[17] Sparks, _Life of Gouverneur Morris_ (Boston, 1832), vol. i, pp. 497-498. [18] _Id._, p. 498. [19] _Id._, pp. 498-499. [20] _Laws of the State of New-York relative to the Canals_ (Albany, 1825), pp. 38-39. [21] _Id._, p. 42. [22] _History of the ... Western Canals in the State of New York_, p. 67. [23] M. S. Hawley, _Origin of the Erie Canal_, p. 20. Clinton gave Hawley great credit for his part in promoting the Erie Canal idea--p. 21. "He [Hawley] was at Colonel Mynderse's office in 1805, attending to the shipment of some flour to market, by the circuitous and uncertain route then in use. Himself and Colonel Mynderse conversing upon the necessities for better facilities, Mr. Hawley said: 'Why not have a canal extend direct into our country, and benefit all--merchants, millers, and farmers.'" Hawley then pointed out on a map that Lake Erie could be made a head of water. "A change having occurred in Mr. Hawley's business, he spent the winter of 1806 and 1807 in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and not knowing when he would return to Ontario county, he sketched the first essay, and to preserve it from oblivion, as he said, he procured it to be published there, on the fourteenth day of January, 1807, in the newspaper called the _Commonwealth_."--_Origin of the Erie Canal_, pp. 23-24. [24] _Id._, pp. 69-70. [25] _Public Documents relating to the New-York Canals_ (New York, 1821), pp. xlix-l. [26] _Laws of the State of New-York relative to the Canals_, p. 47. [27] _Id._, p. 67. [28] _Laws of New York_, 1814. [29] _Public Documents relating to Canals_, pp. li-lii. [30] "Memorial of the citizens of New-York, in favor of a Canal-Navigation between the great western Lakes and the tide-waters of the Hudson, presented to the Assembly February 21, 1816, and ordered to be printed."--From _Laws of the State of New-York relative to the Canals_, p. 122. [31] The Middlesex Canal was twenty-seven miles in length and joined Boston Harbor at Charlestown with the Merrimac River. It was incorporated in 1789, begun in 1790 and opened in 1804. Its cost to 1815 was over half a million. It was thirty feet wide at the top, twenty feet wide at the base and three feet deep. The rise from Boston to summit level was one hundred and four feet and the descent to the Merrimac, thirty-two feet. It included twenty locks, seventy-five feet long, ten feet wide at the base and eleven feet wide at the top, capable of locking a boat of fourteen tons. The income from tolls beginning with $7,000 in 1808 had increased to $25,000 in 1815; land beside the canal had increased in value one-third, and New Hampshire timber at once became worth from one to three dollars per ton standing, which before was worth nothing. The success of this canal must be considered as having something to do in the promotion of the Erie Canal. [32] See appendix A.