250 THE INTERRUPTION OF INDUSTRY 



from the Resident of Murshedabad : ' Up to the end 

 of March,' he says, 'the ryots hoped for rain, but God 

 was pleased to withhold that blessing till the latter 

 end of May. The scene of misery that intervened 

 shocks humanity too much to bear description. Cer- 

 tain it is that in several parts the living have fed on 

 the dead, and the number that has perished in those 

 provinces that have suffered most is calculated to have 

 been, within these few months, as six to sixteen of the 

 whole inhabitants.' The last phrase has all the ap- 

 pearance of being an English translation of a popular 

 computation, for 6 annas in the rupee would be the 

 ordinary Indian way of representing this fraction. On 

 July 12 we have a further report from the Resident. 

 'The representations I have hitherto made from hence 

 of the misery and distress of the inhabitants for want 

 of grain and provisions were faint in comparison to 

 the miseries endured in and within thirty miles of the 

 city. Rice only 3 seers for a rupee, other grain in 

 proportion. And even at those exorbitant prices not 

 nearly enough for the supply of half the inhabitants ; 

 so that in the city of Moorshedabad alone it is cal- 

 culated that more than 500 are starved daily, and in 

 the villages and country adjacent the numbers said to 

 perish exceed belief 



The famine ended with the rice harvest in October 

 and November, 1770. On December 14 the Govern- 

 ment inform the directors that the famine has entirely 

 ceased. Numerous reports testify to the depopula- 

 tion of the province. In Birbhum it was said ' many 

 hundreds of villages are entirely depopulated, and even 

 in the large towns not a fourth of the houses are 

 inhabited. In this large district in 1765 there had 

 been close on 6,000 villages under cultivation. Three 

 years after the famine there were little more than 

 4,500.' The estimate made by the Council in Novem- 

 ber, 1772, and officially reported after its members had 

 made circuits through the country in order to ascertain 



