IMPROVEMENT OF THE ROADS. 163 



pool and Hull in the same manner as the materials are brought 

 from those places. 



"Many thousand tons of shipping, and seamen in proportion, 

 which in summer trade to the northern seas, are employed in winter 

 in carrying materials for the Burslem ware ; and as much salt is 

 consumed in glazing one species of it as pays annually near 5,000 

 duty to government. Add to these considerations the prodigious 

 quantity of coal used in the Potteries, and the loading and freight 

 this manufacture constantly supplies as well for land carriage as in- 

 land navigation, and it will appear that the manufacturers, sailors, 

 bargemen, carriers, colliers, men employed in the salt works, and 

 others who are supported by the pot trade, amount to a great many 

 thousand people ; and every shilling received for ware at foreign 

 markets is so much clear gain to the nation, as not one foreigner is 

 employed in, or any material imported from abroad for, any branch 

 of it ; and the trade nourishes so much as to have increased two- 

 thirds within the last fourteen years. 



" The potters concerned in this very considerable manufacture, 

 presuming from the above, and many other reasons that might be 

 offered by the pot trade, not unworthy the attention of parliament, 

 have presented a petition for leave to bring in a bill to repair and 

 widen the road from the * Eed Bull ' at Lawton, in Cheshire, to 

 Cliff Bank, in Staffordshire, which runs right through the Potteries, 

 and falls at each end into a turnpike road. This road, especially 

 the northern road from Burslem to the ' Red Bull,' is so very 

 narrow, deep, and foundrous, as to be almost impassable for car- 

 riages, and in the winter almost for pack-horses ; for which reasons 

 the carriages with materials and ware to and from Liverpool, and 

 the salt works in Cheshire, are obliged to go to Newcastle, and 

 from thence to the ' Red Bull,' which is nine miles and a half 

 (whereof three miles and a half, viz., from Burslem to Newcastle, 

 are not turnpike road), instead of five miles, which is the dis- 

 tance from Burslem to the ' Bed Bull ' by the road prayed to be 

 amended." 



In this scheme, as I have before hinted, Wedgwood and 

 his brother manufacturers met with severe opposition, 

 especially from the inhabitants of Newcastle-under-Lyme, 

 who considered that by diverting the traffic into another 

 channel, their town would be ruined, and their trade, 

 especially that of the innkeepers, destroyed. The Act, 



M2 



