spite of private and public effort, 800,000 persons died of hunger or disease, while the consequent remissions of land revenue fell not far short of a million sterling.
Humane by nature, Lord Auckland gave freely from his private purse in aid of the State funds towards the relief of human suffering; and his example encouraged others to spend their money and their time for the same good purpose. As a prudent statesman he recognized the need of preventive measures against the recurrence of a calamity which struck through the people at the State itself. The age of railways had hardly begun, even in Europe, nor had any large scheme of irrigation been as yet devised for that part of India whose harvests depended on the due amount and distribution of the yearly rainfall. Lord Hastings indeed had made a good beginning with the canals in the Delhi district, the cost of which, he declared, would be 'money laid out more profitably for the Company than it could be in any other mode of application.' But it remained for Colonel John Colvin of the Bengal Engineers to lay before Lord Auckland a scheme far more ambitious than any hitherto carried out. Lord Auckland readily sanctioned a full and searching inquiry into the probable working of Colvin's plans. A careful survey of the whole ground, conducted by Major Cautley, afterwards known to fame as Sir Proby Cautley, maker of the great Ganges Canal, resulted in the Report of May, 1840. In this Report Colvin's great project,
