famine. These famines were typically followed by various infectious diseases such as bubonic plague and influenza, which attacked and killed a population already weakened by starvation. British response The first major famine that took place under East India Company's rule was the Bengal Famine of 1770. About a quarter to a third of the population of Bengal starved to death in about a ten-month period. East India Company's raising of taxes disastrously coincided with this famine and exacerbated it, even if the famine was not caused by the British colonial government. Following this famine, "Successive British governments were anxious not to add to the burden of taxation." The rains failed again in Bengal and Odisha in 1866. Policies of laissez faire were employed, which resulted in partial alleviation of the famine in Bengal. However, the southwest Monsoon made the harbor in Odisha inaccessible. As a result, food could not be imported into Odisha as easily as Bengal. In 1865–66, a severe drought struck Odisha and was met by British official inaction. The British Secretary of State for India, Lord Salisbury, did nothing for two months, by which time a million people had died. The lack of attention to the problem caused Salisbury to never feel free from blame. Some prominent British citizens such as William Digby agitated for policy reforms and famine relief, but Lord Lytton, the governing British viceroy in India, opposed such changes in the belief that they would stimulate shirking by Indian workers. Reacting against calls for relief during the 1877–79 famine, Lytton replied, "Let the British public foot the bill for its 'cheap sentiment,' if it wished to save life at a cost that would bankrupt India," substantively ordering "there is to be no interference of any kind on the part of Government with the object of reducing the price of food," and instructing district officers to "discourage relief works in every possible way .... Mere distress is not a sufficient reason for opening a relief work." The Lt.-Governor of Bengal, Sir Richard Temple, successfully intervened in the Bihar famine of 1874 with little to no mortality; this is the only known example of adequate measures meeting a food crisis by the British. Temple was criticized by many British officials for spending too much on famine relief. Then in 1876, a large-scale famine broke out in Madras. Lord Lytton's administration believed that 'market forces alone would