Excerpt from The Life of Henry Bell: The Practical Introducer of the Steam-Boat Into Great Britain and Ireland; To Which Is Added, an Historical Sketch of Steam Navigation My Lord and Gentlemen, these are my own Wishes for the Queen of the West and may that river, whose charms have been alluded to, be improved by you from year to year in its navigation, with barks, encreasing in size and number, some driven by steam, and others by breeze and canvas, to every nation, tribe, and people, with the fruits of our industry; and bringing back in return the products of distant lands.

Free-trade is the philosophy of commerce; and the steam-ship will cut up all monopolies. This was Henry Bell's opinion, and to this it must come. Britain needs this free barter, and she has nothing to dread from the doctrine. So reasoned Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations, ' and his doctrines will finally triumph.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.