But, As There Is A Road For Mules And Foot Passengers, It Might Certainly Be Enlarged And Improved So As To Render It Practicable By Chaises And Other Wheel-Carriages, And A Toll Might Be Exacted, Which In A Little Time Would Defray The Expence:

For certainly no person who travels to Italy, from England, Holland, France, or Spain, would make a troublesome circuit

To pass the Alps by the way of Savoy and Piedmont, if he could have the convenience of going post by the way of Aix, Antibes, and Nice, along the side of the Mediterranean, and through the Riviera of Genoa, which from the sea affords the most agreeable and amazing prospect I ever beheld. What pity it is, they cannot restore the celebrated Via Aurelia, mentioned in the Itinerarium of Antoninus, which extended from Rome by the way of Genoa, and through this country as far as Arles upon the Rhone. It was said to have been made by the emperor Marcus Aurelius; and some of the vestiges of it are still to be seen in Provence. The truth is, the nobility of Genoa, who are all merchants, from a low, selfish, and absurd policy, take all methods to keep their subjects of the Riviera in poverty and dependence. With this view, they carefully avoid all steps towards rendering that country accessible by land; and at the same time discourage their trade by sea, lest it should interfere with the commerce of their capital, in which they themselves are personally concerned.

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