398 THE DUKE'S DIFFICULTIES PART V. 



greeted by the landlord with mysterious marks of recog- 

 nition, and still more so when he was asked if he had 

 got a good booty. It turned out that he had exchanged 

 horses with a highwayman, who had adopted this expe- 

 dient for securing a nag less notorious than the one which 

 he had exchanged with the Duke's agent. 1 



At length, when the tenantry could furnish no further 

 advances, and loans were not to be had on any terms in 

 Manchester or Liverpool, and the works must needs 

 come to a complete stand unless money eould be raised 

 to pay the workmen, the Duke took the road to London 

 on horseback, attended only by his groom, to try what 

 could be done with his London bankers. The house of 

 Messrs. Child and Co., Temple Bar, was then the prin- 

 cipal banking-house in the metropolis, as it is the oldest ; 

 and most of the aristocratic families kept their accounts 

 there. The Duke had determined at the outset of his 

 undertaking not to mortgage his landed property, and 

 he had held to this resolution. But the time arrived when 

 he could not avoid borrowing money of his bankers on 

 such other security as he could offer them. He had 

 already created a valuable and lucrative property, which 

 was happily available for the purpose. The canal from 

 Worsley to Manchester had proved remunerative in an 

 extraordinary degree, and was already producing a large 

 annual income. He had not the same scruples at pledgi i ig 

 the revenues of his canal that he had to mortgage his 

 lands ; and an arrangement was concluded with the 

 Messrs. Child under which they agreed to advance the 

 Duke sums of money from time to time, by means of 

 which he was eventually enabled to finish the entire canal. 

 The books of the firm show that he obtained his first 

 advance from them of 3800/. about the middle of the year 

 1765, at which time he w r as in the greatest difficulty : 

 shortly after a further sum of 15,000/. ; then 2000/., 



1 The Earl of Ellesmere's ' Essays on History, liin^riijiliy," iVe., j>. LI ."'',. 



