INDIAN FAMINES - Institute for Social and Economic Change

28 TRADITIONAL AND
As, in 1873, we were warned towards the end
of autumn of a possible famine in Bengal, and
thereafter we were made familiar with its insidious
marches; so, in 1769, did the disaster
progress in a similar way. The season of 1769
commenced badly, and the rain continued to
be withheld. "From September onwards, the
march of the calamity seems to have been without
abatement, and we have more and more
frequent mention of the state of the country,
distressed beyond conception, from the late prevailing
drought in every part of the province."·
On the 23d November 1769, the following letter
was written by the Bengal administration officers
to the Court of. Directors at home. It was
the first official note of warning given by them.
" It is with great concern, gentlemen, that we
are to inform you that we have a most melancholy
prospect before our eyes of universal distress
for want of grain, owing to an uncommon
drought that has prevailed over every part of
the country, insomuch that the oldest inhabitants
never remember to have known anything
• Sir G. Campbell, in his note to the Orissa Famine Commissioners'
Report. '. ,_ ,..,.