Secondly, that, if that prayer be granted, provision should be made as a condition for granting it, that the Remonstrants shall be indemnified for the losses which will be thereby occasioned to them.

This may seem the wilful blindness of self-interest; but the utterances of the press and the legislative debates of the period are similar in tone.  In relation to another railroad, the “Boston Transcript” of Sept. 1, 1830, remarks:  “It is not astonishing that so much reluctance exists against plunging into doubtful speculations....  The public itself is divided as to the practicability of the Rail Road.  If they expect the assistance of capitalists, they must stand ready to guarantee the percentum per annum; without this, all hopes of Rail Roads are visionary and chimerical.”  In a report of legislative proceedings published in the “Boston Courier,” of Jan. 25, 1830, Mr. Cogswell, of Ipswich, remarked:  “Railways, Mr. Speaker, may do well enough in old countries, but will never be the thing for so young a country as this.  When you can make the rivers run back, it will be time enough to make a railway.”  Notwithstanding the pathetic remonstrances and strange vaticinations of the canal proprietors, the Legislature incorporated the road and refused compensation to the canal.  Even while the railroad was in process of construction, the canal directors do not seem to have realized the full gravity of the situation.  They continued the policy of replacing wood with stone, and made every effort to perfect the service in all its details; as late as 1836 the agent recommended improvements.  The amount of tonnage continued to increase—­the very sleepers used in the construction of the railway were boated, it is said, to points convenient for the workmen.

In 1832 the canal declared a dividend of $22 per share; from 1834 to 1837, inclusive, a yearly dividend of $30.

The disastrous competition of the Lowell Railroad was now beginning to be felt.  In 1835 the Lowell goods conveyed by canal paid tonnage dues of $11,975.51; in 1836 the income from this source had dwindled to $6,195.77.  The canal dividends had been kept up to their highest mark by the sale of its townships in Maine and other real estate:  but now they began to drop.  The year the Lowell road went into full operation the receipts of the canal were reduced one-third; and when the Nashua & Lowell road went into full operation, in 1840, they were reduced another third.  The board of directors waged a plucky warfare with the railroads, reducing the tariff on all articles, and almost abolishing it on some, till the expenditures of the canal outran its income; but steam came out triumphant.  Even sanguine Caleb Eddy became satisfied that longer competition was vain, and set himself to the difficult task of saving fragments from the inevitable wreck.