The first act for this stupendous undertaking was passed in 1769, under the title of 'An Act for making and maintaining a navigable Canal, from the Coventry Canal Navigation to the city of Oxford.' A second was passed in 1775, entitled, 'An Act to amend an Act made in the Ninth of his present Majesty for making and maintaining a navigable Canal, from the Coventry Canal Navigation to the city of Oxford.' A third in 1786, entitled, 'An Act to amend and render effectual Two Acts of the Ninth and Fifteenth of his present Majesty, for making and maintaining a naviqable Canal, from the Coventry Canal Navigation to the city of Oxford.' A fourth in 1794, entitled, 'An Act for amending and altering certain Acts of Parliament for making and maintaining a navigable Canal, from the Coventry Canal Navigation to the city of Oxford.' A fifth in 1799, entitled, 'An Act for explaining, amending and rendering more effectual several Acts, passed in the Ninth, Fifteenth, Twenty-sixth and Thirty-fourth of his present Majesty, for making and maintaining a navigable Canal, from the Coventry Canal Navigation to the city of Oxford.' A sixth in 1807, entitled, 'An Act for amending several Acts for making and maintaining a navigable Canal, from the Coventry Canal Navigation to the city of Oxford.' A seventh in 1808, entitled, 'An Act for amending and enlarging the Powers of the several Acts relating to the Oxford Canal Navigation;' and an eighth in 1829, under the title of 'An Act to consolidate and extend the Powers and Provisions of the several Acts relating to the Oxford Canal Navigation.' As this last act consolidates all the parts of the previous acts, which are not repealed, it will not be necessary to notice them any further than as their clauses and provisions come into this. The company is chartered as "The Company of Proprietors of the Oxford Canal Navigation," with powers to complete that work from Longford, near the city of Coventry, to the city of Oxford; for accomplishing which they were, by the first and subsequent acts, authorized to raise certain sums of money, amounting in the whole to the sum of £278,648, in shares of £100 each and parts, and to demand certain rates for tonnage, wharfage, and other dues, which it is not requisite to enumerate here, as the regular charges are specified in the consolidated act of George IV. By that act
