, and he travels through dirt 'till Midsummer.

To Alcester, about twenty, formed in 1767, upon a tolerable plan, but is
rather too narrow, through a desolate country, which at present scarcely
defrays the expence; but that country seems to improve with the road.

Those to Stratford and Warwick, about twenty miles each, are much used
and much neglected.

That to Coventry, about the same distance, can only be equalled by the
Dudley road. The genius of the age has forgot, in some of these roads to
accommodate the foot passenger with a causeway.

The surveyor will be inclined to ask, How can a capital be raised to
defray this enormous expence? Suffer me to reply with an expression in
the life of Oliver Cromwell, "He that lays out money when necessary, and
only then, will accomplish matters beyond the reach of imagination."

Government long practised the impolitic mode of transporting vast
numbers of her people to America, under the character of felons; these,
who are generally in the prime of life, might be made extremely useful
to that country which they formerly robbed, and against which, they are
at this moment carrying arms. It would be easy to reduce this ferocious
race under a kind of martial discipline; to badge them with a mark only
removeable by the governors, for hope should ever be left for
repentance, and to employ them in the rougher arts of life, according to
the nature of the crime, and the ability of body; such as working the
coal mines in Northumberland, the lead mines in Derbyshire, the tin
mines in Cornwall, cultivating waste lands, banking after inundations,
forming canals, cleansing the beds of rivers, assisting in harvest, and
in FORMING and MENDING the ROADS: _these hewers of wood and drawers of
water_ would be a corps of reserve against any emergency. From this
magazine of villiany, the British navy might be equipped with,
considerable advantage.

CANAL.

An act was obtained, in 1767, to open a cut between Birmingham and the
coal delphs about Wednesbury.

The necessary article of coal, before this act, was brought by land, at
about thirteen shillings per ton, but now at seven.

It was common to see a train of carriages for miles, to the great
destruction of the road, and the annoyance of travellers.

This dust is extended in the whole to about twenty-two miles in length,
'till it unites with what we may justly term the grand artery, or
Staffordshire Canal; which, eroding the island, c