INTRODUCTION. 97 



how unspeakably beneficial must it appear when the contemplation should be ex- 

 tended to the great lakes, and the country that surrounded them ; waters extending 

 two thousand miles, and a country containing- more territory than all Great Britain 

 and Ireland, and at least as much as France. After demonstrating that New- 

 Orleans and Montreal were the only formidable rivals of New-York for the 

 great prize of the western trade, and showing the advantages in that competition 

 which New- York would derive from the proposed Erie canal, a glowing view of 

 its prospective benefits was presented. Leaving to her rivals no inconsiderable 

 portion of the western trade, New- York, said the memorialists, would engross 

 more than sufficient to render her the greatest commercial city in the world. 

 The whole line of the canal would exhibit boats loaded with the various produc- 

 tions of our soil, and with merchandise from all parts of the world ; great manufac- 

 turing establishments would spring up ; agriculture would establish its granaries, 

 and commerce its warehouses, in all directions ; villages, towns and cities would 

 line the banks of the canal and the shores of the Hudson from Erie to New- 

 York ; the wilderness and the solitary place would become glad, and the desert 

 would blossom as the rose. 



The petitioners then presented the superior advantages of a continuous canal 

 from the Hudson to Lake Erie, over one which would terminate at Lake Ontario, 

 with a passage between that lake and Lake Erie around the falls of Niagara. 

 They then showed that the work might be completed by the use of the credit of 

 the state, provision being made to pay the interest on the money borrowed until 

 the canal should become productive of revenue. They urged with earnestness 

 the immediate commencement of the work. Delays, said they, are the refuge 

 of weak minds ; and to procrastinate on this occasion is to show a culpable inat- 

 tention to the bounties of nature, a total insensibility to the blessings of Provi- 

 dence, and an inexcusable neglect of the interests of society. If, they added, it 

 were intended to advance the views of individuals, or to foment the divisions of 

 party ; if the scheme promoted the interests of a few at the expense of the prospe- 

 rity of many ; if its benefits were limited as to place, or fugitive as to duration, 



Intr. 13 



