CHAP. IV. ROYAL CANAL OF IRELAND. 151 



with contempt, and the shoemaker was laughed out of 

 the board-room. But the indignant man set to work 

 with energy, got up a company, laid down a line of 

 navigation from Dublin to the Shannon near Longford, 

 passing by Mullingar, secured the support of the landed 

 proprietors through whose property the line passed, 

 and succeeded in obtaining an Act of Parliament autho- 

 rizing the construction of the Eoyal Canal of Ireland, in 

 an unusually short space of time. The works were com- 

 menced with great eclat, but, before they had proceeded 

 far, it was found that the levels were entirely wrong, 

 and there were numerous difficulties to be overcome for 

 which no provision had been made. Then it was that 

 Mr. Rennie was called in, and found the whole concern 

 in confusion ; the works at a standstill in many places, 

 in bogs, in cuttings, in embankments, and in limestone 

 rocks, and the proprietors involved in almost endless 

 claims for compensation. He found it necessary to 

 resurvey the whole line and to alter the plans in 

 many essential respects ; after which the works pro- 

 ceeded. It proved to be a work of an extraordinary 

 character as regarded the difficulties, mostly unneces- 

 sary, which had been encountered in its construction ; 

 but as respected the beneficial results to the pro- 

 prietors, it proved an almost total failure. The shoe- 

 maker, no doubt, had his revenge upon his former asso- 

 ciates, inflicting great injury upon the Grand Canal by 

 the diversion of much of its traffic ; but he accomplished 

 this at a terrible sacrifice to many, and at the almost 

 total loss of his own fortune. 



