The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

272 THE BRITISH ISLES.
began to grow rich, mainly from the profits derived from the slave trade. When
Fuseli, the artist, was called upon to admire the wide streets and noble buildings
of a quarter of the town then recently constructed, he said, with reference to this
fact, that he felt as if the blood of negroes must ooze out of the stones.
Liverpool is largely indebted for its prosperity to its central position with
reference to the sister islands of Great Britain and Ireland, for upon it con-
verge all the great highways over which the home trade of the British Islands
is carried on. This central position has been equally advantageous to its
foreign trade. Though farther away than Bristol from the ocean, which is
the high-road connecting England with America, Africa, and the Indies, this
disadvantage is more than compensated for by Liverpool's proximity to the vast
coal basin which has become the great seat of English manufacturing industry.
13i.
—
The Lantitng-stage.
The docks are the great marvel of Liverpool. No other town can boast of
possessing so considerable an extent of sea-water enclosed between solid masonry
walls, and kept under control by locks. There are maritime cities with roadsteads
capable of accommodating entire fleets, but few amongst them have docks
sufEciently spacious to admit thousands of vessels at one and the same time, like
London and Liverpool. The latter is even superior in this respect to the great
commercial emporium on the Thames, and certainly preceded it in the construction
of docks. In 1709 the Corporation of Liverpool first caused a pool to be deepened
in order that it might afford shelter to vessels. This, the precursor of the existing
basins, has been filled up since, and the sumptuous revenue and customs buildings
have been raised upon its site. But for the one dock thus abolished, twenty-seven
others, far more vast and convenient, have been constructed since. These docks