In 1761 it was estimated that the quantity of traffic carried between the two great cities of Lancashire—Manchester and Liverpool—was about 40 tons per week, or about 2000 tons a year. The cost of transport, as we have just seen, was upwards of 1_s._ per mile. It is calculated that the traffic now carried on between the two towns is not less than ten million tons, and the cost of transport is stated at from 3_s._ to 8_s._ per ton. But the present conditions of transport are nevertheless regarded as unsatisfactory, and hence the movement for the construction of the Ship Canal, which is expected to carry traffic for less than one-half of the amount charged by the railway companies. When the public mind became fully alive to the importance of providing internal means of transport by water, there were not wanting those who were able to provide the ability and the experience necessary to execute the plans proposed. The history of the Bridgwater Navigation has been so fully related by Smiles,[41] that nothing which we could say here would materially enhance the interest of the story. For all practical purposes, this was the first great artificial waterway in England. It was, indeed, so remarkable a work for the time that we shall briefly recapitulate its history. In 1758 the Duke of Bridgwater got his first Act of Parliament, which awakened a general ardour for similar improvements among the landowners, farmers, merchants, and manufacturers of the kingdom, and although there was not a Louis XIV. nor a Colbert to encourage them, engineers were found fully equal to Riquet, so that England, though late, began to make good use of the resources she possessed in her inland provinces. The history of the Bridgwater canal may fairly be said to occupy, in relation to the annals of internal navigation, much the same place that the Liverpool and Manchester Railway does in relation to the development of the railway system. It is necessary to review some of the circumstances connected with this enterprise in order that the actual position of transport at that time may be understood.