204 



A. D. 



1790. 



agement, and Mr. Whitworth, the engineer, accompanied by the com- 

 mittee and the magiftrates of Glafgow, by launching a hogftiead of the 

 water of the Forth into the Clyde ; a ceremony of much more pro- 

 priety and meaning than the annual marriage of the dukes of Venice 

 with the Adriatic fea. 



Thus, after the labour of twenty-two years (or at lead twenty-two 

 years after the commencement of it) was finifhed the mofl arduous un- 

 dertaking of the kind in Great Britain ; a canal, which communicates 

 with the tides of two oppofite feas, and elevates vefTels, capable of navi- 

 gating the Ocean, to the height of 156 feet above the level of the fea, and 

 in one of the aquedudts to the height of 65 feet above the natural river*, 

 affording a fafe and commodious palTage for vefTels between Ireland, or 

 the weft fide of Great Britain, and the eaft fide of the country, or the 

 continent of Europe f . 



From many fads, related in the firft volume, the reader has already 

 feen the high eftimation in which the wool of England was held, and 

 the avidity wherewith it was fought after, by the manufadurers of other 

 countries, efpecially thofe of the Netherlands, Italy, and Spain, which 

 laft country is now univerfally acknowleged to polTefs the fineft wool 

 in Europe. Guicciardini, a refpedable Italian hiftorian of the fixteenth 

 century, defcribes the wool of England as fuperior to that of Spain, 

 which he ranks next to it ;}:. He alfo repeatedly mentions the wool of 

 Scotland, as in great requeft in the Netherlands in his time ; and we 

 know that it was a chief article of the exports of Scotland § till the year 



* This aqueducl over the river Kelvin greatly 

 exceeds that on the duke of Bridgewater's canal 

 (which even a profefTional engineer ridiculed the 

 boldnels of Brindley's genius for conceiving the 

 Idea of, and contemptuoully called a caftle in the 

 air) being 83 feet higli from the bed of the river 

 to the top of the bridge, and is laid by Phillips^ 

 in his Hifi0ry of caniils, to be fupciior to every 

 thing of the kind in Europe. 



Mr. Knox in the yeai- 1785 faid, that ' this can- 

 ' al, when fiiiidied, will be one of the greateft 

 ' works in Britain fmce the tiqie of the Romans.' 

 \_J^if'zu of the BMflj empire, p. 407.]] Are we 

 not apt to be dazzled beyond the bounds of reafon 

 by tke works of the Romans, which we have read 

 of in our youth., the age of admiration I Which 

 of the Roman u'orks in Britain, or indeed in the 

 whole extent of the Roman woidd, can bejuflly 

 compared, for grandeur of defign or execution, to 

 a_lofty aquednfl, fuftaining a weight of water fuf- 

 ficient to float a veflel capable of croffing the 

 Ocean, or to a fubterraneous tunnel navigation ? 

 Can any of them come in competition with even 

 one of (he locks of a large canal ? 



\ In Auguil 1790 the floop Agnes of above 

 eighty tuns, built <it Leith for the herring tlflieiy, 

 arrived at Greenock, being the firil fea veflel which 



pafled from the one firth to the other. In May 

 1 791 the Experiment failed in four days from 

 Dundee to Liverpool. And in the beginning of 

 the year 1792 the brig George of North Queens- 

 feny fuinidicd an inftance of a voyage, fo diftant 

 as to Madeira, being accomplldied by paffing out- 

 ward and homeward through the canal. Thus do 

 we fee the intercourle of diftant nations promoted 

 by a canal, occupying nearly tlie fame ground, on 

 which the barbarous Romans eredled their un- 

 availing fence to obllruift the intercourfe ofbreth- 

 len. 



\ That the proofs of the fupen'ority of Englifh 

 wool might relt chiefly on the unqueftionable le- 

 cords referred to in the firft volume and on foreign 

 authority, I have omitted the praifes of it, con- 

 tained in the inftruftions to feveral Euglifhmen 

 refiding in foreign countries in the fixteenth cen- 

 tury ; the teftimony of Thomas Edwards, agent 

 for the^ Rufiia company, in the year 1568; and 

 many detached notices of the fuperiority of Eng- 

 lifli wool, to be found in Hahluyt''s Vo'tages. 



^ I fay nothing of the high praifes of Scottifli 

 wool by inch foreign compilers as Munfter, Ub- 

 aldini, &c. The paflage of Ubaldini upon that 

 fubjedt is a mere tranflation from Heftor Boyfe, a 

 writer never to be trulled. 



