Having sketched his ideas of such reorganisation of industry as would, in his opinion, help the country both to beat the Dutch without fighting and, also, to provide work for all the poor people in England, he proceeded: "That nothing may be wanting that may conduce to the benefit and incouragement of things manufactured, as in cheap carriage to and fro over England, and to the Sea at easie rates, I will in the next place shew you how the great Rivers in England may be made navigable, and thereby make the Commodities and Goods carried, especially in Winter time, for half the rate they now pay." The schemes he especially recommended in this connection were for the establishing of communication between the {135}Thames and the Severn, and between the Dee and the Severn; and he argued that there would be a further advantage from the point of view of the national food supply, as an improvement in river navigation would allow both of corn being more easily brought to London and of the setting up of great granaries, at Oxford for the advantage of London, and at Stratford-on-Avon for the benefit of towns on the Severn. He further says:-- "I hear some say, You projected the making Navigable the River Stoure in Worcestershire; what is the reason it was not finished? I say it was my projection, and I will tell you the reason it was not finished. The River Stoure and some other Rivers were granted by an Act of Parliament to certain Persons of Honour, and some progress was made in the work; but within a small while after the Act passed it was let fall again. But it being a brat of my own I was not willing it should be Abortive; therefore I made offers to perfect it, leaving a third part of the Inheritance to me and my heirs for ever, and we came to an agreement. Upon which I fell on, and made it compleatly navigable from Sturbridge to Kederminster; and carried down many hundred Tuns of Coales, and laid out near one thousand pounds, and then it was obstructed for Want of Money, which by Contract was to be paid." To describe, in detail, all the various schemes for the improvement of river navigation which were carried out, more especially in the second half of the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth (irrespective of the many others that succumbed to the complaint spoken of by Yarranton--want of money), would take up far too much space; but a few typical examples, which have a direct bearing on the development of British trade, commerce and industry, may be of interest. Until the year 1694, when the improvement of the Mersey was taken in hand, Liverpool had no chance of emerging from a situation of almost complete isolation, and of competing with ports some of which, though now ports no longer, or far outstripped by the Liverpool of to-day, were then of vastly greater importance than Liverpool from the point of view of national commerce.