tempt to impede the efforts of industry by regulations, nor accelerate her progress by rewards; let it leave in entire freedom the exertions of labor and the employment of capital; let it remove all the obstacles which ignorance and avarice have hitherto raised up against the uncontrolled liberty of industry and commerce; and capital will naturally develope itself by its own movements in those directions which at once most advance the private interest of the capitalist and the augmentation of public, national wealth.

The following facts will show that the British Government affords every facility and encouragement to the rapid growth of capital among her people by continually extending the conquests of civilization and culture over the waste and wilderness. Every part of the United Kingdom shares in the benefits of internal improvement. The last ten years have seen a vast increase in the public works, canals, agriculture, manufactures, exports, natural produce of the soil, and in the population of Ireland. In England and Scotland, the improvements have been visible for more than a century past; and even in Wales the progress of melioration has been for some time perceptible; particularly in the county of Caernarvon, where the people have made a new harbor by which a safe and constant passage to Dublin is effected; and new roads by which the distance between the cities of London, Dublin, and Bath, are shortened by an average of at least fifty miles; besides the additional gain in time from the more rapid travelling over better roads. Canals, other harbors, embankments, plantations, woollen manufactories, iron works, and agricultural societies, have also increased the population and bettered the condition of this district of North-Wales. An instance of the rapid improvement of the British Metropolis is found in the fact that in the year 1790 the Government taxes

in the joint parishes of St. Giles and St. George, Bloomsbury, amounted to £21,000, per annum, and twenty years after, to wit, in 1810, they yielded £160,000 per annum. Indeed, Britain is the only country whose resources of wealth are such as to be able in a few hours to raise money sufficient for all the purposes of an entire campaign; to supply from her national magazines, stores, provisions, ammunition, clothing, accoutrements, and every requisite for whole fleets and armies, in all abundance, at the shortest notice; without diminishing the means of defending her own dominions; without even creating any perceptible deficiency in the fulness of her own home-market.

But to descend a little into particulars; we learn, from "A collection of Rules and Standing Orders of the House of Commons, relative to the application for private bills," &c. published in London, in 1807; that the inclosures of common and waste lands have been progressive in their increase for several years past. In the whole reign of Queen Anne only two inclosure-acts were passed. The first bill for the inclosure of common and waste lands, according to the more improved system of modern agriculture, was passed in the year 1709-10. In the reign of George the First sixteen inclosure-acts were passed, averaging rather more than two for each session of Parliment during that reign. The same average continued throughout the early part of the reign of George the Second, until the year 1750; after which the number increased rapidly; amounting in the session of 1758, up to twenty-four, and in 1759 up to thirty; making a total during the entire reign, of two hundred and twenty-six. In many sessions during the reign of George the Third, the number was from sixty to eighty; and in 1777, it rose to ninety-nine; whence from the year 1760 to 1796, the total of inclosure-acts amounted to one thousand five hundred and thirty-two;

although the average number in the years 1789, 1790, 1791, 1792, 1793, 1794, 1795, 1796, was not so great as from 1766 to 1778; as will appear from the following extract taken from the "Report of the Lord's Committee of Secresy," ordered to be printed 28th April, 1797:

Since the year 1796, the annual average of inclosure-bills has been increasing. The number of acres brought under the plough during the last hundred years in England, from 1710 to 1810, exceeds six millions of acres. The wilder and more uncultivated districts of the kingdom have been the chief applicants for these bills; the county of Middlesex has had only nine; while Lincolnshire has had two hundred, and Yorkshire three hundred and seventy-two. In the session of 1809-10, no less than one hundred and forty inclosure-acts were passed; and such has been the benefit derived from this and other improvements in the agriculture of Britain, that in five years, from 1805 to 1810, inclusive, the British Isles have given an increase of agricultural produce in grain, amounting to four millions of quarters annually; see Mr. Curwen's "Report to the Workington Agricul tural Society," &c. before referred to. The value of inclosures may be estimated from this fact, that in the year 1807, the inclosure of Wildmore-fen, below Boston, in Lincolnshire, brought into immediate cultivation 40,000 acres of inundated and unprofitable land. It averaged a purchase-money of £50 an acre;

making a total value of £2,000,000. The expense of inclosing, draining, fencing, &c. amounted to £400,000; leaving a net profit to the proprietors of the soil of £1,600,000.

Upon the advantages of inland navigation in augmenting productive industry, commercial intercourse, population, means of subsistence, and all the permanent sources of national wealth, it is now needless to expatiate; since the experience of so many ages has decided in their favor. Whoever wishes to see this subject discussed with great ability and knowledge may consult Mr. Gallatin's very masterly treatise, intituled "Report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the subject of public roads and canals; made in pursuance of a resolution of the Senate, of March 2d, 1807;" printed by order of the Senate of the United States, April 12th, 1808.—The inland navigation of Britain was not sufficiently attended to, until in the beginning of the reign of George the Third the success of the Duke of Bridgewater's canal turned the spirit of speculation and adventure into that direction. After this, canals multiplied throughout the kingdom; more particularly of late years. Ninety-nine navigation and canal-bills were passed in the course of eight years, from 1789 to 1796; namely,

Total,

69 £7,415,100.

Money raised for these, £2,377,200. Money raised,

Into the details of British inland navigation neither leisure nor desire allows us now to enter: these and other information of great importance respecting the progress made in cutting canals throughout the

United Kingdom, will be found in ample abundance in the "Reports of the Commissioners for making and maintaining an inland navigation, commonly called the Caledonian Canal,' from the eastern to the western sea, by Inverness and Fort Willium, in Scotland," to the Hon. the House of Commons, No. 1. ordered to be printed April 10th, 1804; No. 2. printed May 30th, 1805; No. 3. printed June 2d, 1806; Nos. 4, 5, printed June, 1808. The act of Parliament for undertaking the Caledonian Canal was passed July 27th, 1803, and the commissioners finding that at a small additional expense the canal might be enlarged to admit the passage of thirty-two gun frigates, they directed the locks to be increased in length from 162 to 170 feet, and the breadth from 38 to 40 feet; the average depth is 20 feet. The canal itself is 20 feet deep, 50 feet wide at bottom, and 110 feet wide at top. The canal can accommodate forty vessels of war and the largest merchant vessels. The number of laborers on the canal, consisting chiefly of Scottish Highlanders, was in 1803 only 150, in 1804 up to 900, in 1805 it had increased to nearly 1,200, and in the succeeding years averaged nearly 1,500. The smallest vessels trading to the Baltic are 75 feet long, 21 feet wide, draw 12 feet water, and carry 120 tons burthen. The largest vessels are 130 feet long, 35 feet wide, draw 19 feet water, and carry 650 tons burthen. The length and severity of the winter of 1807-8 in Scotland proved most satisfactorily the firmness and solidity of the constructions of masonry, timber-work, and earth-embankments of the canal. The expense from October, 1803, to May, 1808, amounted to £193,343 2s. 7 d.

the sum received during that? time was

leaving a balance in hand of

S

223,986 16 5

30,643 13 94

See also papers relating to the inland navigation