A General History of Inland Navigation, Foreign and Domestic

roads into the remoter counties, because those remoter counties, it was pretended, from the cheapness of labour, would be able to sell hay and corn cheaper in the London markets than themselves, and would thereby reduce their rents, or ruin their cultivation. Their rents, however, have risen, and their cultivation has been improved since that time.

All canals may be considered as so many roads of a certain kind, on which one horse will draw as much as thirty horses on ordinary turnpike roads, or on which one man alone will transport as many goods as three men and eighteen horses usually do on common roads. The public would be great gainers were they to lay out upon the making every mile of a canal twenty times as much as they expend upon a mile of turnpike road; but a mile of canal is often made at a less expense than the mile of turnpike, consequently there is a great inducement to multiply the number of canals.

Bad roads, and a difficulty of communication between places remote from each other, occasion a kind of sterility in a country, and render most things much dearer and scarcer than they would otherwise be; and a nation placed in the most favourable climate, and blessed with the most fertile soil, if it have bad roads, and be without the convenient modes of conveyance, will not be so rich and affluent as one less favoured in climate and soil, which shall have excellent roads and canals, supposing the genius and industry of both nations to be the

same.

When the Europeans first discovered America, the Peruvians, who were to a certain degree a civilized

nation, had no other methods of transporting goods and heavy materials but on porters' shoulders, or by the force of men's arms, and it has been supposed that 2,000 of them have been employed in removing one stone; a wide difference from modern times, when the improvements of mechanics in Europe will cause the same to be moved by five or six men, and with as little labour transported many miles on a canal. The cities, towns, and villages in Holland have such a communication with each other by water, that they appear like streets of the same city in respect to the convenience of carriage; and from every town of any size, at fixed times, passageboats go from and to the neighbouring towns, conveying passengers and goods at cheap rates, and not less certain than our stage coaches. Till these advantages are adopted on our English canals, I shall not consider all the benefits to be received from them, which may be reasonably expected. The cheap and very pleasant conveyance by the Dutch Trackskuyts are mentioned with satisfaction by all travellers in that country; in general the canals of England pass through a country far more pleasant and more varied with hill and dale; the conveyance would be safe, and the voyage, if I may so term it, would, in the summer season, be enchanting, enjoying motion without fatigue, and all the pleasures of travelling at a very small expense.

Were we to make the supposition of two states, the one having all its cities, towns, and villages, upon navigable rivers and canals that have an easy communication with each other, the other possessing only the common conveyance of land-carriage and supposing at the same time both states to be

equal as to soil, climate, and industry, commodities and manufactures in the former state might be expected 30 per cent. cheaper than in the latter, or in other words, the first state would be a third richer and more affluent than the second. This perhaps is one of the chief causes of the great wealth of China, which historians tell us is wholly intersected with navigable rivers and canals: Great Britain and Ireland might soon rival China in this last particular, and consequently their people in general might be more rich and affluent.

There is yet one objection made to navigable canals, which I have not noticed, viz. that they waste or take up too great a portion of land in the countries through which they pass; but I hope it will be a full and cogent answer to this objection, that ONE MILE of a canal, 14 yards wide or broad, takes up little more than five acres of land. If these then are the great advantages attending inland navigation, and if the objections raised against it are so weak, let us hope that the prejudices of the uninformed will not prevent any of the great and noble projects which yet remain to be executed.