ng of
strangers gathered there for the same purpose made it almost impossible
to obtain a night's lodging for love or money; and glad and thankful were
we to put up with and be put up in a tiny garret by an old friend, Mr.
Radley, of the Adelphi, which many would have given twice what we paid to
obtain. The day opened gloriously, and never was an innumerable
concourse of sight-seers in better humour than the surging, swaying crowd
that lined the railroad with living faces. . . After this disastrous
event [the accident to Mr. Huskisson] the day became overcast, and as we
neared Manchester the sky grew cloudy and dark, and it began to rain.
The vast concourse of people who had assembled to witness the triumphant
arrival of the successful travellers was of the lowest order of mechanics
and artisans, among whom great distress and a dangerous spirit of
discontent with the government at that time prevailed. Groans and hisses
greeted the carriage, full of influential personages, in which the Duke
of Wellington sat. High above the grim and grimy crowd of scowling faces
a loom had been erected, at which sat a tattered, starved-looking weaver,
evidently set there as a _representative man_, to protest against this
triumph of machinery, and the gain and glory which the wealthy Liverpool
and Manchester men were likely to derive from it. The contrast between
our departure from Liverpool and our arrival at Manchester was one of the
most striking things I ever witnessed.

MANCHESTER, _September_ 20_th_, 1830.

MY DEAREST H--:

* * * * *

"You probably have by this time heard and read accounts of the opening of
the railroad, and the fearful accident which occurred at it, for the
papers are full of nothing else. The accident you mention did occur, but
though the unfortunate man who was killed bore Mr. Stephenson's name, he
was not related to him. [Besides Mr. Huskisson, another man named
Stephenson had about this time been killed on the railroad]. I will tell
you something of the events on the fifteenth, as though you may be
acquainted with the circumstances of poor Mr. Huskisson's death, none but
an eye-witness of the whole scene can form a conception of it. I told
you that we had had places given to us, and it was the main purpose of
our returning from Birmingham to Manchester to be present at what
promised to be one of the most striking events in the scie