Pagina 185 de 2651

Want, famine, and mortality, would immediately prevail in that

class, and from thence extend themselves to all the superior

classes, till the number of inhabitants in the country was

reduced to what could easily be maintained by the revenue and

stock which remained in it, and which had escaped either the

tyranny or calamity which had destroyed the rest. This, perhaps,

is nearly the present state of Bengal, and of some other of the

English settlements in the East Indies. In a fertile country,

which had before been much depopulated, where subsistence,

consequently, should not be very difficult, and where,

notwithstanding, three or four hundred thousand people die of

hunger in one year, we may be assured that the funds destined for

the maintenance of the labouring poor are fast decaying.