INTRODUCTION. 95 



at a proper time, cooperate in the enterprise. The commissioners also announced 

 that grants of land would be made by the Holland Company of 100,632 acres ; 

 by Le Roy Bayard and McEvers, 2,500 acres ; by the heirs of the Pulteney 

 estate, a large tract, and by governor Hornby, 3,500 acres. These cessions were 

 ultimately realized, with a liberal donation from Gideon Granger. 



Mr. Root introduced a bill into the senate which two days afterwards passed 

 that body, repealing so much of the act then in force as authorized the commis- 

 sioners to borrow five millions of dollars. This repeal was a virtual abandon- 

 ment of the policy of internal improvements. The divisions in the assembly 

 show a majority of eighteen in favor of the repeal ; and in the senate the majority 

 was eight. In 1816, after the close of the war, Daniel D. Tompkins, governor, 

 in his annual speech, submitted for the consideration of the legislature, the expe- 

 diency of prosecuting the canals. Citizens in various parts of the state, and 

 especially in New- York, Albany and Troy, and in the towns and counties situ- 

 ated in the vicinity of the proposed routes, now earnestly applied for vigorous 

 measures to accomplish the objects so long delayed. Among these petitions was 

 a memorial by inhabitants of the city of New- York, from the pen of De Witt 

 Clinton. 



The memorialists declared, that since the object was connected with the essen- 

 tial interests of the country, and calculated in its commencement to reflect honor 

 on the state, and in its completion to exalt it to an elevation of unparalleled pros- 

 perity, they were fully persuaded that centuries might pass away before a subject 

 would be again presented so worthy of all the attention of the legislature, and so 

 deserving of all its patronage and support — that the improvement of intercourse 

 between different parts of the same country, had always been considered the first 

 duty, and the most noble employment of government — that canals united cheap- 

 ness, celerity, certainty and safety in the transportation of commodities — that they 

 operated upon the general interests of society, in the same way as machines for 

 saving labor in manufactures ; and as to all the purposes of beneficial communi- 

 cation, they diminished the distances between places, and therefore encouraged 



