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.