448 THE GKAXD TIIUNK CANAL. PAKT V. 



persons were then employed in the earthenware-mann- 



facture alone, besides the large number of others em- 

 ployed in digging coals for their use, and the still larger 

 number occupied in providing materials at distant parts, 

 and in the carrying and distributing trade by land and 

 sea. The annual import of clay and flints into Stafford- 

 shire at that time was from fifty to sixty thousand tons ; 

 and yet, as Wedgwood truly predicted, the trade wns 

 but in its infancy. The outwards and inwards tonnage 

 to the Potteries is now upwards of three hundred thousand 

 tons a-year. 



The moral and social influences exercised by the canals 

 upon the Pottery districts were not less remarkable. 

 From a half-savage, thinly-peopled district of some 7000 

 persons in 1 760, partially employed and ill-remunerated, 

 we find them increased, in the course of some twenty-five 

 years, to about treble the population, abundantly em- 

 ployed, prosperous, and comfortable. 1 Civilization is 

 doubtless a plant of very slow growth, and does not 

 necessarily accompany the rapid increase of wealth. 

 On the contrary, higher earnings, without improved 

 morale, may only lead to wild waste and gross indulgence. 

 But the testimony of Wesley to the improved character 

 of the population of the Pottery district in 1781, within 

 a few years after the opening of Brindley's Grand Trunk 

 Canal, is so remarkable, that we cannot do better than 

 quote it here ; and the more so, as we have already given 

 the account of his first visit in 1760, on the occasion of 

 his being pelted. " I returned to Burslem," says Wesley ; 

 " how is the whole face of the country changed in about 

 twenty years ! Since which, inhabitants have continually 

 flowed in from every side. Hence the wilderness is 

 literally become a fruitful field. Houses, villages, towns, 

 have sprung up, and the country is not more improved 

 than the people." 



1 The population of the same district in 1801 wns I'mmd to In- upwards 

 of 120,000. 



