The subscribers were incorporated by the name of "The Company of Proprietors of the Forth and Clyde Navigation," with power to raise among themselves the sum of £150,000, in fifteen hundred shares of £100 each, and an additional sum of £50,000, if necessary.
Although it was not until after the passing of the above act that this great work was commenced, yet the project of forming a communication between the eastern and western seas had been agitated a long time previous; and, even as early as the reign of Charles the Second, the design was thought to be one of so much utility, that that monarch took measures for cutting a canal, through which, not only ordinary vessels, but also small ships of war might pass between sea and sea, without the danger of coasting.
The estimated cost of this early project was £500,000; but a variety of circumstances, and particularly the difficulty of raising such a sum, caused the prosecution of the design to be neglected, and no further steps were taken till 1723. In that year a survey and estimate were made by Mr. Gordon, an engineer of repute; but his calculation of the expenses deterred the projectors, and nothing was done. Thirty-six years after, Lord Napier employed Mr. Machell to lay down the plan of a canal, which should begin at the Clyde, about four miles below Glasgow, and end in the Forth, near the mouth of the River Carron. Mr. Machell's report in 1764 placed the utility of the undertaking in so striking a point of view, that " The Honourable the Board of Trustees for encouraging Fisheries, Manufactures, and Improvements in Scotland," immediately employed Mr. Smeaton to make the necessary surveys, and to estimate thereon. This eminent engineer produced a design, which at first deterred the parties by whom he was employed, as well by the apparent difficulties to be encountered, as by the immense sum he deemed necessary for its completion; but, on the projection of a smaller canal, opening a communication between Glasgow and the Forth, Mr. Smeaton's plan was reconsidered; and, after he had convinced all parties of the practicability of it, and completely refuted the objections of Mr. Brindley and other engineers, the act above-recited was obtained, and the execution of the canal immediately commenced under his direction.
