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They forget that they had both feared and predicted it: they

imagine all at once that there must be grain sufficient, and that

the evil lies in an unwillingness to sell it for consumption.

Preposterous as these suppositions were, they were governed by

them, so that the speculators in grain, real or imaginary, the

farmers, the bakers, became the object of their universal

dislike. They could tell certainly where there were magazines

overflowing with grain, and could even enumerate the number of

sacks: they spoke with assurance of the immense quantity of corn

which had been despatched to other places, where probably the

people were deluded with a similar story, and made to believe

that the grain raised among them had been sent to Milan! They

implored from the magistrate those precautions, which always

appear equitable and simple to the populace.