Such was the state of the country in 1762, as witnessed by Mr. Hastings, and such it continued till Clive’s government,—Clive, who so forcibly described it to the Directors; and what did Clive do? He aggravated it, enriched himself enormously by the very system, and so left it. Such it continued till Mr. Hastings,—this Mr. Hastings, who so feelingly had written his views and abhorrence of it to the President Vansittart, came into supreme power, and what did the wise and benevolent Mr. Hastings? He became the Aaron’s-rod of gift-takers; the prince of exactors, and the most unrelenting oppressor of the natives that ever visited India, or perhaps any other country. In the mean time this system of rapacity and extortion had reduced the people to the most deplorable condition of poverty and wretchedness imaginable. The monopoly of trade, and the violent abduction of all their produce in the shape of taxes, dispirited them to the most extreme degree, and brought on the country those famines and diseases for which that period is so celebrated. In 1770 occurred that dreadful famine, which has throughout Europe excited so much horror of the English. They have been accused of having directly created it, by buying up all the rice, and refusing to sell any of it except at the most exorbitant price. The author of the “Short History of the English Transactions in the East Indies,” thus boldly states the fact. Speaking of the monopoly just alluded to, of salt, betel-nut, and tobacco, he says, “Money in this current came but by drops. It could not quench the thirst of those who waited in India to receive it. An expedient, such as it was, remained to quicken it. The natives could live with little salt, but could not want food. Some of the agents saw themselves well situated for collecting the rice into stores; they did so. They knew that the Gentoos would rather die than violate the principles of their religion by eating flesh. The alternative would therefore be between _giving what they had_, or _dying_! The inhabitants sunk. They that cultivated the land, and saw the harvest at the disposal of others, planted in doubt; scarcity ensued. Then the monopoly was easier managed,—sickness ensued. In some districts, the languid living left the bodies of their numerous dead unburied.”—p. 145.