Famine
For the existence of this word, we are indebted to the magnanimous
exploits of Conquerors and Kings. It is generally
applied in an extensive sense, signifying whole nations or provinces
reduced to a want of the necessary articles of life; a general scarcity.
Indulgent nature had liberally provided, throughout the world, every thing
requisite for the sustenance and use of its inhabitants; and it is only by
an ungrateful abuse of her liberality, by a departure from her mild and
equal system, that man is become his own tormentor. The fatal politics
which European governments have either preserved, or borrowed, from the
old feudal system; the encouragement granted, especially by kingly powers,
to exclusive charters and monopolies; an irresistible incentive to avarice
and peculation; the miserable distinctions into which they have split
society, and the plans invented, under the plausible bur murderous
pretexts of commerce, for the purposes of robbery and
plunder, have inflicted amongst so many others, this horrible
scourge on mankind. Monarchical governments are particularly well
skilled in the arts of reducing a nation to a state of
famine. When the English bought up all the
rice at Calcutta, the natives daily expired by thousands at the doors of
the houses inhabited by our countrymen, and the jackals were tranquilly
beheld in immense numbers pouring down from the mountains, to regale
themselves on their carcases, and to drink their blood; yet this dreadful
spectacle made little impression on British sensibility. One individual,
Sir Francis Sykes, originally a shoe-black (happy for the poor inhabitants
of Bengal, had he never quitted that obscure harmless station) is supposed
to have acquired 200,000l. by the above monopoly, by which almost as many
Indians are supposed to have perished; so rigidly id they adhere to the
purity of their religion, which prohibits, in all cases, the use of animal
flesh; nevertheless Sir Francis has been long returned to Europe with his
wealth, enjoys unmolested, otium cum dignitate; has a
seat in the British senate, boroughs at his command, and has been
rewarded, by our cost gracious Sovereign, with the title of
Baronet.
Famine is one of the gentlest instruments
employed by our heaven-born minister in the present
justand religious war with France. All the
treasons he has fomented, all the massacres he has planned and caused to
be committed, having proved insufficient, he still indulges the hope of
being able to starve twenty-five millions of people, and
thereby at last to conquer that nation.
It has been well observed by a sagacious writer, that
if there were no Kings, there would be
no Wars; and, certainly, f there were no
wars, there could be no conquests; of course, famine would be unknown;
for, nature seldom or never, in the worst of seasons, is herself so
rigorous, even in the most barren regions, or where the inhabitants are
most addicted to sloth and effeminacy, as to refuse supply of their real
wants. Indeed in those countries where the heat of climate disposes the
natives to indolence, nature in general yields her gifts
spontaneously;whereas, in more ungrateful climes, the people are prone to
toil and labour. But war does the business effectually in all countries,
however fertile or industrious. During the war previous to the peace of
Ryswick, the price of corn was double in England, and in
Scotland quadruple its ordinary rate; and in
one of the years pending that war, eighty thousand persons died of
want in the last mentioned country. Nevertheless, while Kings,
Prelates, and Nobles, are not exposed to the horrors of famine,
it is perfectly confident that the people should always, as
at present, 1794, co-operate with their leaders to inflict it on
themselves. When famine rages in the heart of a country, the prodigality
of a court experiences no abatement; there it is unfelt;
courts are exempt from the calamities which they spread over the universe.