ther of the railway system, a man of genius, who,
although he clearly foresaw the ultimate results of his project, had neither
temper nor tact enough to conciliate the ignorant obstinacy of his opponents;
in fact, he was a very bad witness and a very great man. It is curious, in
reading the evidence, to observe the little confidence the counsel for the
bill had in their engineer, and the contempt with which the counsel for the
opposition treated him. The promoters of the railway expected few
passengers, hoped to lower the rates of the canals, and had not made up their
minds whether to employ locomotives or horses; George Stephenson looked
forward confidently at that same period to conveying the greater portion of
the goods and passenger traffic by a complete railway system; but he either
would not or could not explain the grounds of his confidence, and therefore
we find Mr. Harrison, the most eminent Parliamentary counsel of that day,
speaking in the following insolent strain of a man whose genius he and his
friends were unable to appreciate:--

"Every part of this scheme shows that this man (George Stephenson) has
applied himself to a subject of which he has no knowledge, and to which he
has no science to apply. . . . . When we set out with the original
prospectus, we were to gallop at the rate of twelve miles an hour, with the
aid of the devil in the form of a locomotive, sitting as postillion on the
fore horse. But the speed of these locomotives has slackened. The learned
Sergeant would like to go seven, but he will be content with six miles an
hour. I will show that he cannot go six. Practically, or for any useful
purposes, they may go at something more than four miles an hour. The wind
will affect them: any gale of wind which would affect the traffic on the
Mersey, would render it impossible to set off a locomotive engine, either by
poking the fire, or keeping up the pressure of the steam until the boiler
burst. A shower of rain retards a railway, and snow entirely stops it."

In reply, Mr. Adams modestly observed, "I should like my learned friend to
have pointed out any part of the publication in favour of the Liverpool and
Manchester Railway, which justified his statement that we professed that
goods were to be carried at the rate of twelve miles an hour; we have proved
that they can be carried at seven miles an hour, and it was never intended
they should be conveyed at a higher rate."

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