94 GRAND CANAL. 



entirely complete, the navigation of it, including whatever the 

 country towns took from Dublin, would prove of fuch a beg-^ 

 garly account, that it would then remain a greater monument 

 of folly if poffible, than at prefent. Some gentlemen I have 

 talked with on this fubject, have replied // is a job ; 'twas meant 

 as a job; you are not to conftder it as a canal of trade but as a cunal 

 for public money ; but even this, though advanced in Ireland, is 

 not upon principle. I anfwer that fomething has been done, 

 fourteen miles with innumerable locks, quays, bridges, &c. are 

 abfolutely finifhed, though only for the benefit of eels and fkat- 

 ing : Why throw this money away ? Half what thefe fourteen 

 miles have coft would have finifhed the Newry canal, and per- 

 fected the Dungannon collieries. Admit your argument of the 

 job ; I feel its weight ; I fee its force ; but that does not ac- 

 count for the fums actually expended. Might not the lame per- 

 fons have plundered the public to the fame amount, in execut- 

 ing fome work of real utility ; from which fomething elfe might 

 have refuhed than difgrace and ignominy to the nation ? 



As to the other navigations, there is in general this objecti- 

 on to-be made to them all, however neceflary they might be, 

 they are ufelefs for want of being completed ; three-fourths 

 are only begun. The gentlemen in the neighbourhood of them 

 have had intereft enough in the navigation board to get a part 

 only voted, and from the variety of undertakings going on at 

 the fame time, and all for the fame reafon incomplete, the 

 public utility has been more trifling from all, than from a fingie 

 one finiflied. Sorry I am to fay, that a hiftory of public works 

 in Ireland would be a hiftory of jobs, which has and will prove 

 of much worfe confequence, than may be at firft apparent : it 

 has given a confiderable check to permitting grants of money. 

 Adminiftration feeing the ufes to which it has been applied, 

 have viewed thefe mifapplications, as they term them, of the 

 public money with a very jealous eye. They have curtailed 

 much : until another very queftionable mealure, the bounty 

 on the inland carriage of corn to Dublin demanded fo much as 

 to leave nothing for jobs of another fort ; that meafure may 

 be repealed, and the money applied to it will be at the difpofal 

 of parliament, either for the common purpofe of government, or 

 applicable to fome national improvement of a more decifive 

 nature ; the latter may, after fo many inflances, be rejected 

 for fear of jobs : how melancholy a confideration is it, that in 

 a kingdom which from various caufes had been fo fortunate as 

 to fee a great portion of public treafure annually voted for 

 public purpofes, fo abominably mifapplied, and pocketed by 

 individuals, as to bring a ridicule and reproach upon the very 

 idea of fuch grants. There is fuch a want of public fpirit, of 

 candour and of care for the interefts of pofterity in fuch a con- 

 duft, that it cannot be branded with an expreflion too harfli, 

 or a condemnation too pointed : nor lefs deierving of feverity 

 is it, if flowing from political and fecret motives of burthening 



the 



