222 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



distant farmers their estates would suffer. But they were not 

 alone in their opposition ; in the reign of Queen Anne the 

 people of Northampton were against any improvement in the 

 navigation of the Nene, because they feared that corn from 

 Huntingdon and Cambridge would come up the river and 

 spoil their market.^ Horner was very enthusiastic over the 

 improvement recently effected : ' our very carriages travel with 

 almost winged expedition between every town of consequence 

 in the kingdom and the metropolis,' and inland navigation 

 was soon likely to be established in every part, in consequence 

 of which the demand for the produce of the land increased and 

 the land itself became more valuable and rents rose. ' There 

 never was a more astonishing revolution accomplished in the 

 internal system of any country '; and the carriage of grain was 

 effected with half the former number of horses. 



It is clear, however, that he was easily satisfied, and this 

 opinion must be compared with the statements of Young 

 and Marshall, who were continually travelling all over England 

 some time after it was written, and found the roads, in many 

 parts, in a very bad state. 



Even near London they were often terrible. * Of all the 

 cursed roads that ever disgraced this kingdoni in the very ages 

 of barbarism, none ever equalled that from Billericay to the 

 King's Head at Tilbury.^ It is for near 12 miles so narrow 

 that a mouse cannot pass by any carriage. I saw a fellow 

 creep under his wagon to assist me to lift, if possible, my chaise 

 over a hedge. The ruts are of an incredible depth, and 

 everywhere chalk wagons were stuck fast till 20 or 30 horses 

 tacked to each drew them out one by one.' Others said that 

 turnpike roads were the enemies of cheapness ; as soon as 

 they opened up secluded spots, low prices vanished and all 

 tended to one level. Owing to the work of Telford and 

 Macadam, the high roads by the first quarter of the nineteenth 



■^ Victoria County History : Northantst, ii. 290. 

 ^ Young, Southern Tour (ed. 2), p. 88. 



