In my first letter I mentioned the state of our inland navigation,
neglected as it had been from the reign of King William to the time of
my observation. It was not till the present reign that the Duke of
Bridgewater's canal first excited a spirit of speculation and adventure
in this way. This spirit showed itself, but necessarily made no great
progress, in the American war. When peace was restored, it began of
course to work with more sensible effect; yet in ten years from that
event the bills passed on that subject were not so many as from the year
1793 to the present session of Parliament. From what I can trace on the
statute-book, I am confident that all the capital expended in these
projects during the peace bore no degree of proportion (I doubt, on
very grave consideration, whether all that was ever so expended was
equal) to the money which has been raised for the same purposes since
the war.[49] I know that in the last four years of peace, when they rose
regularly and rapidly, the sums specified in the acts were not near one
third of the subsequent amount. In the last session of Parliament, the
Grand Junction Company, as it is called, having sunk half a million, (of
which I feel the good effects at my own door,) applied to your House for
permission to subscribe half as much more among themselves. This Grand
Junction is an inosculation of the Grand Trunk; and in the present
session, the latter company has obtained the authority of Parliament to
float two hundred acres of land, for the purpose of forming a reservoir,
thirty feet deep, two hundred yards wide at the head, and two miles in
length: a lake which may almost vie with that which once fed the now
obliterated canal of Languedoc.
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