INLAND NAVIGATION.

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parts of the country are intersected with the noblest rivers, many ofwhich are navigable for ships of the largest burthen for some hundredsof miles within land, and even to the very door of the planters; so thatbut little art or improvement by canals is wanting to render that coun-try the most convenient for commerce and inland navigation of any onthe face of the globe.

But though America is yet only in her infancy in point of independ-ence as a nation, she has experienced the happy effects of improvingtrade, by the encouragement and bounty of a benevolent parent. Hernoble coasts, bays, rivers, and products, have invited, for half a century,,the maritime countries of Europe to engage in her trade; and theWest India islands belonging to the European states have by her beenchiefly supplied with the necessaries of life, and enabled to send hometheir produce The profits of her trade, which formerly used to bedrawn to the mother-country, now centre in her states ; and it maywith truth be said, that no part of the world is so well watered withsprings, rivulets, rivers, and lakes, as the territory of the United States.By means of these various streams, and collections of waters, the wholecountry is divided into islands and peninsulas. The United States,and indeed all parts of North America, seem to have been formed bynature for the most intimate union. The facilities of navigation ren-der the communication between the ports of Georgia and New Hamp-shire infinitely more expeditious and practicable than between those ofProvence and Picardy, in France; Cornwall and Caithness, in GreatBritain; or Gallicia and Catalonia, in Spain. The canals proposed atSouth Key, Susquehannah, and Delaware, will open a communicationfrom the Carolinas to the western counties of Pennsylvania and New-York. The improvements of the Patomak will give a passage fromthe southern states to the western parts of Virginia, Maryland, Penn-sylvania, and even to the lakes. From Detroit, on lake Erie, to Alex-andria, on the Patomak, six hundred and seven miles, there are but twocarrying places, which together do not exceed the distance of forty miles.

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