| Description | He has read William's 'admirable and honorable' report of the famine in his district. He only doubts William's conclusions on one point, about traders; he wonders if they could have imported for profit and would like to get to the bottom of it. They were hampered by scarcity all round and the poverty of the people, he believes. It is clear that the traders were right even about Orissa, since they would have made little money. Chapman has drawn up 170 paragraphs as the Board's answer, 'but Grote has murdered the English of it, and generally emasculated it'. He thinks it painful that such a terrible visitation should be the subject of controversy. He praises William's report as 'the most interesting piece of Famine literature which I have yet read'. |