#1: One Life Is Much Like Another (From The Point Of View Of The Universe)
From “The Calamity Canal: The Erie Project”, W. Bubba (1964):
At the dawn of the nineteenth century, New York City was a struggling port overshadowed by virtually every other metropolis on the Eastern Seaboard. The town's Royalist sympathies in the Revolutionary War, a generation past, had not been forgotten; conflict between the United States and British Empire in 1812 reopened and exacerbated old wounds. Already lagging economically behind Boston and Philadelphia, at one point it appeared New York would even be overtaken as a port by the nascent capital at Washington DC. It was in these circumstances that the audacious plan was developed to link the upper Hudson to Lake Erie by way of canal, allowing trade to pass between the Thirteen Colonies[1] and the Louisiana Territories without having to pass through the British-controlled St Lawrence or the Caribbean.
The Erie Canal, contrary to the great mass of critical thought on the issue, was not simply a triumph of New Yorker hubris destined by its very nature to fail. The Mohawk Valley in upstate New York formed the only break in the Northern Appalachians, and thus was a natural point of transit between East and West; and the ramifications for the economy and politics of the United States of an entirely internal trade route would be immesurable. Instead, the Canal failed due to insurmountable engineering issues, poor management and sheer bad luck from the start – not least the sad case of Canvass White.
Shortly after the Erie Canal Company was formed, White volunteered to travel to England in an effort to better understand canal engineering (something which, it seems, the Directors had little idea of themselves). Despite numerous theories over the years suggesting otherwise, there is little to no evidence that White's voyage across the Atlantic was anything other than ordinary; all that can be known for certain is that he stepped off the ship in England, wrote to his masters in New York informing them of his safe arrival, and was never heard from again...[2]
From “England's Irie: The Life of King Augustus”, Graham Mellor (1959)
The announcement in April 1817 that Charlotte, Princess of Wales[3], was expecting a child was greeted with wild abandon across the United Kingdom. The Princess and her husband, Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, were immensely popular amongst the British public; the young couple were viewed as a symbol of hope, in contrast to her grandfather 'Mad King George', the man who lost America, and Charlotte's father the gluttonous Prince Regent. Charlotte and Leopold – commonly termed 'the Coburgs' – also genuinely seemed to love each other, which delighted a nation tired of the ugly marital infighting which had until now characterised the House of Hanover and which now had a real-life version of one of Charlotte's beloved Jane Austen novels playing out before them[4].
News of the impending heir saw betting shops open books on the child's gender; it was predicted that the stock market would rise 2.5% on the birth of a princess, and 6% if the child was a boy. The public mood was enhanced further by the news that the Princess was fully expected to carry the baby to term; she had already suffered a miscarriage once before, in 1816.
Unfortunately, Charlotte's physicians were not so adept at looking after their charge as might be expected. After being allowed to eat unhealthily in the early stages of the pregnancy, she was put on a strict diet and even had bleeding induced in an effort to reduce her weight and that of the baby; the process so horrified Leopold's physician, Christian von Stockmar, that he refused to be involved in Charlotte's prenatal care.
Charlotte's contractions began on November 3rd, 1817, some two weeks after her expected due date. The birth was difficult, and when, in the early hours of November 5th, it became evident the Princess was struggling, the decision was taken to send for an obstetrician, John Sims. After an argument with the Royal accoucheur, Sir Richard Croft, over whether Sims should be allowed to see his patient, he arrived on the scene and initiated the use of forceps[5]. Charlotte gave birth to a boy around midday on November 5th, and insisted he be christened Augustus after her uncle the Duke of Sussex, who had supported her against her father during her isolation.
Around midnight, Charlotte's condition worsened. Croft and Stockmar did their best to alleviate her condition, but the Princess continued to deteriorate, and Stockmar was sent to rouse Leopold. The prince arrived shortly after, and was at his wife's bedside when she died shortly before one in the morning[6].
The death of Charlotte Coburg sent Britain into an unprecedented period of mourning, and initiated a crisis in the Court of St James...
[1] An anachronistic term, since the Colonies are now States and there's more than Thirteen of them at this point; historians tend to use the term to differentiate between the Eastern Seaboard states and the 'Louisiana Territories' (essentially anywhere west of the Appalachians).
[2] White's disappearance will be the subject of supposition and conspiracy from all corners. Some will allege he was murdered by the British; others that he was a defector or a British double-agent; no-one will actually have any hope of solving the mystery.
[3] As I understand it, Charlotte is 'Princess of Wales' in lieu of her father, the Prince Regent.
[4] There are accounts that the Princess of Wales identified with some of Austen's heroines, and no wonder; her father had initially forbade her to marry Leopold due to his comparatively low station, and had her confined to her mother's residence when she attempted to flee rather than be forced into marriage with the Prince of Orange.
[5] In OTL, Sims didn't see the Princess and forceps weren't used; neither Charlotte nor her son survived.
[6] In OTL, Leopold became King of the Belgians after the death of his wife and child; given that he now has an heir ITTL, that's probably not going to happen.