Besides the trade with these parts of America which have been mentioned, the merchants of Glasgow have large dealings with Canada and Nova Scotia.
The rapid progress making in the use of mechanical power in manufactures is particularly favourable to the growing prosperity of Glasgow, from the inexhaustible supply of coal it possesses for working machinery. This, with the advantage of water communication in every di rection, renders it, almost more than any other place, fitted for carrying on manufactures of a heavy or bulky nature, and must have the effect to bring many new branches of industry of this description to be added to those which it already has. This city, then, producing thus a great va riety of articles for exportation, and carrying on, at the same time, a very extensive foreign trade, seems to combine all the requisites to raise it to the highest commercial emi nence. The revenue of the post-office at Glasgow, in the year 1781, was 4344l.:5 : 8 ; in 1814, it was 34,000/.
Connected with the commerce of Glasgow is the institu tion of its Chamber of Commerce and Manufactures, the first establishment of the kind made in the island. This
association was incorporated by a royal charter in the year 1783, and owes its origin to Dr Patrick Colquboon, author of the State of the Police of London, and other works, and at that time a merchant in Glasgow, and one of its most enlightened and public-spirited citizens.
The chamber consists of the merchants and manufactur ers of Glasgow and the neighbourhood, who may become members upon paying five guineas at admission, and 10s. 6d. yearly. The management is rested in thirty directors, six of whom are renewed annually ; and their duty is to keep a watchful eye on whatever may be supposed to affect the commercial interests of Glasgow and its neighbour hood, and at the same time to serve as the organ of com munication between the manufacturing and commercial body of the district, either acting generally or separately, and the legislature or any of the departments of the state.