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
