On the report of such generosity, the English and Dutch [in Patna] took the hint, and on his example, lodged the poor in several enclosures, where they were regularly fed and tended. In this manner, an immense multitude came to be rescued from the jaws of imminent death … But [elsewhere in Bengal] such a proceeding never came to anyone’s head. Indeed some who had been appointed overseers of the poor proved so intent on their own interest, that so far from working to procure plenty of grain, they were foremost in the use of violent methods to engross it.
