1906 canal speech

The American Type of Isthmian Canal
by John Fairfield Dryden

This is the report and the evidence upon which Congress is requested to pronounce in favor of a sea-level project and give its indorsement to a plan which will involve the country in at least $100,000,000 of additional expenditure and which will delay the opening of the canal for practical purposes of navigation possibly for ten years or more after the lock canal can be finished and opened for use.

The Isthmian Commission restates certain points in a clear and precise way, which leaves no escape from the conclusion that both as to time and cost the majority members of the Board materially underestimated important factors, and that they have every reason to believe that the total estimate of cost of a sea-level canal should be raised to $272,000,000, and that the estimate of time for construction should be increased to at least fifteen and a half years. But under certain readily conceivable conditions it is practically certain that the construction of a sea-level canal will consume not less than twenty years.

The Isthmian Commission reëxamined carefully the question of relative efficiency of the proposed sea-level canal compared with a lock canal, and they pronounce emphatically and unequivocally in favor of the lock project. They consider that the assumed danger from accidents to locks by passing vessels or otherwise is greatly exaggerated, and hold that while no doubt accidents may occur, and possibly will occur, such dangers can and will be sufficiently guarded against by an effective method of supervision and control. They hold that a lock canal properly constructed and managed is in no sense a menace to the safety of vessels, and that much practical experience and particularly the half-century of successful operation of the "Soo" Canal have demonstrated the contrary beyond dispute.

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1699 Privateering and Piracy

BOSTON, 26th July 1699.

My Lords,

I gave your Lordships a short Account of my taking Capt. Kidd, in my Letter of the 8th Instant:[2] I shall in this Letter confine myselfe wholly to an Account of my Proceeding with him.

On the 13th of last Month Mr. Emot, a Lawyer of New-York, came late at Night to me and told me he came from Captain Kidd, who was on the Coast with a Sloop, but would not tell me where: That Kidd had brought 60 Pound Weight of gold, about a 100 Weight of Silver, and 17 Bales of East-India goods, (which was less by 24 Bales than we have since got in the Sloop), That Kidd had left behind him a great Ship near the Coast of Hispaniola that nobody but himselfe could find out, on board whereof there were in bale goods, Saltpetre, and other things to the Value of at least 30,000 L.: That if I would give him a pardon, he would bring in the Sloop and goods hither, and would go and fetch the great Ship and goods afterwards. Mr. Emot delivered me that Night Two French Passes, which Kidd took on board the Two Moors Ships which were taken by him in the seas of India (or, as he alleges, by his Men against his Will). One of the Passes wants a date in the original, as in the Copy I send your Lordships; and they go No. I. and No. II.[3]

On Thursday, the 15 of June, I sent Mr. Campbel, the Post-Master of this town, Kidd's Countryman and acquaintance, along with Mr. Emot, to invite Kidd to come into this Port. Mr. Campbel returned hither on the 19 of June, and gave in a Memorial to my selfe and the Councel, containing what had passed between him and Kidd: The said Memorial goes No. 3.[4] On the said 19 June, as I sate in Councel, I wrote a Letter to Captain Kidd, and shewed it to the Councel, and they approving of it, I dispatched Mr. Campbel again to Kidd with my said Letter, a Copy whereof goes No. 4. Your Lordships may observe That the promise I make Captain Kidd, in my said Letter, of a kind reception, and promising the King's pardon for him, is conditionall; that is, provided he were as innocent as he pretended to be. But I quickly found sufficient Cause to suspect him very guilty, by the many lyes and Contradictions he told me. I was so much upon my guard with Kidd that, he arriving here on Saturday the [first] of this moneth, I would not see him but before witnesses; nor have I ever seen him since, but in Councel twice or thrice that we examined him; and the day he was taken up by the Constable, it happened to be by the door of my Lodging,[5] and he rushed in and came running to me, the Constable after him. I had him not seized till Thursday the 6th instant, for I had a mind to discover where he had left the great Ship, and I thought my selfe secure enough from his running away, because I took care not to give him the least umbrage of my Design of seizing him, Nor had I till that day that I produced my orders from Court for apprehending of Kidd, communicated them to anybody. And I found it necessary to shew my orders to the Councel, to animate them to join heartily with me in securing Kidd, and examining his Affair nicely, to discover what we could of his behaviour in his whole Voyage. Another reason why I took him not up sooner was that he had brought his wife and Children hither in the Sloop with him, who I believed he would not easily forsake. He being examined twice or thrice by me and the Councel, and also some of his men, I observed he seemed much disturbed, And the last time we examined him I fancied he looked as if he were upon the wing, and resolved to run away, and the Gentlemen of the Councel had some of them the same thought with mine, so that I took their Consent in seizing and committing him.[6] But the officers appointed to seize his men were so careless as to let 3 or 4 of his men escape, which troubled me the more because they were old New-York Pyrates. The next thing the Councel and I did, was to appoint a Committee of trusty persons to search for the goods and Treasure brought by Kidd and to secure what they should find till the King's pleasure should be known as to the Disposition thereof, as my orders from Mr. Secretary Vernon import. The said Committee were made up of Two Gentlemen of the Councel, Two Merchants, and the Deputy Collector, whose names are to the inclosed Inventory of the goods and Treasure. They searched Kidd's Lodging, and found hid and made up in Two sea-beds, a bag of gold dust and Ingots of the value of about 1000 L. and a bag of silver, part money and part pieces and piggs of silver, value as set down in the said Inventory. In the above bag of gold were several litle bags of gold; all particulars are, I believe, very justly and exactly set down in the Inventory. For my part, I have medled with no manner of thing, but put every thing under the management of the Councel, and into the Custody of the before mentioned Committee, that I might be free from the Suspicion and Censure of the World. The enameled box mentioned in the beginning of the Inventory is that which Kidd made a present of to my wife by Mr. Campbel, which I delivered in Councel to the said Committee to keep with the rest of the Treasure. There was in it a stone ring, which we take to be a Bristoll Stone;[7] if it were true, it would be worth about 40 L. And there was a small stone unset which we believe is also counterfeit, and a sort of a Locket, with four Sparks which seem to be right diamonds; for there is nobody here that understands Jewels. If the Box and all that is in it were right, they cannot be worth above 60 L.

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Celebrated Travels and Travellers

Celebrated Travels and Travellers
by Jules Verne

We have just seen how Cartier, who had set out first to seek for the north-west passage, had been led to take possession of the country and to lay the foundations of the colony of Canada. In England a similar movement had begun, set on foot by the writings of Sir Humphrey Gilbert and of Richard Wills. They ended by carrying public opinion with them, and demonstrating that it was not more difficult to find this passage than it had been to discover the Strait of Magellan. One of the most ardent partizans of this search was a bold sailor, called Martin Frobisher, who after having many times applied to rich ship-owners, at last found in Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, the favourite of Queen Elizabeth, a patron, whose pecuniary help enabled him to equip a pinnace and two poor barks of from twenty to twenty-five tons' burden. It was with means thus feeble, that the intrepid navigator went to encounter the ice in localities which had never been visited since the time of the Northmen. Setting out from Deptford on the 8th of June, 1576, he sighted the south of Greenland, which he took for the Frisland of Zeno. Soon stopped by the ice, he was obliged to return to Labrador without being able to land there, and he entered Hudson's Straits. After having coasted along Savage and Resolution Islands, he entered a strait which has received his name, but which is also called by some geographers, Lunley's inlet. He landed at Cumberland, took possession of the country in the name of Queen Elizabeth, and entered into some relations with the natives. The cold increased rapidly, and he was obliged to return to England. Frobisher only brought back some rather vague scientific and geographical details about the countries which he had visited; he received, however, a most flattering welcome when he showed a heavy black stone in which a little gold was found. At once all imaginations were on fire. Several lords and the Queen herself contributed to the expense of a new armament, consisting of a vessel of 200 tons, with a crew of 100 men, and two smaller barks, which carried six months' provision both for war and for nourishment. Frobisher had some experienced sailors--Fenton, York, George Best, and C. Hall, under his command. On the 31st of May, 1577, the expedition set sail, and soon sighted Greenland, of which the mountains were covered with snow, and the shores defended by a rampart of ice. The weather was bad. Exceedingly dense fogs,--as thick as pease-soup, said the English sailors,--islands of ice a mile and a half in circumferance, floating mountains which were sunk seventy or eighty fathoms in the sea, such were the obstacles which prevented Frobisher from reaching before the 9th of August, the strait which he had discovered during his previous campaign. The English took possession of the country, and pursued both upon land and sea some poor Esquimaux, who, wounded "in this encounter, jumped in despair from the top of the rocks into the sea," says Forster in his Voyages in the North, "which would not have happened if they had shown themselves more submissive, or if we could have made them understand that we were not their enemies." A great quantity of stones similar to that which had been brought to England were soon discovered. They were of gold marcasite, and 200 tons of this substance was soon collected. In their delight, the English sailors set up a memorial column on a peak to which they gave the name of Warwick Mount, and performed solemn acts of thanksgiving. Frobisher afterwards went ninety miles further on in the same strait, as far as a small island, which received the name of Smith's Island. There the English found two women, of whom they took one with her child, but left the other on account of her extreme ugliness.

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