BRIDGEWATER, Francis Egerton, Duke of, who has sometimes been styled "the Father of British Inland Navigation," was born in the year 1736. An account of his navigable canal, which (with the exception of the Sankey canal) was the first great undertaking of the kind executed in Great Britain in modern times, will be found in this work under the biographical notice of Brindley, the able engineer to whose skill its construction was committed. The untiring perseverance displayed by the Duke in surmounting the various difficulties that retarded the accomplishment of his project, together with the pecuniary restrictions he imposed on himself in order to supply the necessary capital, afford an instructive example of that energy and self-denial on which the success of great undertakings so essentially depends. His Grace, though a steady supporter of Mr Pitt's administration, never took any prominent part in politics. He died March 8, 1803.