I'lM-; FACE. vii 



workmen. When a new haven was required at 

 Yarmouth, Joas Johnson, the Dutch engineer, was 

 employed to plan and construct the works ; and 

 when a serious breach occurred in the banks of the 

 \Vitham, at Boston, Matthew Hake was sent for from 

 Gravelines in Flanders ; and he brought with him not 

 only the mechanics but the manufactured iron required 

 for the work. The art of bridge-building had sunk so 

 low in England about the middle of the last century, 

 that we were under the necessity of employing the Swiss 

 engineer Labelye to build Westminster Bridge. 



In short, w r e depended for our engineering, even more 

 than we did for our pictures and our music, upon 

 foreigners. At a time when Holland had completed its 

 magnificent system of water communication, and when 

 France, Germany, and even Russia had opened up im- 

 portant lines of inland navigation, England had not cut 

 a single canal, whilst our roads were about the worst in 

 Europe. It was not until the year 1760 that Brindley 

 began his first canal for the Duke of Bridgewater. 



After the lapse of a century, we find the state of things 

 has become entirely reversed. Instead of borrowing / 

 engineers from abroad, we now send them to all parts of 

 the world. British-built steam-ships ply on every sea ; 

 we export machinery to all quarters, and supply Holland 

 itself with pumping engines. During that period our 

 engineers have completed a magnificent system of canals, 

 turnpike-roads, bridges, and railways, by which the in- 

 ternal communications of the country have been com- 

 pletely opened up ; they have built lighthouses round 

 our coasts, by which ships freighted with the produce of 

 all 1 ;n i Is, when nearing our shores in the dark, are safely 

 lighted along to their destined havens ; they have hewn 

 out and built docks and harbours for the accommodation 

 of a gigantic commerce ; whilst their inventive genius 



