CHAP. IV. 



TELFOBD'S POLITICS. 



327 



old country gentlemen who came riding in to Shrews- 

 bury to quarter sessions, and were so fond of their young 

 Scotch surveyor occupying themselves in building 

 bridges, maintaining infirmaries, making roads, and regu- 

 lating gaols those county magistrates and members of 

 parliament, aristocrats all, were the very men who, 

 according to Paine, were carrying the country headlong 

 to ruin. 



If Telford could not offer an opinion on politics before, 

 because he " knew nothing about them," he had now no 

 such difficulty. Had his advice been asked about the 

 foundations of a bridge, or the security of an arch, he 

 would have read and studied much before giving it ; he 

 would have carefully inquired into the chemical qualities 

 of different kinds of lime into the mechanical prin- 

 ciples of weight and resistance, and such like ; but he had 

 no such hesitation in giving an opinion about the foun- 

 dations of a constitution of more than a thousand years' 

 growth. Here, like other young politicians, with Paine's 

 book before him, he felt competent to pronounce a 

 decisive judgment at once. " I am convinced," said he, 

 writing to his Laiigholm friend, " that the situation of 

 Great Britain is such, that nothing short of some signal 

 revolution can prevent her from sinking into bankruptcy, 

 slavery, and insignificancy." He held that the national 

 expenditure was so enormous, 1 arising from the corrupt 

 administration of the country, that it was impossible the 

 u bloated mass " could hold together any longer ; and as 

 he could not expect that " a hundred Pulteneys," such as 

 his employer, could be found to restore it to health, the 

 conclusion he arrived at was that ruin was " inevitable." 2 



1 It was then under seventeen mil- 

 lions sterling, or about a fourth of 

 what it is now. 



2 Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, 

 Langholm, dated 28th July, 1791. 

 Notwithstanding the theoretical ruin 

 of England which pressed so heavy 

 on his mind at this time, we find 



Telford strongly recommending his 

 correspondent to send any good wrights 

 he can find in his neighbourhood to 

 Bath, where they would be enabled 

 to earn twenty shillings or a guinea 

 a week at piece-work the wages paid 

 at Langholm for similar work being 

 only about half those amounts. 



