the work, which was shortly afterwards let to contractors, who however failed, and the canal was again placed under the direction of its original projector, who brought it to within six miles of its proposed junction with the Clyde, when the work was stopped in 1775 for want of funds, and it continued at a stand for several years.
For the purpose, however, of opening a communication between the part already executed and the city of Glasgow, a subscription was entered into by the inhabitants of that place, to make a branch, so that by effecting a junction with the Forth, the part excavated might immediately be brought into useful operation.
After the lapse of nine years from the stoppage above alluded to, an act was obtained, entitled, 'An Act for extending, amending and altering the Powers of an Act made in the Eighth Year of his present Majesty, entitled, An Act for making and maintaining a navigable Canal from the Firth or River of Forth, at or near the mouth of the River Carron, in the county of Stirling, to the Firth or River of Clyde, at or near a place called Dalmuir Burnfoot, in the county of Dumbarton; and also a collateral Cut from the same to the city of Glasgow; and for making a navigable Cut or Canal of Communication from the Port or Harbour of Borrowstounness, to join the said Canal at or near the place where it will fall into the Firtl& of Forth,' by which the Barons of the Court of Exchequer in Scotland, are, out of the money arising from the sale of forfeited estates, directed to lend the Forth and Clyde Navigation Company the sum of £50,000, by which they were enabled to resume their labours, under the direction of Mr. Robert Whitworth, an engineer possessing a well earned reputation, and by whom it was finished and opened on the 28th July, 1790. Previous, however, to this period, three other acts of parliament relating to this canal received the royal sanction; of which, one was on the 21st of May, in the 27th of George III. and another the week following, and the last on the 9th of June, in the 30th of that reign.
The first which passed into a law is entitled, 'An Act for varying and extending the Powers of the Company of Proprietors of the Forth and Clyde Navigation;' and the other, 'An Act for altering and extending the Line of the Cut or Canal, authorized
