92 INTRODUCTION. 



tainly would do nothing which would afford immediate aid to the enterprise ; 

 that Tennessee had instructed her representatives in congress to support any 

 laudable application for aid in relation to the canal navigation between Hudson's 

 river and the great lakes ; that New- Jersey had declined to render assistance, 

 because she had not sufficient means to complete her own plans of improvement 

 already projected ; that Connecticut, for the reasons that she could not supply 

 money, and that she reposed full confidence in the wisdom of her representatives 

 in congress, deemed it inexpedient to take any measures on the subject ; that 

 Massachusetts, in language characteristic of the impartial and dignified wisdom 

 of conscious greatness, had instructed her representatives to use their influence 

 in favor of the application of New- York ; that Ohio fully approved the plan, 

 while the youthful territory of Michigan (looking probably down the St. Law- 

 rence, as well as across to the Hudson) was of the oi^inion that the proposed 

 communication was not so desirable as a canal around the cataracts of Niagara, 

 and another passing the falls of Oswego. 



The commissioners then submitted that, having offered the canal to the national 

 government, and that offer having \-irtually been declined, the state was now at 

 hberty to consult and pursue the maxims of policy, and these seemed to demand 

 imperatively that the canal should be made by herself, and for her own account, 

 as soon as the circumstances would permit ; and that, whether the subject was 

 considered with a view to commerce and finance, or on the more extensive scale 

 of policy, there would be a want of wisdom, and almost of piety, in neglecting to 

 employ for public advantage, those means which Divine Providence had placed 

 so completely within her power. They estimated the ultimate income of the 

 canal at one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars ; a revenue adequate 

 to defray the cost of the enterprise. With the earnestness so characteristic of 

 Mr. Morris, the report proceeds : " Things which twenty years ago a man would 

 have been laughed at for believing, we now see. At that time the most ardent 

 mind, proceeding on established facts by the unerring rules of arithmetic, was 

 obliged to drop the pen at results which imagination could not embrace. Under 



