Mr. Stephenson never had a plan - I do not believe he is capable of making one. He is either ignorant or something else which I will not mention. When you put a question to him upon a difficult point, he resorts to two or three hypothesis, and never comes to a decided conclusion. Lord Derby, Lord Sefton and Bradshaw the great Canal Proprietor, whose grounds we go through with the projected railway, have been trying to stop us. The ground is lockaded on every side to prevent us getting on with the survey.
Bradshaw fires guns to prevent the surveyors coming in the dark.
Lord Sefton says he will have a hundred men against us. The company thinks these great men have no right to stop a survey. We trust that Parliament will, in all railways it may sanction, limit the speed to eight or nine miles an hour. The total quantity of goods passing between Liverpool and Manchester is estimated to be 1,000 tons per day. The average length of time taken by canal is 36 hours.