NARRATIVE OF THE MUTINY, &c. 211 



market, at the accustomed price of potatoes sent from Long Wood 

 (and they of course, must have considered them reasonable) ; but 

 soon after those purchasers returned the potatoes, and said they 

 were too dear, in which the whole garrison seemed to combine. 

 This was, indeed, the first complaint that occurred against the 

 late reduced price of potatoes. If the soldiers will but look back 

 to the difliculty they formerly experienced, and to the exorbitant 

 rates that were extorted from them in procuring that excellent 

 substitute for bread (so eagerly sought after, three years ago.) 

 and compare the immense quantities that have been furnished 

 them from Long Wood, during the last two years, they must be 

 sensible they have derived peculiar advantages from the late 

 enlarged scale of cultivation. Those advantages are, at least, 

 equivalent to former indulgences, which it is, at present, impossible 

 to grant, of purchasing rice and peas from the Company's stores. 

 " In all countries, and in all situations, temporary inconveni- 

 ences of this kind will occasionally arise ; and which no human 

 foresight can prevent. Disappointments in the arrival of flour 

 from England and America, and of rice from India, and other 

 causes, have, unavoidably, occasioned a difference in the supplies 

 to the garrison. But, in the year 1795, when the corn crops in 

 England had failed, what was the state of the United Kingdoms.^ 

 The very first families there were glad, and contented, to use the 

 only substitute for bread corn that was procurable, and this sub- 

 stitute was potatoes. Are soldiers then, of all men in the world, 

 whose profession often leads them to the severest privations 

 and hardships, to depart from their character, by murmuring and 

 complaining, merely because they cannot get an indulgence they 

 were accustomed to ; and at a time too when there is no real 

 want of food, and when they receive their full rations of bread 

 and meat ? — Ought they not rather to prove themselves worthy of 



