20 REPORT — 1856. 



of your Lordships the necessity for immediate measures for the future pro- 

 tection of the navigation of the River Mersey, an object of increasing and 

 anxious interest to your Memorialists, and one in which the eountry at large 

 is deeply concerned. 



And your Memorialists will ever pray, &c. 

 Liverpool, April 1839. 



Second Memorial, September 1839. 



To the Honourable the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, and to the 

 Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners for the Affairs of Trade. 



The Memorial of the Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the Borough 

 of Liverpool, 



Sheweth,— That your Memorialists presented in May last, through the 

 members of the borough, a Memorial to your Lordships, setting forth the dan- 

 gerous state of the River Mersey, from the numerous and shifting banks and 

 shoals, the causes for this state, the endeavours hitherto ineffectually made to 

 obtain efficient protection, the necessity for incessant superintendence, the 

 immense area already abstracted from the tideway, and other grounds, as 

 inducements for the interference of your Lordships, in order to the establish- 

 ment of a Commission of Conservancy ; which ?rIemorial was accompanied by 

 extracts of evidence taken before a Committee of the House of Commons in 

 the session of 1838, in the Grand Junction Railway Bill, as to the past and 

 present state of the river. 



That your Memorialists are anxious to receive the opinion of your Lord- 

 ships upon the prayer of their Memorial, and (venturing to assume that a 

 Bill to be brought into Parliament in the ensuing session will be directed or 

 sanctioned by your Lordships) more particularly as to the preliminary ques- 

 tion, whether such Bill ought to be public or private, inasmuch as in case 

 the latter be deemed by your Lordships to be preferable, tiie necessary notices 

 must be forthwith given, and other parliamentary proceedings be taken in 

 conformity to the standing orders ; and, as whatever course of proceeding 

 your Lordships may recommend, immediate meetings with parties concerned, 

 proprietors along the banks of the river, ought to be held, in order as much 

 as possible to remove misunderstanding and consequent hostility on their 

 parts. 



That your Memorialists would respectfully urge on your Lordships' con- 

 sideration, that the plan of a public bill would be the preferable course ; for 

 even the notice of a private bill, and the deposit of maps showing a line of 

 causeway along, or, as many would suppose, over estates on the banks of the 

 Mersey, creates such alarm in the minds of the proprietors interested, as to 

 make it exceedingly difficult and almost impossible afterwards to explain 

 that the proposed measure is one for the public good, and for the benefit 

 rather than to the injury of individuals. 



That your Memorialists have, through their officers, lately had the advan- 

 tage of conferences with Mr. Wilkin, one of the officers of the Woods and 

 Forests, and with Mr. Wilkin, junior, both lately dispatched by that Board 

 to Liverpool, at the instance of your Lordships, to take preliminary steps on 

 the subject of the Conservancy ; and your Memorialists believe that these 

 gentlemen, who have given considerable attention to the subject, and have 

 taken great interest therein, concur in opinion with your Memorialists and 

 their officers, that a public bill is the proper measure to be recommended, 

 but that, however that point may be determined, another session ought not 



