°29°2 



menl, tour hundred and fourteen thousand bags of rice; and there 

 remain one hundred and eighty thousand bags contracted for 

 which are yet to arrive; forming an aggregate of nearly six hun- 

 dred thousand bags, and amounting to the value of fifty lacs of 

 rupees, or six hundred thousand pounds sterling. During the 

 same time there have been imported by private merchants four 

 hundred and eighty thousand bags of rice; making in all an im- 

 portation of a million of bags, and amounting in value to one mil- 

 lion pounds sterling. 



" The effects of this importation on the population of our own 

 territories, it is not very difficult to estimate. The population of 

 Bombay, Salsette, and Caranja, and of the city of Surat, I de- 

 signedly under-estimate at four hundred thousand. I am entitled 

 to presume, that if the}' had continued subject to native govern- 

 ments, they would have shared the fate of the neighbouring pro- 

 vinces, which still are so subject. 1 shall not be suspected of 

 any tendency towards exaggeration, by any man who is acquainted 

 with the state of the opposite continent, when I say, that in such 

 a case an eighth of that population must have perished. Fifty 

 thousand human beings have, therefore, been saved from death in 

 ils most miserable form, by the existence of a British government 

 in this island. I conceive myself entitled to take credit for the 

 whole benefits of the importation; for that which was imported by 

 private merchants, as well as for that which was directly imported 

 by the government; because, without the protection and security 

 enjoyed under a British government, that commercial capital and 

 credit would not have existed by which the private importation 

 was effected. 



