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PRINTED BY CHAMBERS & EXAFF

At a meeting of the delegates to the Chicago Convention (selected pursuant to a meeting of the citizens of St. Louis, at the Rotunda, on Saturday, May the 29^th, 1847,) held at the Planter's House, on Monday evening, the 8^th of June, F.M. HAIGHT, Esq., in the Chair:

The following gentlemen were appointed a committee to prepare a report on the improvement of the navigation of the Mississippi and its principal tributaries, the St. Louis Harbor and Marine Hospitals, and submit the same to the delegation, at a meeting to be held at the Planter's House on the evening of the 19^th inst., viz:

At a subsequent meeting of the Delegates, held at the Planters House on Saturday evening, the 19^th June, ARCHIBALD GAMBLE, Esq., presiding. THOMAS ALLEN, Esq., from the Committee to prepare the report, submitted the following, which, having been read and carefully considered, was unanimously approved, and ordered to be printed for the use of the Convention.

A. B. CHAMBERS, Secretary.

The people of the city of St. Louis, hail with satisfaction, the assemblage of a general convention, with reference to the great interests of interior commerce and navigation. From such commerce and navigation St. Louis derives its origin, its increase, and its future hopes of greatness. In such it has lived, flourished and suffered, until experience has given it full knowledge of their nature, and a clear apprehension of their capacities, their deficiencies, and their relations.

The people of St. Louis are an integral portion of the great Republican family of the United States, and while they hold themselves ever ready to discharge the duties devolving upon them, as members of the Union, yet they claim their proportion of its advantages. Their geographical position, is that of the heart of the great central valley of the North American Continent. A valley, extending through 21 degrees of latitude, and 15 degrees of longitude, embracing every variety of climate and soil, production and pursuit: a valley, just beginning to smile in its redemption from a state of nature, yet inviting to its ample bosom the outpourings of every over-crowded community of the world, and offering to return to the hand of improvement, supplies for unnumbered millions of the human race. Nature has, in a remarkable degree, endowed the soil with vegetable fertility and mineral riches; exhibited a surface adapted to every taste and want, and cut it with peculiar streams susceptible of application to various species of industry, and to the uses of a magnificent commerce, holding in one embrace, the productions of the northern and southern limits of the temperate zone.

This vast area, this fat and fertile valley, comprehended between the sources of the Mississippi on the north, the Gulf of Mexico on the south, the Rocky Mountains on the west, and the Alleghenies on the east, though but recently a wilderness, already embraces eleven entire states and parts of two others, and two territories; and is busy with industry, and burdened with the immediate support and all the earthly interests of half the population of the United States of North America. Comprising within its limits, 1,200,000 square miles, or 768,000,000 of acres, its importance can no more be calculated that that of the Union itself. Its influence must be co-extensive with the habitable globe, of which it will be the Garden and the Granary; going beyond the United States, of which it must become the seat of Empire, the source of vitality, the diadem of pride, the base of their pyramid of grandeur. The Creator of the universe has no where on the face of the earth, spread more lavishly the means of human prosperity, or stamped more legibly the lineaments of beautiful and convenient adaptation to the wants and necessities of mankind. Visit it not with the evils of bad government; obstruct not the hand of improvement within it; stay not the tide of population pouring in upon its bosom; and let its broad acres receive that proportion of population which vexes the soil of the kingdom of Great Britain,^* and the Bountiful Giver of this great and good gift, will smile from Heaven upon a happy family of more than 275 millions of human beings. Indeed, looking forward for 60 years, for an increase of population keeping pace with the ratio of the past 60 years, (that is, doubling every 10 years,) the world would behold in 1907, (60 years hence) swarming in this valley, more than 640 millions of inhabitants. This astonishing result, has for its demonstration, the past statistical history of the country, though it would seem scarcely possible that the past ratio of increase can be maintained. At the first census (1790) the population of the valley of the Mississippi, did not exceed 200,000. In 1800, it had increased to about 560,000; in 1810, to 1,370,00; in 1820, to 2,580,000; in 1830, to 4,190,000; in 1840, to 6,370,000; and in 1847, according to the preceding average ratio of increase, it exceeds 10,520,000. In the year 1850, according to such ratio, it will exceed 12 millions, and be about equal to the population of all the Atlantic states.

The history of Missouri alone, however, exhibits a still more extraordinary increase. In 1771, the population was 743;j in 1799, it was 6,005; in 1810, it was 20,845; in 1820, it was 66,586; in 1830, it was 140,455; in 1840, it was 383,702; and according to the same ratio of increase, (173 per cent decennially,) it is in 1847, 825,074, being an increase of over 16 per cent per annum. But while the decennial increase of Missouri, was 173 per cent, that of Illinois was 202, Mississippi 175, Michigan 555, and Arkansas 221 per cent.

The commerce and agriculture of this Valley exhibit a growth as surprising as that of its population.

The first schooner of the Northern Lakes, "the Griffin," in 1679, was freighted with the first combination of commercial enterprise and settlement that reached the Valley of the Mississippi. Thus the rivers of the Valley owe to the great Lakes, the introduction of commerce and population.

From that period up to the purchase of Louisiana in 1803, and even later, the fur trade of the French immigrants with the Indians constituted a leading pursuit of the inhabitants, especially of the upper half of the Valley of the Mississippi. These immense rivers and lakes were navigated from Quebec, on the St. Lawrence, to the Yellow Stone, on the Missouri, by bark canoes, and the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, connecting the Lakes with the Mississippi, were a chief thoroughfare of the trade.

Next to the canoe came the Mackinaw boat, carrying 1500 weight to 3 tons, and then the keel boat or barge of 30 to 40 tons. The first appearance of the keel boat, in the Mississippi, above the mouth of the Ohio, of which we have any account, was in 1751, when a fleet of boats, commanded by Bossu, a Captain of the French Marines, ascended as far as Fort Chartres. This enterprise also, was the first to ascertain, by experience, something of the nature of the navigation of the Mississippi. One of the boats, "the St. Louis," struck a sand bar above the mouth of the Ohio, was unladen and detained two days. Three days after, says the traveler, "my boat ran against a tree, of which the Mississippi is full;"^* "the shock burst the boat, and such a quantity of water got in that in sunk in less than an hour's time." This was probably the first boat snagged on the Mississippi. From three to four months was the time consumed at this period, and for many years afterward in a voyage from New Orleans to the settlements in the vicinity of St. Louis; a voyage occupying a steamboat in 1819 twenty-seven days! but which of late has been accomplished in less than four days!

The annual average value of the fur trade of upper Louisiana for fifteen successive years ending in 1804 amounted to $203,750. That part of the province also exported some lead, salt, beef and pork--the Indian goods coming from Canada, those for domestic consumption from Philadelphia and Baltimore; groceries from New Orleans, and hardware in small boats from the Ohio river. The annual exports from the lower part of the Mississippi Valley for the year 1802, amounted to about $2,160,000, and the imports to about $2,500,000; the exports consisting of sugar, cotton, rice, indigo, furs, and peltries, lead, lumber, cattle, horses, beef and pork, tar and pitch. For the year 1846, the receipts at New Orleans from the upper country, amounted to $77,193,464.

At the period of the introduction of steamboats on the Mississippi, 1817, the whole commerce from New Orleans to the upper country, was transported in about twenty barges of an average of 100 tons each, and making but one trip in a year. The number of keel boats on the Ohio was estimated at 160 carrying thirty tons each. The total tonnage was estimated at between 6,000 and 7,000.

In 1834, the number of steamboats on the Mississippi and its tributaries was 230, and their tonnage equal to about 39,000.

In 1840, the number was 285, with a tonnage of 49,800.

In 1842, the number was 450, and, estimating their burden at an average of 200 tons each, their tonnage was 90,000.

In 1843, the number was estimated at 672; tonnage, 134,400.

In addition to the steamboats, there are estimated to be employed on the same rivers, about 4,000 keel and flat boats.

For the year 1844, the enrolled and licensed steamboat tonnage of the western rivers was reported by the Secretary of the Treasury at 144,150, which, at an average of 210 tons^* for each boat, gives 686 steamboats for that year.

By a subsequent report from the same source, the tonnage had increased by the last of June, 1845, to 159,713, making the number of boats 789.

A report from the authority, for 1846, exhibits the steamboat tonnage enrolled and licensed at the several districts named below, as follows:

New Orleans..............................180,504.81
St. Louis................................ 22,425.92
Pittsburgh................................17,162.94
Cincinnati................................15,312.86
Louisville.................................8,172.26
Nashville..................................2,809.23
Wheeling...................................2,666.76
Total....................................249,054.77 tons.

Applying the average above adopted to this tonnage, the number of steamboats upon the western rivers in 1846, is demonstrated to have been 1,190. Regarding the value per ton to be $65, which is lower than has been heretofore been estimated, and we have as the aggregate value of these boats, the sum of $16,188,561. Supposing them to run 220 days in the year, at the cost of $125 per day for each boat, and the annual expense of running 1,190 boats appears to be $32,725,000. Estimating the average number of persons employed on each boat at 35, gives a total of 41,650 persons actually employed upon the steamboats of the Valley of the Mississippi. To this we may add the estimated number of 4000 keel and flat boats, embracing in their employment 20,000 souls, and costing to build and navigate them, $1,380,000.

We are now enabled to form a table, showing the cost of river transportation in the Valley of the Mississippi:

Cost of running 1,190 steamboats..........................$32,725,000
Insurance on $16,188,561, at 12 per cent....................1,942,627
Interest on $16,188,561, at 6 per cent........................971,313
Wear and tear of boats. 24 per cent.........................3,885,254
Tolls on the Louisville and Portland Canal....................250,000
Cost of flat boats, (included because sacrificed at N.O.)...1,380,000
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Total cost of transportation, annually,...................$41,154,194*

It is impossible to estimate the number of persons among whom, for wages, wood, coal, boat stores, provisions, &c., this almost incredible sum of forty-one millions of dollars is annually distributed. Suffice it to say, more or less of it reaches every family and every cabin, situated upon a double coast of river navigation, extending over 15,000 miles; while, as a tax, it falls, not insensibly, upon every producer and consumer in the entire valley. It affects the producer, because the cost of getting his crops to market lessens the profit he is enabled to realize, and the same impediments to the returns increases the cost of the necessaries he purchases for consumption. This great cost is a tax upon the surplus produce, enterprize, industry, and trade of the country.