112 INTRODUCTION. 
[t appeared at the commencement of the session of the legislature in 1823, 
that the public debt amounted to $5,423,500, of which $4,243,500 were for 
moneys borrowed to construct the canals. ‘The commissioners reported that 
boats had passed on the Erie canal a distance of more that two hundred and 
twenty miles, and that as early as the first of July ensuing, that channel would 
be navigable from Schenectady to Rochester. Tlie tolls collected in 1822, upon 
the Erie canal, were $60,000, and upon the Champlain canal, $3,625. The im- 
provements of the outlet of Onondaga lake had been completed, and the Glen’s 
Falls feeder was in a course of rapid construction. Among the benefits already 
resulting from the Erie canal, the commissioners showed that the price of wheat 
west of the Seneca river had advanced fifty percent. 'T'o appreciate this result, 
it is necessary to understand that wheat is the chief staple of New-York, and 
that far the largest. portion of wheat-growing lands in this state le west of the 
Seneca river. 
Attempts were again made in both branches to provide for collecting the local 
tax. ‘The proposition was lost in the senate by a vote of nineteen to ten, and in 
the assembly by a division of sixty-five to thirty-one. 
The legislature expressed by resolution a favorable opinion of the inland navi- 
gation which New-Jersey proposed to establish between the Delaware and 
Hudson rivers. A loan of $1,500,000 was authorized for canal purposes ; a 
survey of the Oswego river was directed to be made, and estimates of the ex- 
pense of completing the canal from Salina to Lake Ontario. An association to 
construct such a canal was incorporated, and authority given to the commis- 
sioners to take the work when completed, leaving the use of its surplus waters 
to the corporators ; and the eastern termination of the Erie canal was fixed at 
Albany. 
The canal commissioners reported in 1824 that the Champlain canal was 
finished ; that both canals had produced revenues during the previous year of 
one hundred and fifty-three thousand dollars, and that the commissioners had 
