Disadvantages of River Navigation 161 



shire, occasioned by the floods in winter and the numerous 

 shallows in summer, are more than these low-priced manu- 

 factures can bear ; and without some such relief as this under 

 consideration, must concur, with their new established com- 

 petitors in France, and our American colonies, to bring these 

 potteries to a speedy decay and ruin." 



It was, again, as we further learn from Whitworth's little 

 work, by the navigable Severn and Bristol that even Man- 

 chester manufacturers sent their goods to foreign countries 

 in the days when Liverpool had still to attain pre-eminence 

 over the south-western port. Every week, we are told, 150 

 packhorses went from Manchester through Stafford to Bewdley 

 and Bridgnorth, these being in addition to two broad-wheel 

 waggons which carried about 312 tons of cloth and Manchester 

 wares in the year by the same route, at a cost of 3 IDS. per 

 ton. The distance, via Stafford, from Manchester to Bridg- 

 north is 84 miles ; that from Manchester to Bewdley is 

 99 miles, and what the roads at this time were like we have 

 already seen. 



The quantity of salt sent from Cheshire to Willington, to 

 proceed thence along the Trent to Hull for re-shipment to 

 London and elsewhere, is put in Josiah Wedgwood's pamphlet 

 at " many hundred tons " a year. The navigable Trent was 

 thus taken advantage of for the purposes of distribution ; 

 but to get to Willington from the Northwich or other salt 

 works in Cheshire involved a road journey of about forty miles. 



Whitworth also gives much information as to what he calls 

 the " amazing " development the iron industry had under- 

 gone along the Severn valley at the time he wrote (1766) ; 

 and he more especially mentions that the total annual out- 

 put of twenty-two furnaces and forges situate within a distance 

 of four miles of the route of a canal he proposed should be 

 constructed between Bristol, Liverpool, and Hull was 624,000 

 a figure which in those days appears to have been regarded 

 as something prodigious. But the iron- works in question, 

 though having the advantage of the navigable Severn in one 

 direction, suffered from transport disadvantages in another, 

 since their Cumberland ore (of which, says Whitworth, a 

 very small furnace used at least uoo tons a year) was brought 

 down the Weaver to Winsford, in Cheshire, whence it had to 

 be transported by road to the works on the Severn " at six 

 M 



