DREADFUL FAMINE IN BENGAL. 
503 
Dreadful Famine in Bengal. 
The principal grain cultivated in Bengal is rice, which is exported 
into other countries. By various accidents, however, the crop of 
rice sometimes fails, and a famine is produced, and of this there have 
been many instances in Bengal, as well as in other parts of Hindoo- 
stan. One of the most deplorable of this kind happened in 1770. The 
nabob and several great men of the country distributed rice gratis to 
the poor, until their stocks began to fail, when those donations were 
of consequence withdrawn. Vast multitudes then came down to 
Calcutta, the capital English settlement in the province, in hopes of 
meeting with relief at that place. The granaries of the Company, 
however, being quite empty, none could be afforded ; so that when 
the famine had prevailed a fortnight, many thousands fell down in the 
streets and fields ; whose bodies, mangled by the dogs and vultures, 
corrupting in the air, seemed to threaten a plague as the consequence 
of the famine. An hundred people were daily employed on the Com- 
pany’s account, with doolys, sledges, and bearers, to throw them into 
the river. At this time the fish could not be eaten, the river being so 
full of carcases ; and many of those who ventured to feed upon them 
died suddenly. Hogs, ducks, and geese also fed mostly on carnage, 
so that the only meat that could be procured was mutton ; and this, 
from the dryness of the season, was so small, that a quarter of it 
would scarcely weigh one pound and half. This dreadful famine was 
occasioned by a preternatural drought. In this country they have 
two harvests, one in April, called the little harvest, which consists of 
the smaller grain ; the second called the grand harvest, is only of rice. 
But by a drought which happened in 1769, the great harvest of that 
year failed, as did also the little one of 1770, which produced the 
dreadful consequences already mentioned. 
The Spanish Armada. 
The armada which attempted to invade England in the reign of 
queen Elizabeth, is famous in history. This armada, to which the 
Spaniards, in confidence of success, gave the name of Invincible, 
consisted of one hundred and fifty ships, most of which were greatly 
superior in strength and size to any that had been seen before. It 
had on board near twenty thousand soldiers and eight thousand sailors, 
besides two thousand volunteers of the most distinguished families in 
Spain. It carried two thousand six hundred and fifty great guns, 
was victualled for half a year, and contained such a quantity of mili- 
tary stores, as only the Spanish monarch, enriched by the treasures 
of the Indies and America, could supply. The troops on board were 
to be joined by thirty-four thousand more, which the duke of Parma 
had assembled in the neighbourhood of Nieuport and Dunkirk. 
For transporting these, he had, with incredible labour, provided ^a- 
great number of flat-bottomed boats, and had brought sailors to navi- 
gate them from the towns in the Baltic. Most of these vessels had 
been built at Antwerp, and as he durst not venture to bring them by 
sea to Nieuport, lest they should have been intercepted by the Dutch, 
