[ 289 ] 



behalf fo cheap or regular as upon a canal. 

 This river partakes, with others, of dif- 

 advantages, to which canals are not fubje(5l, 

 fuch as tides, floods, working one way 

 againft a ftream, &c. &c. from all which 

 the new navigations are pcrfedly free ; add 

 to this, the old navigation here is cramped 

 with ten times the number of locks, that 

 the canal would be. 



But fomething fure is due to the execu- 

 tion and polTeffion of works, which com- 

 mand the attention and admiration of all 

 Europe: The number of foreigners who 

 have viewed the Duke of Bridgewater\ 

 prefent navigation, is furprizing; what 

 would it be if his Grace was to extend it 

 over a boifterous arm of the fea: — Tr» 

 exhibit a navigation afloat in the air, with 

 fliips of an hundred tons failing full mailed 

 beneath it. What a fplendid idea!* 



* In fome of the controverfial writings, publiflied 

 on the propofition of a navigation from Hull to Ltver- 

 ^ooly the prejudiced, or rather interefted people, who 

 were (launch friends to the old navigations, and by the 

 by, ridiculed canals^ in a manner which mult now, 

 while fuch great fuccefs attends them, turn, I think, to 

 their fhame , among other arguments alTerted the 

 fufficicncy of the navigation to Liverpool already exit- 

 ing, a ftrolce in one of their nnfwerers is excellent: — 

 ♦' The delays and inconveniences render this (the old) 



Vol. III. U jiavf- 



