80 INTRODUCTION. 



The geooraphical position of the United States, and our principles of govern- 

 ment, are alike unfavorable to conquest and military ambition. The popular 

 mind has its action, therefore, directed towards physical improvement and the 

 melioration of the condition of society ; and in this state it has been especially 

 engao^ed in improving those interior communications necessary to the mainte- 

 nance of intimate political and social relations, the exchange of supplies, and pro- 

 vision for the public defence. 



The destiny of our country seems to have been opened to the mind of Wa- 

 shington, with a clearness almost equal to that with which the varied career of 

 the chosen people was revealed to their prophetic leader on the sublime occasion 

 when he was required to resign the trust he had so long faithfully discharged. 

 Washington saw, that although the settlements of the United States had been 

 clustering on the Atlantic coast during almost two centuries, yet the region, far 

 more extensive, fertile and salubrious, which lay beyond the proper borders of the 

 thirteen states, would become the home of the larger portion of the American 

 family ; and that if the natural barriers between that region and the east should 

 remain unchanged, the west would, at no distant period, refuse political connec- 

 tion with the maritime states ; but that if those barriers could be surmounted by 

 roads, and pierced by canals, connecting the inland lakes and rivers with tide 

 water, the wealth and population of the whole country would be vastly increased ; 

 ample provision would be made for defending every part of our extended bor- 

 ders ; and the states, new and old, would be bound " in an indissoluble union of 

 interest and affection." In 1783, when he had proceeded up the difficult na\'i- 

 gation of the Mohawk to Fort Stanwix, now the site of the village of Rome, and 

 had crossed to Wood creek, which flows into Oneida lake, and thence had 

 descended to the sources in this state of the Susquehannah, he gave expression to 

 this glowing thought : " Taking a contemplative and extensive view of the vast 

 inland navigation of the United States, I could not but be struck with the im- 

 mense diffusion and importance of it, and with the goodness of that Providence 



