PORTHDYNLLAEN RAILWAY. Ill 



one intended to run from Worcester through Montgomery- 

 shire and Merionethshire to Porthdynllaen, a harbour well 

 situated on the Carnarvonshire coast, not far from Pwlheli. 

 The advantages possessed by Porthdynllaen as a port of 

 departure for Ireland had not escaped the penetrating ob- 

 servation of Mr. Smith, and although the commissioners 

 appointed to examine the harbours on the Welsh coast had 

 reported in favour of Holyhead, he still remained convinced 

 of the superiority of the former ; while he ascribed its rejec- 

 tion to the working of undue influence. With this conviction, 

 and also foreseeing that the line would open up the mineral 

 and other resources of the principality, hithei-to very im- 

 perfectly developed, he warmly espoused the design of the 

 Worcester and Porthdynllaen Railway, to which he promised 

 every assistance in his power, furnishing the promoters with 

 an introduction to the leading landowners in North Wales, 

 and allowing his name to appear in the prospectus as a 

 patron of the undertaking. At the same time he was wary 

 enough not to join the Provisional Committee. The line 

 was duly surveyed, and, except a very formidable tunnel at 

 Llangunnog, looked very well on the ordnance map. 

 Scarcely, however, had the plans and sections been deposited 

 —and those who remember the 1st of November, 1845, 

 will not forget the difficulties under which this was accom- 

 plished — when the panic set in ; and the Worcester and 

 Porthdynllaen, with, we venture to say, hundreds of other 

 schemes, went to the bottom. A month or two later there 

 were sundry little bills to be paid, the claims of engineers 

 and their staflf (in those days a surveyor could not be got 

 under five guineas a day), solicitors, &c. Few of the Pro- 

 visional Committee of the Porthdynllaen line were worth 

 powder and shot ; but the limb of the law, anxious to " bag" 

 his costs, considered Assheton Smith as well worth the 

 experiment of a charge. He, therefore, sent his son, a youth 

 of about twenty years of age, who also acted as his clerk, to 

 Hyde Park Gardens, to serve the squire with a writ for 



