2 Inland Namgation of the 



the city of Hartford in Connecticut, to Barnet in Vermont, by 

 means of the Connecticut River. Locks had been erected at the 

 Little Falls of the Mohawk River, and a cut made from that 

 stream to one falling into Lake Oneida; and thus a laborious water 

 communication effected from Schenectady to Lake Ontario, 

 and, with the interruption of portages, to some of the smaller 

 lakes in the state of New York. A variety of canals had, indeed, 

 been projected — a few had actually been partially executed — 

 but the public had no faith in their success, and capital could 

 not be obtained to commence those projected, or complete those 

 actually begun. Apathy and distrust attended all schemes of 

 internal improvement ; and some new and powerful impulse 

 was required to arouse the attention of the community, and 

 prove the practicability and value of canals. To do this, it was 

 essential that resources, incapable of exhaustion by any excess 

 of expenditure beyond the strict estimates, should be provided, 

 and that an experiment should be made where the revenue 

 would be immediately sensible. To effect the first of these 

 objects, it was necessary to bring into action the credit and 

 revenues of one of the richer and more important states ; to 

 attain the second, it was essential to exercise great judgment 

 in the choice of the place where the first portion of canal should 

 be executed. 



This important preliminary step was at last made in the state 

 of New York. It was resolved, by its legislature, to pledge 

 the credit of the State, for a loan to make a canal from the 

 Hudson River to Lake Erie ; and, in the pursuance of this 

 scheme, a portion of the route was so skilfully chosen, as to 

 satisfy, at once, even the most violent opponents of the practi- 

 cability and profit of the enterprise. For this successful expe- 

 riment, — so important not only to the state of New York, and 

 those whose commercial convenience is subserved by this canal 

 directly, but to the Union in general, from the powerful influence 

 it has exerted upon public sentiment, — the United States is in a 

 great degree, indeed we may venture to say, wholly, indebted 

 to the present governor of the state of New York, Dewitt 

 Clinton. At a time of violent political struggle he ventured 

 his influence as a politician, and threw the whole weight of his 

 character and talent into the scale of internal improvement* 



