VI 



cient cotton to keep the looms of Manchester and 

 Lancashire in full work, and thus save the trade of 

 the cotton spinners from ruin, and the operatives 

 from starvation. But no guarantee was offered that 

 the cotton would be bought when grown, nor any fore- 

 thought or regard shown for the lamentable conse- 

 quences that would have overtaken the people of 

 India, if millions of acres of land having been 

 sown with cotton, the American war should have 

 ceased before the crop was reaped. 



I had hoped that some more solid benefit to 

 India than enriching the cotton dealers of Bombay 

 would have resulted from the circumstances of Eng- 

 land in 1862 ; but unfortunately those who pressed 

 their views in the direction above-mentioned on Lord 

 Halifax (then Sir Charles Wood), while thousands 

 of their countrymen were suffering from want around 

 them, had not any more practical measures to 

 propose for the regeneration of the agricultural 

 interests of this country, and for the relief of the 

 poor starving operatives at their doors, than dis- 

 cussions on the abstract principles of political 

 economy. I had hoped also that the lesson which 

 experience had taught, and I had humbly laboured 

 to expound in 1862, if read at all, would not be 



