248 HILLS AND LAKES. 



a canal in the whole country, and that the government 

 owed hundreds of millions of dollars, and hadn't the 

 first red cent to pay with. 



That was a bad fix for a country to be in, Squire, 

 and he would have been a pretty bold man, who 

 would have ventured in them days, to foretell what a 

 wonderful change sixty-five years would bring about 

 Call back, if such a thing could be, the spirit of one 

 of the men of the revolutionary times, and show him 

 what this country has become, and may be, he 

 wouldn't open his eyes some. Take him around the 

 country, and show him the swarmin' hosts of twenty- 

 five millions of people, in place of the three millions 

 he left, when he laid down in the grave. Take him 

 out on the sea, and show him the great ships of this 

 country, sailin' to every part of the world, loaded with 

 the goods of her merchants, and her tall war-vessels, 

 lookin' into every harbor of the ocean. Point out to 

 him her mills and her factories, standin' wherever a 

 stream comes down from the mountains, or a river 

 leaps over a precipice, the clank of their machinery, 

 minglin' with the roar of the waters. Tell him to look 

 upon the canals, broad as rivers, extendin' through 

 the great State of New York, from the tide waters, 



