A History of the Mahrattas v2.c52.15

v2.c52.15

² [Holkar’s army on its march to Poona had laid waste the whole countryside. The Pindāris followed in its wake and reduced the Deccan and Carnatic to such depths of misery and want that cows, buffaloes and even human beings are said to have been devoured by the starving peasantry. The price of grain stood at 1½ lb. per rupee, and notwithstanding the activity of private charity, and importations of grain and liberal remissions of revenue by the Pēshwā’s government, continuous hordes of starving emigrants poured into the Konkan and Gujarāt, leaving a trail of dead and dying behind them. The failure of the late rains of 1803 accentuated the calamity wrought by human agency; the river at Poona was black with putrescent corpses, and hunger, hand in hand with cholera, left numerous villages permanently desolate. Among those who endeavoured with some success to mitigate the prevailing misery were Lady Mackintosh in Bombay, who collected £4,000 for relief, and General Wellesley, who improvised relief works and free doles for the people of Ahmadnagar. The part played by the Bombay Government during this crisis is described by Forbes (Oriental Memoirs, iv. 291–5), who quotes the fine address delivered by Sir James Mackintosh, Recorder of Bombay, to the Grand Jury in 1804. ‘I am sure,’ he said, ‘that I considerably understate the facts in saying that the British Government in this island has saved the lives of 100,000 persons, and, what is more important, that it has prevented the greater part of the misery through which they must have passed before they found refuge in death, besides the misery of all those who loved them or who depended on their care.’ (B.C.G., ii. 133–5.)]