Those to Stratford and Warwick, about twenty miles each, are much used and much neglected.

That to Coventry, about the same distance, can only be equalled by the Dudley road.  The genius of the age has forgot, in some of these roads to accommodate the foot passenger with a causeway.

The surveyor will be inclined to ask, How can a capital be raised to defray this enormous expence?  Suffer me to reply with an expression in the life of Oliver Cromwell, “He that lays out money when necessary, and only then, will accomplish matters beyond the reach of imagination.”

Government long practised the impolitic mode of transporting vast numbers of her people to America, under the character of felons; these, who are generally in the prime of life, might be made extremely useful to that country which they formerly robbed, and against which, they are at this moment carrying arms.  It would be easy to reduce this ferocious race under a kind of martial discipline; to badge them with a mark only removeable by the governors, for hope should ever be left for repentance, and to employ them in the rougher arts of life, according to the nature of the crime, and the ability of body; such as working the coal mines in Northumberland, the lead mines in Derbyshire, the tin mines in Cornwall, cultivating waste lands, banking after inundations, forming canals, cleansing the beds of rivers, assisting in harvest, and in FORMING and MENDING the ROADS:  these hewers of wood and drawers of water would be a corps of reserve against any emergency.  From this magazine of villiany, the British navy might be equipped with, considerable advantage.

CANAL.

An act was obtained, in 1767, to open a cut between Birmingham and the coal delphs about Wednesbury.

The necessary article of coal, before this act, was brought by land, at about thirteen shillings per ton, but now at seven.

It was common to see a train of carriages for miles, to the great destruction of the road, and the annoyance of travellers.

This dust is extended in the whole to about twenty-two miles in length, ’till it unites with what we may justly term the grand artery, or Staffordshire Canal; which, eroding the island, communicates with Hull, Bristol and Liverpool.  The expence was about 70,000_l_. divided into shares 140_l_. each, of which no man can purchase more than ten, and which now sell for about 370_l_.

The proprietors took a perpetual lease of six acres of land, of Sir Thomas Gooch, at 47_l_. per annum, which is converted into a wharf, upon the front of which is erected an handsome office for the dispatch of business.

[ILLUSTRATION:  A Plan of the Navigable Canal from Birmingham to Autherley]

[ILLUSTRATION:  Navigation Office]

This watery passage, exclusive of loading the proprietors with wealth, tends greatly to the improvement of some branches of trade, by introducing heavy materials at a small expence, such as pig iron for the founderies, lime-stone, articles for the manufacture of brass and steel, also stone, brick, slate, timber, &c.