In writing my former observations on this subject, I felt myself perfectly disinterested and I am equally so at present, excepting a very natural and I hope justifiable desire of obtaining some useful employment, which might enable me to retrieve a part of my losses, and rise from my present embarrassed situation. Should this plan be approv'd, and should I be employ'd in the execution of it, I flatter myself, I might render services to the Publick, as well as to myself, but being wholly unknown to the King's Ministers, I have perhaps little reason to expect this favour; though having suffered on account of my former endeavours to procure a reconciliation of the American States with Great Britain, it would afford me satisfaction could I benefit myself in a way, whereby I might also be useful to both countries. March 26th 1787. No. 4-SILAS DEANE TO EVAN NEPEAN. (Archives, series Q, vol. 43-2, p. 720.) SIR,-I take the liberty of sending you herewith some observations and remarks, which I made at different times, as will appear from the perusal of them. A long confinement by illness has prevented my attempting to carry any part of my plan into execution and though at this time I have recovered a good state of health, still I cannot enter on it with propriety, without knowing in some degree, the opinion of His Majesty's Ministers on the subject specially as Lord Dorchester informs me, that he has wrote his opinion of it to Lord Sydney, and has recommended it to his I am sensible of the importance of public business, which must at this time engage His Lordship's attention, but the advancing season, with other circumstances, render it necessary for me to obtain, if possible, some decision. Lord Do. chester is of opinion that what I propose is both practicable and useful, if Lord Sydney shall agree with him, I wish to enter on the business without further delay. A ship will sail from London early in June, 'for Quebec, and as I propose to take a passage in her, you will oblige me by giving the enclosed a perusal and to forward the proposed undertaking if it meets with your approbation. I have the honour to be with much respect, Sir, Your most obed't and very hum. Serv't, S. DEANE. GROSVENOR PLACE, CHAPEL STREET No. 7, May 20th 1789. P.S.-When you have perused the enclosed I wish to wait on you, on the subject, and as early as may be convenient. (There were four enclosures, two of these duplicates of the "Observations published in this note; another had notes on these observations. The fourth follows:) No. 5.-OBSERVATIONS AS TO COST &c., OF THE CANAL BY SILAS DEANE. (Archives, series Q, vol. 43-2, p. 727.) Supposing the distance to be eight miles to be cut to carry a Canal round the rapids at St. John's, so as to have a navigation from the St. Lawrence, into the Lake Champlain, for boats and for vessels drawing six or seven feet of water, the Canal for this purpose must be twenty feet wide and eight feet deep, this is a large allowance or calculation, one-half will answer for large boats, but when the work is in hand, an addition of width and depth to what is absolutely necessary at the time will cost little to what it will at some future period, when it may be wanted and when a stop must be put to business to effect it; and Lake Champlain being navigable in every part of it for large vessels, renders it the more prudent to make the canal in proportion. Let it be supposed in the first place, in order to form a calculation, that the ground to be cut through is of a sand, loam, or gravel removeable by the spade and pickaxe one mile in length, twenty feet in breadth, and eight feet deep will be equal to 844,800 cubic feet of earth. Suppose a labourer to dig and remove six feet deep and eight feet square in one day or 288 feet of cubic earth, then 2,933 days of labour will dig one mile in length, twenty feet wide and eight feet deep; but allow 2,950 days -2,950 days, diet included at 2s 6d. per diem is £368 15s. but allow for banking &c., £131 5s. in addition and it will be £500 per mile, and eight miles £4,000, interest at 5 per cent £200 per annum, and add for annual repairs of bank and lock £50 per annum, the annual expenses will be £250. It is estimated that at this time there are at least 2,000 cart or waggon load of goods, transported round those falls, or rapids annually. This cannot be done at less than 8s per load, allowing nothing for the starting of hoops, leakage of casks, breaking of bales &c., incident to a land carriage, and not to one by water, deduct £250 from £800, the amount of the land carriage, the e will remain £550 for the transporation on the Canal. At present a vessel below the rapids, must be unloaded, and then waits for carts and waggons to be reloaded with them, a considerable expence, especially if put into store and other ways they must be exposed to the rain and snow, to which they must be at any rate in the waggons and carts. But the boat passing on the Canal into the Lake may go along side of the ship below, and taking the goods on board, there will be but one moving of them by hand instead of five or six in the other case, and the above damages will be avoided. A boat or vessel constructed for the purpose, and navigated by four or five men and a boy, will transport as great a quantity of goods as fifty or sixty wag gons or carts, with this material difference, that such a vessel is not obliged to unload, on entering the Lake, but may proceed with her cargo to those ports or creeks to the Lake, nearest to where the goods are wanted for consumption; and may take a freight back of corn, flax seed or such articles of produce, as the inhabitants have to dispose of, and by passing down the waters of the Canal, may deliver the same for any foreign market. To show how great a profit this is capable of, will select one article which cannot be dispensed with in any country, and for which no substitute can be found, that of salt. The track of country lying between Lake Champlain and Connecticut River is already in a great part settled, and the inhabitants and cultivation are rapidly advancing, and it is the same with the country between the south waters of the Lake and Albany, no part of that extensive territory can find so convenient a market as on Lake Champlain. There are five or six rapids or cataracts on Connecticut River, between the above mentioned inhabitants and Hartford, to which it is barely navigable for sea vessels, as they are called, and in addition to this, the river in all this distance is absolutely unnavigable for more than one-half the year, by ice and freshes. The river Hudson is navigable to Albany and no farther, above that like the Connecticut River it has rapids at every small distance. From this situation of the country it is evident, that a safe navigation opened on Lake Champlain will command the trade of this extensive country, and the proprietor or proprietors of this proposed canal will hold the key to the whole of it, for all heavy and bulky goods, as well as for the article of salt, to which I will now turn my calculation. The common price of salt in Vermont is, and has been two dollars, or nine shillings sterling per bushel, and the people to this time have had no market for their wheat or flax seed or other produce, except for their cattle, horses and sheep, which may, though at an enormous expense, be drove to the southward. Salt either from Europe or the West Indies may be delivered at the foot of the above canal at 18. to 1s. 3d. per bushel, and give a good profit, but allow 18d. in calculation. The vessel above described may there receive and carry to market and suppose her to take but one thousand bushels which will be but a moderate cargo, and allow her forty days to go up the lake with it, to unload, and to return, the account of her voyage, making large allowance for each particular, may be thus estimated,-One thousand bushels of salt at 1s. 6d., £75; 40 days wages and victualling £30; wear and tear, as it is called, of the vessel, £15 and allow for contingent expenses £10, total £130 or 2s. 7d. per bushel delivered at any port or creek of the Lake, and if sold at 5s., little more than one-half the present price, the amount will be £250, a profit of £120 on a voyage of forty days. This is allowing the vessel to return empty, but the vessel which carries one thousand bushels of salt will bring back a thousand bushels of wheat or flax seed, or a quantity of other articles in proportion, such as salted provisions, pot and pearl ashes &c. so that at all times as good a freight may be expected back or home, as out, and salt now selling at 9s. sterling per bushel, must command an immediate sale at 5s. Suppose, for instance, in the way of barter, which must be almost the sole, as it is in this case, the most profitable way of dealing, that two bushels of wheat, or three of flax seed, be given for one of salt, the profit will be more than double the above calculation, which is every way within bounds. The country above described is exceedingly good for wheat and flax, but not for Indian corn and other produce to the southward. At this time there is no market for their wheat and flax seed but their home consumption, but could they be disposed of at a certain market, at the above rates, the cultivation of them would increase beyond what can be easily calculated for, and both those articles must come to the hands of the proprietor, or proprietors, of this canal at one-half, or about one-half, the current price of them in New York or Philadelphia, which towns have formerly almost exclusively supplied Ireland with flax seed, and the West Indies and part of Europe with flour. It is unquestionably the interest of Great Britain to have her islands supplied with flour and lumber, and Ireland with flax seed and timber of all sorts from Canada in preference to any other country. Canada was settled by the French within a few years as early as New England was by the English; the French Government gave no encouragement to anything but to hunting. Furs and peltry were their sole object; the Province had not a single ship belonging to it, in any commerce whatever, during the whole period of its belonging to France, a few fishing vessels for the river and the banks, mostly employed for fish for their home consumption, excepted. This Province exhibits in its history a striking proof of the necessary connection between agriculture and commerce, and of the aid they mutually afford each other. The Canadians being deprived of commerce, their agticulture remained in so wretched a state that the French troops in the country, and even the inhabitants in and near Quebec, received their flour from France; and with as great advantages for a trade with the West Indies as any part of America, they appear only to have heard, or read, of such a country, for they received the sugars and other productions of these Islands from France, and so extremely ignorant were the inhabitants of the nature of the soil they lived on, that they did not suppose it capable of producing wheat, other than a miserable crop of summer growth, as it is called; But within ten years after its being under the British Government, this Province besides its internal consumption raised wheat for exportation, to the amount of more than three hundred thousand bushels in one year. This digression to mention a fact well known to those who have attended to the history of that Province, is made to show what improvements have taken place in the Agriculture and Commerce of that country, and thence in some degree to justify the assertion that it is capable of still greater and that the present period, when Great Britain is totally separated from her antient colonies on that Continent, is the most favourable for making them, and I trust it has been demonstrated that this may be done without any expence to Government. It may not be improper to add, that the winter in all the Northern parts of America, is a dead season of the year in almost every particular, and the farmer is employed in taking care of the cattle and in consuming the produce of the summer, or in the carrying of it to market in the best manner in his power, but the variableness of the weather on the sea coast, rain and thaws following close on snow and frost, renders his transportation extremely precarious. But it is different in the parts here mentioned, which being far inland, the weather is steady and uniform, and frost and snow prevail almost without exception from December to March, which is a circumstance of vast importance to inland carriage. Two horses will draw as much in a sleigh, on snow or ice, as six in a waggon or cart, on the best road in summer. It is indeed, not easy to find any situation in any country (there is none in the British Dominions) of which advantages of equal magnitude and extent, to the public as well as to individuals, may be acquired with so small a capital and risque as in the above. Let us suppose, that instead of going round the Falls into the River St. Lawrence by the River Sorel (which is a bad navigation) that the Canal be carried directly from the Lake into the River at the foot of the rapids by Montreal, to this point in the River St. Lawrence a frigate of thirty guns can go, consequently there must at all times be water sufficient for the largest merchant ships loaded. Allow the distance to be twice what has been calculated for above or sixteen miles (this is more than the real distance) in a strait line, the fall of the water, or difference between the level of Lake Champlain and that of the River will be the same, the expense of the Lock will of course be the same. But by all accounts the digging will be much easier than in the former, the land being a sand and loam thro' the whole distance. But the advantage must exceed the expence to a vast amount beyond what at first can easily be calculated. In the first place the difficult and winding navigation of the Sorel River will be avoided. In the second place the wheat produced above Montreal, or in upper Canada, through the whole extent of it may be brought to the mills by water, at the same expence as it is now brought to be shipped in grain, and the same of other articles, and what is of some consequence, the mills without any land carriage, may supply the town of Montreal, and its vicinity, with flour for home consumption. Equal advantages will arise from other articles, without losing any of those before mentioned on the Lake Champlain. Allowing the distance to be sixteen miles, and the expence of cutting the Canal to be double, the expence will then amount to twice the sum of the above calculations, as to the digging and the banking, but the lock will be the same. But to take it at an even sum, suppose the cutting the Canal and making the Lock to amount to £2,000, the interest at 5 per cent. to amount to £400 and the repairs as before at £50 and there will still remain a balance of £250 per annum in favour of the Canal, when compared with the expence of carting, without taking into consideration the above mentioned important advantages of its being cut directly to the River, as here proposed. Endorsed.-Observations, 1788. |