430 THE GRAND TIU'NK CAXAL. TART V. 



It is a curious illustration of the timidity with which 

 the projectors of those days entered upon canal enter- 

 prise, that one of their most able advocates, in order to 

 mitigate the opposition of the pack-horse and waggon 

 interest, proposed that " no main trunk of a canal should 

 be carried nearer than within four miles of any great 

 manufacturing and trading town ; which distance from 

 the canal would be sufficient to maintain the same num- 

 ber of carriers and to employ almost the same number of 

 horses as before." 1 But as none of the towns in the 

 Potteries were as yet large manufacturing or trading 

 places, this objection did not apply to them, nor pre- 

 vent the canals being carried quite through the centre 

 of what has since become a continuous district of popu- 

 lous manufacturing towns and villages. The vested 

 interests of some of the larger towns were, however, 

 for this reason preserved, greatly to their own ultimate 

 injury ; and when the canal, to conciliate the local op- 

 position, was so laid out as to pass them at a distance, 

 not many years passed before they became clamorous 

 for branches to join the main trunk but not until the 

 mischief had been done, and a blow dealt to their own 

 trade, in consequence of being left so far outside the 

 main line of water communication, from which many of 

 them never after recovered. 



It is not necessary to describe the Parliamentary con- 

 test upon the Grand Trunk Canal Bill. There was the 

 usual muster of hostile interests, the river navigation 

 companies uniting to oppose the new and rival com- 

 pany ; the array of witnesses on both sides, Brindley, 

 Wedgwood, Gilbert, and many more, giving their evi- 

 dence in support of their own scheme, and a powerful 

 array of the Cheshire gentry and Weaver Navigation 

 Trustees appearing on behalf of the others; and ilic 

 whipping-up of votes, in which the Duke of Bridgewater 



1 'The Advantage* !' Inland Navigation,' l.y II. Wlutwortli. 



