and the prosperity of our country. Pleasure is a shadow, wealth is vanity, and power a pageant; but knowledge is extatic in enjoyment, perennial in fame, unlimited in space, and infinite in duration. In the performance of its sacred offices it fears no danger, spares no expense, omits no exertion. It scales the mountain, looks into the volcano, dives into the ocean, perforates the earth, wings its flight into the skies, encircles the globe, explores sea and land, contemplates the distant, examines the minute, comprehends the great, and ascends to the sublime: no place too remote for its grasp, no heavens too exalted for its reach."

The papers of Mr. Clinton being exclusively reserved for the use of the gentleman who, from his acknowledged abilities and learning, has been most judiciously selected as his biographer,* I cannot speak of his last public Discourse, that which was delivered in 1826 to the alumni of Columbia College, his alma mater, and which has not yet been committed to the press. One of the last acts of public duty performed by Mr. Clinton in his capacity as Governor, was his letter addressed, a day or two before his death, to the judge of the District Court of this city. That communication related to what was deemed by the Governor an irregular interposition of the court, in arresting the execution of the law on a criminal condemned to death for murder, after the Governor, with whom the power of reprieve or of pardoning is exclusively lodged by the constitution, had declined interference with the execution of the sentence.

In that document, Governor Clinton's sagacity in detecting and

*The Honourable John C. Spencer.

exposing what he considered the fallacious argument of the judge and of the court, as well as the vigour he evinced in maintaining his official authority, are considered as no less manifest than the clear and lucid style in which his exposition is conveyed. By most of his friends it was deemed one of his ablest productions, and believed to convey the most correct and satisfactory view of the subject to which it relates.*

On the memorable 13th day of March, 1810, by a resolution of the senate of this state, on motion of the Honourable Jonas Platt, then a member of that body, Mr. Clinton was unanimously appointed one of the commissioners for "exploring the route of an inland navigation, from Hudson's river to Lake Ontario and to Lake Erie." On the 15th of March, the same resolution received the concurrence of the assembly and became a law. This event naturally leads me to offer a few preliminary remarks connected with the important subject of canal navigation.

Few objects of internal policy have so much called forth the powers and resources of a country as canals: the comparative cheapness of conveyance, the easy and secure communication which they afford, the advantages they possess in improving and equalizing the value of countries remote from, as well as those in the vicinity of large cities and towns, render canals the greatest of all improvements: accordingly we find the utility of canal communication has been acknowledged by the wisest states of antiquity, no less than by the most enlightened modern nations. The high rank which Egypt assumed and maintained in former ages,

*See Appendix, M.

was scarcely less due to her numerous canals, than to the fertility of her soil. Determined to avail herself of all the transcendant advantages of the Nile, she added no less than eighty canals, by which its waters might afford facilities to communication through every part of her territory. The Chinese, according to the testimony of the best writers, are still more alive to the value of this artificial species of navigation. Throughout that immense empire there is scarcely a town or a village which has not the advantage either of an arm of the sea, or a canal, as the means of communication: and to these numerous canals may be fairly attributed a great part of the riches of that remarkable nation. By her great canal, by some stated to be upwards of 1200 miles in extent, she is enabled to enforce and perpetuate her exclusive policy of avoiding all connexion with foreign nations, save only so far as they may contribute to her wealth and advantage.

Russia, Sweden, Holland, France, but above all Great Britain, have expended enormous sums with a view to this object, and are still proceeding with ardour and spirit. This latter nation, indeed, has within a few years exceeded all other people in the spirit of industry and zeal with which she has entered on this most important field of enterprise; more than 2400 miles of canal navigation bespeak her opulence and resources.

Nor has our own country been insensible to its value. Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Maryland, have honourably distinguished themselves in this laudable career. But it was the destiny of our own state to set the first brilliant and effective example to her sister members of the union, and by the vigour, spirit, and munificence of her enterprise, to excite the astonishment, and to receive the acclamations of mankind. A celebrated

British writer thus strongly expresses himself on this interesting theme."America, blessed with every climate, capable of every production, abounding with the best harbours and rivers on the globe, overspread with a population of more than eleven millions of inhabitants, what may not be expected? the partial hand of nature has laid off America on a much larger scale than any other part of the world: the map of the world cannot exhibit a country uniting so many natural advantages so pleasingly diversified, and that offers such abundant and easy resources to agriculture and commerce. In contemplating future America, the mind is lost in the din of cities, in harbours and rivers clouded with sails, and in the immensity of her population."*

In noticing this great event, this era in the life of Mr. Clinton, and which will ever be identified with his fame, posterity will demand a minute detail of the commencement, the progress, and the completion of an undertaking that ranks among the most important that has been effected in any age or in any country. Posterity will look back to the authors of the blessings and the benefits, which this great event has secured to this state and nation.

The question then here naturally presents itself, who first projected the system of inland navigation from the Lakes to the Hudson and the Atlantic Ocean? and who were the instruments of its accomplishment? In replying to these important inquiries, I am fully aware of the delicacy of the task before me.

The claimants to this honour are numerous and respectable, and the claims of each to a certain extent founded in justice.

* Tatham's Political Economy of Inland Navigation, 4to. London.

While the minute details upon this subject are passed over as out of place upon the present occasion, I trust it will not be uninteresting to this intelligent assembly, to advert to a brief sketch of the most interesting facts which this examination has enabled me to develope, some of which, it will be found, have hitherto been totally overlooked in the public communications that have appeared upon this subject. In viewing the origin and progress of this great achievement, our attention is drawn to its numerous friends, who have in various capacities contributed to its accomplishment. But in order that each of the numerous benefactors to this work may have his due share of praise, proportioned to the services he has rendered, it is proposed to divide them into various classes, designating the nature, character, and extent of those services. I am fully sensible that fame has given to some a degree of reputation to which they are not entitled to the extent in which it has been bestowed; while to others much is due for the assistance they have rendered in the accomplishment of this important work, and whose contributions are comparatively little known to the world, or have been but imperfectly acknowledged: so far, therefore, as laborious inquiry has enabled me to ascertain the facts now to be related, distributive justice, the "suum cuique tribuito," shall be most strictly and impartially observed.

"Amicus Plato-amicus Socrates-sed magis amica veritas."

The contributors to canal navigation in the state of New-York, may be considered as consisting of four great classes in the first, may be enumerated those foreseeing and predicting from the general face of the country, the union of the lakes, the creeks and rivers of the west, by measures calculated to remove obstruc