302 FERRIES AX1> XAYKIABLK RIVERS. PART IV. 



rivers well situated I'm 1 trade, great woods, good wool and 



large beasts, witli plenty <>f iron stone, and pit coals, 

 with lands fit to hear flax, and with mines of tin and 

 lead ; and besides all these things in it, England has a 

 good air. But to make these advantages available, the 

 country, he held, must be opened up by navigation. 

 First of all, he proposed that the Thames should be 

 improved to Oxford, and connected with the Severn by 

 the Avon to Bristol these two livers, lie insisted, 

 being the master rivers of England. When this has 

 been done, says Mr. Yarranton, all the great and lieavv 

 carriage from Cheshire, all Wales, Shropshire, Staf- 

 fordshire, and Bristol, will be carried to London and 

 recarried back to the great towns, especially in the 

 winter time, at half the rates they now pay, which 

 will much promote and advance manufactures in the 

 counties and places above named. " If I were a doctor," 

 he says, " and could read a Lecture of the Circulation of 

 the Blood, I should by that awaken all the City: For 

 London is as the Heart is in the Body, and the great 

 Rivers are as its Veins ; let them be stopt, there will 

 then be great danger either of death, or else such Veins 

 will apply themselves to feed some other part of the 

 Body, which it was not properly intended for : For I 

 tell you, Trade will creep and steal away from any place, 

 provided she may be better treated elsewhere." But he 

 goes on " I hear some say, You projected the making 

 Navigable the River Stoure in Worcestershire : what is 

 the reason it was not finished ? I say it was my projec- 

 tion, and I will tell you the reason it was not finished. 

 The River Stoure and some other Rivers were granted 

 by an Act of Parliament to certain Persons of Honour, 

 and some progress was made in the work ; but within a 

 small while after the Act passed it was let fall again. 

 But it being a brat of my own, I was not willing it 

 should be Abortive; therefore I made offers to perfect 

 it, leaving a third part of the Inheritance to me and my 



