Fowle's New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

A late letter from Bengal, giving an account of the famine there, says, Men and women, with their children in their hands, flocked to the camp, offering themselves for sale, for a quart of corn. Mothers sold their children for four annas each (or the fourth part of a rupee or half crown.) I could have purchased a thousand children at this price, from four to ten years of age.-- I actually did purchase three very fine children between 7 and 8 years of age, for three rupees or half crowns. I might have had them for a third of the sum, together with their mothers. I have them now. I had writings delivered with them, properly attested by the Cutwall (or Magistrate) but as I shudder at the thought of one human creature being a slave to another, and fearing. should any accident happen to me, my executors might sell them, I have destroyed the writings, and declared them free. My sole motive for purchasing them, was to preserve them from death.