BAD STATE OF ROADS. HEAVY FREIGHTAGE. 171 



the name in the pottery district, the people being supplied 

 by itinerant hucksters, chapmen, and packmen from other 

 places. In 1760, Richard Whitworth, of Balcham Grange, 

 wrote : " There are three pot waggons go from Newcastle 

 and JBurslem weekly, through Eccleshall and Newport to 

 Bridgnorth, and carry about eight tons of potware every 

 week, at 3 per ton. The same waggons load back with 

 ten tons of close goods, consisting of white clay, grocery, 

 and iron, at the same price, delivered on their road to New- 

 castle. Large quantities of potware are conveyed on horses' 

 backs from Burslem and Newcastle to Bridgnorth and 

 Bewdley, for exportation, about one hundred tons yearly, at 

 2 10s. per ton. Two broad- wheel waggons (exclusive of 

 150 pack-horses) go from Manchester through Stafford 

 weekly, and may be computed to carry 312 tons of cloth 

 and Manchester wares in the year, at 3 Ws. per ton. The 

 great salt trade that is carried on at Northwich may be 

 computed to send 600 tons yearly along this (proposed) 

 canal, together with Nantwich 400, chiefly carried now on 

 horses' backs at Ws. per ton on a medium." So accustomed, 

 however, had the inhabitants of the principal pottery town, 

 Newcastle-under-Lyme, become to this state of things that, 

 as I have already hinted, every scheme for the improvement 

 of the roads and for developing the resources of the district 

 met with dogged and determined opposition. . They, in their 

 narrow-mindedness, feared that if the roads were improved, 

 the country opened out with water and other means of 

 communication, the traffic would be taken otherwise than 

 through their good old town, and that therefore their inn- 

 keepers and others would lose by the proposed change. 



The success of the duke's canal brought forward many 

 opponents to the scheme to which Wedgwood had wedded 

 himself. The promoters of each of these rival schemes had 

 their own interests to serve, and their own selfish ends in 

 view. They were, however, impotent except in delaying the 

 Grand Trunk scheme, and eventually one by one were dis- 

 posed of. The Duke of Bridgwater threw his influence and 



