432 - COLONIAL AND TRAN'SATLANTIC

Lake Ontario, or on the St Lawrence, was also more difficult for steam-vessels than that of the Atlantic.

The commander of one of the steam-packets that ply between Dublin and Liverpool, has crossed the Atlantic more than thirty times. I have gone over with him several times to Dublin ; and twice, during the winter of 1826, he declared to me that he never witnessed worse weather, nor such an abrupt dan- gerous sea on the Atlantic, as we then experienced. I believe most naval officers will bear me out in these observations. Masters of merchant ships, few of whom know much either of the arts or sciences, cherish a strong prejudice against steam-vessels; yet they readily admit that the sea rises more dan- gerously, during tempestuous weather, in the Irish and English' Channels, in the German Ocean, and in the Gulf and River of St Lawrence, than it does in the main ocean. Those seas are, however, all safely navigated with steam-ships; and why not cross the Atlantic also by the power of steam ?

It was the intention of the company to establish an intercolonial, as well as a Transatlantic, steam- navigation. It now remains only for them to do the latter. The coIOnies have already commenced the former ; and if the latter be much longer neglected in England, it will assuredly be undertaken in America. I

The legislatures of all the North American colo- , nies voted certain sums to encourage intercolonial steam navigation. The House of Assembly of Lower

Canada voted L.3000 to persons or companies, who 8