Who was John By?

Colonel John By was a British military engineer responsible for the design and construction of the Rideau Canal, a Canadian waterway joining the city of Ottawa (on the Ottawa River) to the city of Kingston (on the St. Lawrence River). It was intended to give the British fleet a means of circumventing American territorial waters during British-American hostilities in the early 19th century. The fleet could sail up the St Lawrence River to Montreal, then sail up the Ottawa River to Ottawa, and use the Rideau Canal to re-access the St. Lawrence at the eastern end of Lake Ontario, completely bypassing the stretch of the St. Lawrence that is bounded by both the United States and Canada.

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