INTRODUCTION. US' 



for a complete official history of these works, with necessary maps and profiles, 

 should be carefully collected and published. This duty was performed with 

 much accuracy by a legislative committee, with the assistance of John Van Ness 

 Yates, then secretary of state, who had been one of the most constant and effi- 

 cient friends of the policy, of whose history he thus became the guardian. 



On the 26th of October, 1825, the Erie canal was in a navigable condition 

 throughout its entire length, affording an uninterrupted passage from Lake Erie 

 to tide water in the Hudson. Thus in eight years artificial communications four 

 hundred and twenty-eight miles in length, had been opened between the more 

 important inland waters, and the commercial emporium of the state. This au- 

 spicious consummation was celebrated by a telegraphic discharge of cannon, 

 commencing at Lake Erie, and continued along the banks of the canal and of the 

 Hudson, announcing to the city of New- York, the entrance on the bosom of the 

 canal of the first barge that was to arrive at the commercial emporium from the 

 American Mediterraneans. Borne in this barge, De Witt Clinton and his co- 

 adjutors enjoyed the spectacle of a free people rejoicing in the assurances of 

 prosperity increased, and national harmony confirmed ; and were hailed, in their 

 passage, through towns and cities they might almost be said to have called into 

 existence, with the language of irrepressible gratitude and affection. 



The governor, suppressing all feelings of self-gratulation, announced these 

 events to the legislature of 1826, as evidences of the ability, as well as the dis- 

 position of republican governments to promote the welfare of mankind. He 

 congratulated the representatives of the people that the spirit of internal im- 

 provement continued in full power here, and had diffused itself into other states. 

 He announced that the Oswego canal, and the Cayuga and Seneca canal, had 

 been diligently prosecuted ; the proposed canal between the Hudson and Dela- 

 ware rivers, a work encountering formidable physical difficulties, was in success- 

 ful progress, under the care of an incorporation which sought a trade with the coal 

 districts of Pennsylvania, and that commissioners, appointed at a previous session, 

 were surveying a road from Lake Erie to the Hudson, and works scarcely 



