The aqueducts and most of the locks, being built of wood, required large sums for annual repairs; the expenses arising from imperfections in the banks, and from the erection of toll-houses and public houses for the accommodation of the boatmen, were considerable; but the heaviest expenses were incurred in opening the Merrimac for navigation.  From Concord, N.H., to the head of the canal the river has a fall of 123 ft., necessitating various locks and canals.  The Middlesex Canal Corporation contributed to the building of the Wiccasee locks and canals, $12,000; Union locks and canals, $49,932; Hookset canal, $6,750; Bow canal and locks, $14,115, making a sum total of $82,797 to be paid from the income of the Middlesex canal.

The constant demand for money in excess of the incomes had proved demoralizing.  Funds had been raised from time to time by lotteries.  In the Columbian “Centinel & Massachusetts Federalist” of Aug. 15, 1804, appears an advertisement of the Amoskeag Canal Lottery, 6,000 tickets at $5, with an enumeration of prizes.  The committee, consisting of Phillips Payson, Samuel Swan, Jr., and Loammi Baldwin, Jr., appealed to the public for support, assuring the subscribers that all who did not draw prizes would get the full value of their money in the reduced price of fuel.

In 1816 the Legislature of Massachusetts granted the proprietors of the canal, in consideration of its usefulness to the public, two townships of land in the district of Maine, near Moosehead lake.  This State aid, however, proved of no immediate service, as purchasers could not be found for several years for property so remote.  Appeals to capitalists, lotteries, and State aid proved insufficient; the main burden fell upon the stockholders.  In accordance with the provisions of the charter, assessments had been levied, as occasion required, up to 1816, 99 in number, amounting to $670 per share; and the corporation was still staggering under a debt of $64,000.  Of course, during all this time, no dividends could be declared.

Under these unpromising conditions a committee, consisting of Josiah Quincy, Joseph Hall, and Joseph Coolidge, Jr., was appointed to devise the appropriate remedy.  “In the opinion of your committee,” the report reads, “the real value of the property, at this moment, greatly exceeds the market value, and many years will not elapse before it will be considered among the best of all practicable monied investments.  The Directors contemplate no further extension of the canal. The work is done, both the original and subsidiary canals....  Let the actual incomes of the canal be as great as they may, so long as they are consumed in payment of debts and interest on loans, the aspect of the whole is that of embarrassment and mortgage.  The present rates of income, if continued, and there is every rational prospect, not only of its continuance, but of its great and rapid increase, will enable the corporation—­when relieved