248 THE INTERRUPTION OF INDUSTRY 



three months together that vast multitudes were swept 

 away ; nor can their number be known but to Him 

 who knows everything that is hidden or invisible. 

 Whole villages and whole towns were swept away 

 by those two scourges, and they suddenly disappeared 

 from the face of the earth. It was in such calamitous 

 times that Mubarec-ed-dowlah was designed Nazim 

 of Bengal,' etc. 



This is a very meagre record of a great calamity, 

 and from it it is impossible to obtain a clear con- 

 ception of the famine of 1770. 



The following is a summary of the English records : 



On November 23, 1769, the Bengal Government 

 formally reported to the Court of Directors as 

 follows : 



* It is with extreme regret, gentlemen, that we are 

 to inform you that we have a most melancholy pros- 

 pect before our eyes of universal distress for want of 

 grain owing to an uncommon drought that has pre- 

 vailed over every part of the country, inasmuch that 

 the oldest inhabitants never remember to have known 

 anything like it.' 



On March 16, 1770, the Resident in Behar submitted 

 a report, giving the results of inquiries in various 

 districts. * They exhibited,' he says, * a most affecting 

 scene of poverty and distress, much beyond what I 

 should myself have credited from report. The de- 

 population in the interior parts of the country is now 

 more rapid than can well be imagined by any person 

 who has not been a witness of it.' As regards his 

 own headquarters he says : * The miseries of the poor 

 of this place increase in such a manner that no less 

 than 150 have died in a day at Patna.' The Resident 

 of Murshedabad reported that he had intended to pro- 

 ceed on tour, but was deterred for the present, being 

 ' persuaded that, though my humanity may be shocked 

 at the numberless scenes of distress that would pre- 

 sent themselves to my view, little would remain in 



