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tainly not entitled to; for the true reaſon of the oppofition was neither more nor leſs than the narrow minded PREIU- DICE OF A VERY FEW MERCHANTS, WHoO, DREADING A Co MPETITION IN TRADE, WERE ANXIOUS TO KEEP THINGS As THEY WERE, AND wHo HAD INTEREST ENOUGHR WITH SoME OwNERS OF FEN LANDS TO O8- TAIN THEIR AsslsTANCE. But Mr. Palmer and NMr. Wing were not to be driven from their point, though thwarted ſo much as to be obliged to drop the plan for the preſent. They watched an opportunity, and without con- ſulting the merchants of Wiſbech at all, they got a clauſe inſerted in an Act of Parliament, which was about to be Paſſed for another purpoſe, enabling themſelves at the ex- pence of part of thoſe lands which drain through Wiſbech outfal, to execute not the whole, but a ſmall part, of their plan. The work has been done; and mark the event:— the lands in queſtion are improved almoſt beyond belief— they are, in fact, converted from a ſtate of very ſmall proft, in moſt caſes, in ſome of none at all, and in others of abſo- lute loſs to the proprietors, to one of the moſt fertile and beſt productive tracts that can be found, of the ſame extent, within His Majeſty's dominions; whilſt the trade of Wilſ- bech, in conſequence of an improved navigation to the ſea, is ſo much increaſed, that the amount of its cuſtoms is more than four times what it had uſed to be; and the inhabitants of the Northern part of Huntingdonfhire, and of great part of the county of Northampton, have the ſatisfaction to know and to fcel that they can be ſupplied with ſuch conſumeable goods as they want, without depending alto- gether upon the Lynn merchants, whoſe management, no longer ſince than laſt winter, would have ſtarved the coun- try to death for want of coals, if there had not been the port of Wiſbech to refort to. Nay more— a tract of country in Lincolnſhire, called South Holland, containing perhaps 100,000 acres of land, great part of which has

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