At a time when speculation was very rife--in the year 1825-- Mr. Telford was consulted respecting a grand scheme for cutting a canal across the Isthmus of Darien; and about the same time he was employed to resurvey the line for a ship canal--which had before occupied the attention of Whitworth and Rennie--between Bristol and the English Channel. But although he gave great attention to this latter project, and prepared numerous plans and reports upon it, and although an Act was actually passed enabling it to be carried out, the scheme was eventually abandoned, like the preceding ones with the same object, for want of the requisite funds. Our engineer had a perfect detestation of speculative jobbing in all its forms, though on one occasion he could not help being used as an instrument by schemers. A public company was got up at Liverpool, in 1827, to form a broad and deep ship canal, of about seven miles in length, from opposite Liverpool to near Helbre Isle, in the estuary of the Dee; its object being to enable the shipping of the port to avoid the variable shoals and sand-banks which obstruct the entrance to the Mersey. Mr. Telford entered on the project with great zeal, and his name was widely quoted in its support. It appeared, however, that one of its principal promoters, who had secured the right of pre-emption of the land on which the only possible entrance to the canal could be formed on the northern side, suddenly closed with the corporation of Liverpool, who were opposed to the plan, and "sold", his partners as well as the engineer for a large sum of money. Telford, disgusted at being made the instrument of an apparent fraud upon the public, destroyed all the documents relating to the scheme, and never afterwards spoke of it except in terms of extreme indignation.