
While famished nations died along the shore;
Could mock the groans of fellow-men; and bear
The curse of kingdoms peopled with despair;
Could stamp disgrace on man’s polluted name,
And barter, with their gold, eternal shame.
_Pleasures of Hope._
We have in some degree caught a glimpse of the subject of this chapter
in the course of the last. The treatment of the native chiefs in our
pursuit of territorial possession is in part the treatment of the
natives, but it is unhappily a very small part. The scene of exaction,
rapacity, and plunder which India became in our hands, and that upon
the whole body of the population, forms one of the most disgraceful
portions of human history; and while the temptations to it existed
in full force, defied all the powers of legislation, or the moral
influence of public opinion to check the evil. In vain the East India
Company itself, in vain the British Parliament legislated on the
subject; in vain did the Court of Directors from year to year, send
out the most earnest remonstrances to their servants,—the allurement
was too splendid, the opportunities too seducing, the example too
general, the security too great, to permit any one to attend to either
law, remonstrance, or the voice of humanity. The fame of India, as a
vast region of inexhaustible wealth, had resounded through the world
for ages; the most astonishing notions of it floated through Europe,
before the sea-track to it was discovered; and when that was done, the
marvellous fortunes made there by bold men, as it were in a single
day, and by a single stroke of policy, seemed more than to warrant
any previous belief. Men in power received their presents of ten,
twenty, or a hundred thousand pounds. Clive, for the assistance of the
British army, was presented with the magnificent gift of a jaghire,
or hereditary revenue of 30,000_l._ a year! On another occasion he
received his 28,000_l._, and his fellow-rulers each a similar sum.
Hastings received his twenty and his hundred thousand pounds, as
familiarly as a gold snuff-box or a piece of plate would be given as
a public testimony of respect for popular services, in England. Every
man, according to his station and his influence, found the like golden
harvest. Who could avoid being inflamed with the thirst for Indian
service?—who avoid the most exaggerated anticipations of fortune?
It was a land, and a vast land, hedged about with laws of exclusion
to all except such as went through the doors of the Company. There
were there no interlopers,—no curious, because obstructed observers.
There was but one object in going thither, and one interest when
there. It was a soil made sacred, or rather, doomed, to the exclusive
plunder of a privileged number. The highest officers in the government
had the strongest motives to corruption, and therefore could by no
possibility attempt to check the the same corruption in those below
them. When the power and influence of the Company became considerably
extended over Bengal, Bahar, Orissa, Oude, the Carnatic, and Bombay,
the harvest of presents grew into a most affluent one. Nothing was to
be expected, no chance of justice, of attention, of alleviation from
the most abominable oppression, but through the medium of presents, and
those of such amounts as fairly astonish European ears. Every man, in
every department, whether civil, military, or mercantile, was in the
certain receipt of splendid presents. When the government had found
it necessary to forbid the receipt of presents by any individual in
the service, not only for themselves, but for the Company, the highest
officers set the laws at defiance, and the mischief was made more
secret, but not less existent.
But besides presents and official incomes, there were the farming of
the revenues, and domestic trade, which opened up boundless sources
of profit. The revenues were received in each district by zemindars
from the ryots or husbandmen, and handed, after a fixed deduction, to
the chief office of the revenue. But between these zemindars and the
ryots were aumils, or other inferior officers, who farmed the revenues
in each lesser district or village; that is, contracted with the
zemindars for the revenues at a certain sum, and took the trouble of
exacting them from the ryots, who paid a rate fixed by law or ancient
custom, and could not be turned out of their lands while such rate was
regularly paid. Wherever the English obtained a claim over the revenues
of a prince, which we have seen they speedily did, they soon became the
zemindars, or their agents, the aumils, or other middlemen between them
and the ryots. Anciently, the ryots paid one tenth of their produce,
for all their taxes were paid in kind, but in time the rate grew to
more than half. When the English power became more fixed and open,
and it was found that under the native zemindars the exactions of the
revenues did not at all satisfy their demands, they took on themselves
the whole business of collecting these revenues. This, as we shall see,
on the evidence of the Company’s own officers, became a dreadful system
to the people. The Mahomedan exactions had been generally regarded more
considerate than those of the native Hindu chiefs; but the grinding
pressure of the English system brought on the unfortunate ryot the most
unexampled misery. Of this, however, anon. It only requires here to
be pointed out as one of the various sources of enormous profits and
jobbing which made India so irresistibly attractive to Englishmen.
The private trade was another grand source of revenue. The public
trade, that is, the transit of goods to and from Europe, was the
peculiar monopoly of the Company; but all coasting trade—trade to and
between the isles, and in the interior of India, became a monopoly of
the higher servants of the Company, who were at once engaged in the
Company’s concerns and their own. The monopoly of salt, opium, betel,
and other commodities became a mine of wealth. The Company’s servants
could fix the price at whatever rate they pleased, and thus enhance
it to the unfortunate people so as to occasion them the most intense
distress. Fortunes were made in a day by this monopoly, and without
the advance of a single shilling. The very Governor-general himself
engaged in this private trade; and contracts were given to favourites
on such terms, that two or three fortunes were made out of them before
they reached the merchant. In one case that came out on the trial of
Warren Hastings, a contract for opium had been given to Mr. Sullivan,
though he was going into quite a different part of India, and on public
business; this, of course, he sold again, to Mr. Benn, for 40,000_l._;
and Mr. Benn immediately sold it again for 60,000_l._, clearing
20,000_l._ by the mere passing of the contract from one hand to the
other; and the purchaser then declared that he made a large sum by it.
All these things put together, made India the theatre of sure and
splendid fortune to the adventurer, and of sore and abject misery to
the native. We have only to look about us in any part of England,
but especially in the metropolis, and within fifty miles round it,
to see what streams of wealth have flowed into this country from
India. What thousands of splendid mansions and estates are lying
in view, which, when the traveller inquires their history, have
been purchased by the gold of India. We are told that those days of
magical accumulation of wealth are over; that this great fountain of
affluence is drained comparatively dry; that fortunes are not now
readily made in India; yet the Company, though they have lost their
monopoly of trade, and their territories are laid open to the free
observation of their countrymen, are in possession of the government
with a revenue of twenty millions. But all this time, what has been
doing with and for the natives. We shall see that anon; yet it may
here be asked, What _could_ be doing? For what did men go to India?
For what did they endure its oppressive and often fatal climate? Was
it from philanthropical or personal motives? Did they seek the good
of the Indians or their own? The latter, assuredly: and it was not
to be expected that the majority of men should be so high-minded or
disinterested as to seek the good of others at the expense of their
own. The temptations to visit India were powerful, but not the less
powerful were the motives to hasten away at the very earliest possible
period. It was not to be expected from human nature that the natives
could be much thought of. What _has_ been done for them by the devoted
few, we shall recognise with delight; at present we must revert to the
evil influences of nearly two hundred years.
Amongst the first to claim our attention, are those doings in high
places which have excited so strongly the cupidity of thousands, and
especially those dazzling presents which became the direct causes of
the most violent exactions on the people, for out of them had all these
things to be drawn. The Company could, indeed, with a very bad grace,
condemn bribery in its officers, for it has always been accused of
this evil practice at home in order to obtain its exclusive privileges
from government; and so early as 1693, it appeared from parliamentary
inquiry, that its annual expenditure under the head of gifts to men
in power previous to the Revolution, seldom exceeded 1,200_l._,
but from that period to that year it had grown to nearly 90,000_l._
annually. The Duke of Leeds was impeached for a bribe of 5,000_l._,
and 10,000_l._ were even said to be traced to the king.[21] Besides
this, whenever any rival company appeared in the field, government
was tempted with the loans of enormous sums, at the lowest interest.
Like fruits were to be expected in India, and were not long wanting.
We cannot trace this subject to its own vast extent—it would require
volumes—we can only offer a few striking examples:—
None can be more remarkable than the following list, which, besides
sums that we may suppose it to have been in the power of the receivers
to conceal, and of the amount of which it is not easy to form a
conjecture, were detected and disclosed by the Committee of the House
of Commons in 1773.
The rupees are valued according to the rate of exchange of the
Company’s bills at the different periods.
_Account of such sums as have been proved or acknowledged
before the Committee to have been distributed by the
Princes and other natives of Bengal, from the year 1757
to the year 1766, both inclusive; distinguishing the
principal times of the said distributions, and specifying
the sums received by each person respectively_:—
Resolution in favour of Meer Jaffier—1757.
Rupees. Rupees. £.
Mr. Drake (Governor) 280,000 31,500
Col. Clive, as second in the Select }
Committee } 280,000
Ditto, as Commander-in-Chief 200,000
Ditto, as a private donation 1,600,000
————————— 2,080,000 234,000
Mr. Watts, as a Member of the }
Committee } 240,000
Ditto, as a private donation 800,000
——————— 1,040,000 117,000
Major Kilpatrick 240,000 27,000
Ditto, as a private donation 300,000 33,750
Mr. Maningham 240,000 27,000
Mr. Becher 240,000 27,000
Six Members of Council, one lac each 600,000 68,000
Mr. Walsh 500,000 56,250
Mr. Scrafton 200,000 22,500
Mr. Lushington 50,000 5,625
Captain Grant 100,000 11,250
Stipulation to the Navy and Army 600,000
—————————
1,261,075
Memorandum—the sum of two lacs to Lord
Clive, as Commander-in-Chief, must be deducted
from this account, it being included in
the donation to the army 22,500
—————————
1,238,575
Resolution in favour of Causim in 1760.
Mr. Sumner 28,000
Mr. Holwell 270,000 30,937
Mr. M’Guire 180,000 20,628
Mr. Smyth 130,300 15,354
Major Yorke 134,000 15,354
General Caillaud 200,000 22,916
Mr. Vansittart, 1762, received seven lacs, but
the two lacs to Gen. Caillaud are included;
so that only five lacs must be accounted for
here 500,000 58,333
Mr. M’Guire 5,000 gold morhs 75,000 8,750
———————
200,269
Resolution in favour of Jaffier in 1763.
Stipulation to the Army 2,500,000 291,666
Ditto to the Navy 1,250,000 145,833
———————
437,499
Major Munro, in 1764, received from Bulwant
Sing 10,000
Ditto, from the Nabob 3,000
The Officers belonging to Major Munro’s
family from ditto 3,000
The Army, from the merchants at Benares 400,000 46,666
——————
62,666
Nudjeem ul Dowla’s Accession, 1765.
Mr. Spencer 200,000 23,333
Messrs. Pleydell, Burdett, and Grey, one lac each 300,000 35,000
Mr. Johnstone 237,000 27,650
Mr. Leycester 112,500 13,125
Mr. Senior 172,500 20,125
Mr. Middleton 122,500 14,291
Mr. Gideon Johnstone 50,000 5,833
———————
139,357
General Carnac received from Bulwant Sing,
in 1765 80,000 9,333
Ditto from the king 200,000 23,333
Lord Clive received from the Begum, in 1766 500,000 58,333
——————
90,999
Restitution.—Jaffier, 1757.
East India Company 1,200,000
Europeans 600,000
Natives 250,000
Armenian 100,000
—————————
2,150,000
Causim. 1760.
East India Company 62,500
Jaffier. 1763.
East India Company 375,000
Europeans, Natives, etc. 600,000
———————
975,000
Peace with Sujah Dowla.
East India Company 5,000,000 583,333
———————
Total of Presents, £2,169,665. Restitution, etc., £3,770,833.
Total amount, exclusive of Lord Clive’s Jaghire, £5,940,498.
These are pretty sums to have fallen into the pockets of the English,
chiefly _douceurs_, in ten years. Let the account be carried on for all
India at a similar rate for a century, and what a sum! Lord Clive’s
jaghire alone was worth 30,000_l._ per annum. And, besides this,
it appears from the above documents that he also pocketed in these
transactions 292,333_l._ No wonder at the enormous fortunes rapidly
made; at the enormous debts piled on the wretched nabobs, and the
dreadful exactions on the still more wretched people. No man could more
experimentally than Clive thus address the Directors at home, as he
did in 1765: “Upon my arrival, I am sorry to say, I found your affairs
in a condition so nearly desperate as would have alarmed any set of
men whose sense of honour and duty to their employers had not been
estranged by the too eager pursuit of their own immediate advantages.
The sudden, and among many, the unwarrantable acquisition of riches
(who was so entitled to say this?) had introduced luxury in every
shape, and in its most pernicious excess. These two enormous evils
went hand in hand together through the whole presidency, infecting
almost every member of every department. Every inferior seemed to have
grasped at wealth, that he might be enabled to assume that spirit
of profusion which was now the only distinction between him and his
superiors. Thus all distinction ceased, and every rank became, in a
manner, upon an equality. Nor was this the end of the mischief; for a
contest of such a nature amongst our servants necessarily destroyed all
proportion between their wants and the honest means of satisfying them.
In a country _where money is plenty, where fear is the principle of
government, and where your arms are ever victorious, it is no wonder
that the lust of riches should readily embrace the proffered means of
its gratification, or that the instruments of your power should avail
themselves of their authority, and proceed even to extortion in those
cases where simple corruption could not keep pace with their rapacity_.
Examples of this sort, set by superiors, could not fail being followed,
in a proportionate degree, by inferiors. The evil was contagious, and
spread among the civil and military, down to the writer, the ensign,
and the free merchant.”—Clive’s Letter to the Directors, Third Report
of Parliamentary Committee, 1772.
The Directors replied to this very letter, lamenting their conviction
of its literal truth.—“We have the strongest sense of the deplorable
state to which our affairs were on the point of being reduced, from the
corruption and rapacity of our servants, and _the universal depravity
of manners throughout the settlement_. The general relaxation of all
discipline and obedience, both military and civil, was hastily tending
to a dissolution of all government. Our letter to the Select Committee
expresses our sentiments of what has been obtained by way of donations;
and to that we must add, that we think the vast fortunes acquired in
the inland trade _have been obtained by a scene of the most tyrannic
and oppressive conduct that was ever known in any age or country_!”
But however the Directors at home might lament, they were too far
off to put an end to this “scene of the most tyrannic and oppressive
conduct that was ever known in any age or country.” This very same
grave and eloquent preacher on this oppression and corruption, Clive,
was the first to set the example of contempt of the Directors’ orders,
and commission of those evil practices. The Directors had sent out
fresh covenants to be entered into by all their servants, both civil
and military, binding them not to receive presents, nor to engage in
inland trade; but it was found that the governor had not so much as
brought the new covenants under the consideration of the council. The
receipt of presents, and the inland trade by the Company’s servants
went on with increased activity. When at length these covenants were
forwarded to the different factories and garrisons, General Carnac,
and everybody else signed them. General Carnac however delayed his
signing of them till he had time to obtain a present of two lacs of
rupees (upwards of 20,000_l._) from the reduced and impoverished
Emperor. Clive appointed a committee to inquire into these matters,
which brought to light strange scenes of rapacity, and of “threats to
extort gifts.” But what did Clive? He himself entered largely into
private trade and into a vast monopoly of salt, an article of the
most urgent necessity to the people; and this on the avowed ground of
wishing some gentlemen whom he had brought out to make a fortune. His
committee sanctioned the private trade in salt, betel-nut, and tobacco,
out of which nearly all the abuses and miseries he complained of had
grown, only confining it to the _superior servants_ of the Company:
and he himself, when the orders of the Directors were laid before
him in council, carelessly turned them aside, saying, the Directors,
when they wrote them, could not know what changes had taken place in
India. No! they did not know that he and his council were now partners
in the salt trade, and realizing a profit, including interest, of
upwards of fifty per cent.! Perhaps Clive thought he had done a great
service when he had attempted to lessen the number of harpies by
cutting off the trading of the juniors, and thus turning the tide of
gain more completely into his own pockets, and those of his fellows
of the council. It must have been a very provoking sight to one with
a development of acquisitiveness so ample as his own, to witness what
Verelst, in his “View of Bengal,” describes as then existing. “At this
time many black merchants found it expedient to purchase the name of
any young writer in the Company’s service by loans of money, and under
this sanction harassed and oppressed the natives. So plentiful a supply
was derived from this source, that many young writers were enabled to
spend 1500_l._ and 2000_l._ per annum, were clothed in fine linen,
and fared sumptuously every day.” What were the miseries and insolent
oppressions under which the millions of Bengal were made to groan by
such practices, and by the lawless violence with which the revenues
were collected about that period by the English, may be sufficiently
indicated by the following passages. Mr. Hastings, in a letter to the
President Vansittart, dated Bauglepore, April 25th, 1762, says—“I beg
to lay before you a grievance which loudly calls for redress, and will,
unless duly attended to, render ineffectual any endeavour to create a
firm and lasting harmony between the Nabobs and the Company: I mean
the oppressions committed under the sanction of the English name, and
through the want of spirit to oppose them. The evil, I am well assured,
is not confined to our dependents alone, _but is practised all over
the country, by people falsely assuming the habit of our sepoys, or
calling themselves our gomastahs_. On such occasions, the great power
of the English intimidates the people from making any resistance; so,
on the other hand, the indolence of the Bengalees, or the difficulty
of gaining access to those who might do them justice, prevents our
having knowledge of the oppressions. I have been surprised to meet with
several English flags flying in places which I have passed; and on the
river I do not believe I passed a boat without one. By whatever title
they have been assumed, I am sure their frequency can boast no good to
the Nabob’s revenues, the quiet of the country, or the honour of our
nation. A party of sepoys, who were on the march before us, afforded
sufficient proofs of the rapacious and insolent spirit of these people
when they are left to their own discretion. Many complaints against
them were made to us on the road; _and most of the petty towns and
serais were deserted at our approach, and the shops shut up, from the
apprehension of the same treatment from us_.”
Mr. Vansittart endeavoured zealously to put a stop to such abominable
practices; but what could he do? The very members of the council were
deriving vast emoluments from this state of things, and audaciously
denied its existence. Under such sanction, every inferior plunderer
set at defiance the orders of the president and the authority of the
officers appointed to prevent the commission of such oppressions on the
natives. The native collectors of the revenue, when they attempted to
levy, under the express sanction of the governor, the usual duties on
the English, were not only repelled by them, but seized and punished
as enemies of the Company and violaters of its privileges. The native
judges and magistrates were resisted in the discharge of their duties;
and even their functions usurped. Everything was in confusion, and many
of the zemindars and other collectors refused to be answerable for
the revenues. Even the nabob’s own officers were refused the liberty
to make purchases on his account. One of them, of high connexions
and influence, was seized for having purchased from the nabob some
saltpetre; the trade in which they claimed as belonging exclusively
to them. He was put in irons and sent to Calcutta, where some of the
council voted for having him publicly whipped, others desired that
his ears might be cut off, and it was all that the president could
effect to get him sent back to his own master to be punished. In Mr.
Vansittart’s own narrative, is given a letter from one officer to the
nabob, complaining that though he was furnished with instructions to
send away Europeans who were found committing disorders to Calcutta,
notwithstanding any pretence they shall make for so doing; he had used
persuasions, and conciliated, and found them of no avail. That he had
then striven by gentle means to stop their violences; upon which he
was threatened that if he interfered with them or their servants, they
would treat him in such a manner as should cause him to repent. That
all their servants had boasted publicly, that this was what would be
done to him did he presume to meddle. He adds, “Now sir, I am to inform
you what I have obstructed them in. _This place (Backergunge) was of
great trade formerly, but now brought to nothing by the following
practices._ A gentleman sends a gomastah here to buy or sell. He
immediately looks upon himself as sufficient to force every inhabitant
either to buy his goods, or to force them to sell him theirs; and
on refusal, or non-capacity, a flogging or confinement immediately
ensues. This is not sufficient even when willing; but a second force is
made use of, which is, to engross the different branches of trade to
themselves, and not to suffer any persons to buy or sell the articles
they trade in. They compel the people to buy or sell at just what rate
they please, and my interfering occasions an immediate complaint.
These, _and many other oppressions which are daily practised_, are the
reasons that this place is growing destitute of inhabitants.... Before,
justice was given in the public cutcheree, but now every gomastah is
become a judge; they even pass sentence on the zemindars themselves;
and draw money from them for pretended injuries.”
Such was the state of the country in 1762, as witnessed by Mr.
Hastings, and such it continued till Clive’s government,—Clive, who
so forcibly described it to the Directors; and what did Clive do? He
aggravated it, enriched himself enormously by the very system, and
so left it. Such it continued till Mr. Hastings,—this Mr. Hastings,
who so feelingly had written his views and abhorrence of it to the
President Vansittart, came into supreme power, and what did the wise
and benevolent Mr. Hastings? He became the Aaron’s-rod of gift-takers;
the prince of exactors, and the most unrelenting oppressor of the
natives that ever visited India, or perhaps any other country. In
the mean time this system of rapacity and extortion had reduced the
people to the most deplorable condition of poverty and wretchedness
imaginable. The monopoly of trade, and the violent abduction of all
their produce in the shape of taxes, dispirited them to the most
extreme degree, and brought on the country those famines and diseases
for which that period is so celebrated. In 1770 occurred that dreadful
famine, which has throughout Europe excited so much horror of the
English. They have been accused of having directly created it, by
buying up all the rice, and refusing to sell any of it except at the
most exorbitant price. The author of the “Short History of the English
Transactions in the East Indies,” thus boldly states the fact. Speaking
of the monopoly just alluded to, of salt, betel-nut, and tobacco, he
says, “Money in this current came but by drops. It could not quench
the thirst of those who waited in India to receive it. An expedient,
such as it was, remained to quicken it. The natives could live with
little salt, but could not want food. Some of the agents saw themselves
well situated for collecting the rice into stores; they did so. They
knew that the Gentoos would rather die than violate the principles
of their religion by eating flesh. The alternative would therefore
be between _giving what they had_, or _dying_! The inhabitants sunk.
They that cultivated the land, and saw the harvest at the disposal of
others, planted in doubt; scarcity ensued. Then the monopoly was easier
managed,—sickness ensued. In some districts, the languid living left
the bodies of their numerous dead unburied.”—p. 145.
Many and ingenious have been the attempts to remove this awful
opprobrium from our national character. It has been contended that
famines are, or were of frequent occurrence in India;—that the
natives had no providence; and that to charge the English with the
miserable consequences of this famine is unreasonable, because it was
what they could neither foresee nor prevent. Of the drought in the
previous autumn there is no doubt; but there is unhappily as little,
that the regular rapacity of the English had reduced the natives to
that condition of poverty, apathy, and despair, in which the slightest
derangement of season must superinduce famine;—that they were grown
callous to the sufferings of their victims, and were as alive to
their gain by the rising price through the scarcity, as they were in
all other cases. Their object was sudden wealth, and they cared not,
in fact, whether the natives lived or died, so that that object was
effected. This is the relation of the Abbé Raynal, a foreign historian,
and the light in which this event was beheld by foreign nations.
“It was by a drought in 1769, at the season when the rains are
expected, that there was a failure of the great harvest of 1769, and
the less harvest of 1770. It is true that the rice on the higher
grounds did not suffer greatly by this disturbance of the seasons, but
there was far from a sufficient quantity for the nourishment of all the
inhabitants of the country; add to which the English, who were engaged
beforehand to take proper care of their subsistence, as well as of
the Sepoys belonging to them, did not fail to keep locked up in their
magazines a part of the grain, though the harvest was insufficient....
This scourge did not fail to make itself felt throughout Bengal. Rice,
which is commonly sold for one sol (1/2d.) for three pounds, was
gradually raised so high as four or even six sols (3d.) for one pound;
neither, indeed, was there any to be found, except in such places where
the Europeans had taken care to collect it for their own use.
“The unhappy Indians were perishing every day by thousands under this
want of sustenance, without any means of help and without any revenue.
They were to be seen in their villages; along the public ways; in the
midst of our European colonies,—pale, meagre, emaciated, fainting,
consumed by famine—some stretched on the ground in expectation
of dying; others scarce able to drag themselves on to seek any
nourishment, and throwing themselves at the feet of the Europeans,
entreating them to take them in as their slaves.
“To this description, which makes humanity shudder, let us add other
objects, equally shocking. Let imagination enlarge upon them, if
possible. Let us represent to ourselves, infants deserted, some
expiring on the breasts of their mothers; everywhere, the dying and the
dead mingled together; on all sides, the groans of sorrow and the tears
of despair; and we shall then have some faint idea of the horrible
spectacle which Bengal presented for the space of six weeks.
“During this whole time, the Ganges was covered with carcases; the
fields and highways were choked up with them; infectious vapours filled
the air, and diseases multiplied; and one evil succeeding another,
it appeared not improbable that the plague would carry off the total
population of that unfortunate kingdom. It appears, by calculations
pretty generally acknowledged, that the famine carried off a fourth
part, that is to say—_about three millions_! What is still more
remarkable, is, that such a multitude of human creatures, amidst this
terrible distress, remained in absolute inactivity. All the Europeans,
especially the English, were possessed of magazines. These were not
touched. Private houses were so too. No revolt, no massacre, not the
least violence prevailed. The unhappy Indians, resigned to despair,
confined themselves to the request of succours they did not obtain; and
peacefully awaited the relief of death.
“Let us now represent to ourselves any part of Europe afflicted with a
similar calamity. What disorder! what fury! what atrocious acts! what
crimes would ensue! How should we have seen amongst us Europeans, some
contending for their food, dagger in hand, some pursuing, some flying,
and without remorse massacring one another! How should we have seen
men at last turn their rage on themselves; tearing and devouring their
own limbs; and, in the blindness of despair, trampling under foot all
authority, as well as every sentiment of nature and reason!
“Had it been the fate of the English to have had the like events to
dread on the part of the people of Bengal, perhaps the famine would
have been less general and less destructive. For, setting aside, as
perhaps we ought, every charge of monopoly, no one will undertake to
defend them against the reproach of negligence and insensibility. And
in what a crisis have they merited that reproach? In the very instant
of time in which the life or death of several millions of their
fellow-creatures was in their power. One would think that in such
alternative, the very love of humankind, that sentiment innate in all
hearts, might have inspired them with resources.”—i. 460-4.