A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain II

A TOUR THROUGH THE WHOLE ISLAND OF GREAT BRITAIN II

it is to be observ’d, that there is more hazard, and more lives lost, in passing, or attempting to pass little brooks and streams, which are swell’d by sudden showers of rain, and where passengers expect no stoppage, than in passing great rivers, where the danger is known, and therefore more carefully avoided.

In many of these places the commissioners have built large and substantial bridges for the benefit of travelling, as is said already, and in other places have built sluices to stop, and open’d channels to carry off the water, where they used to swell into the highway: We have two of these sluices near London, in the road thro’ Tottenham High-Cross and Edmonton, by which the waters in those places, which have sometimes been dangerous, are now carry’d off, and the road clear’d; and as for bridges I have been told, that the several commissioners, in the respective districts where they are concern’d, have already built above three hundred new ones, where there were none before, or where the former were small and insufficient to carry the traveller safe over the waters; many of these are within a few miles of London, especially, for example, on the great road from London to Edgeworth, from London to Enfield, from London to St. Albans, and, as before, from London to Croydon, where they are very plain to be seen, and to which I refer.

And for farther confirmation of what I have advanc’d above, namely, that we may expect, according to this good beginning, that the roads in most parts of England will in a few years be fully repair’d, and restor’d to the same good condition, (or perhaps a better, than) they were in during the Roman government, we may take notice, that there are no less than

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twelve Bills, or Petitions for Bills, depending before the Parliament, at this time sitting, for the repair of the roads, in several remote parts of England, or for the lengthening the time allow’d in former Acts; some of which, besides those hereafter mentioned, give us hopes, that the grants, when obtain’d, will be very well manag’d, and the country people greatly encourag’d by them in their commerce; for there is no doubt to be made, but that the inland trade of England has been greatly obstructed by the exceeding badness of the roads.

A particular example of this, I have mention’d already, viz. the bringing of fat cattle, especially sheep to London in the winter, from the remoter counties of Leicester and Lincoln, where they are bred; by which the country grasiers are oblig’d to sell their stocks off, at the latter end of the summer, namely September and October, when they sell cheap, and the butchers and farmers near London engross them, and keeping them ‘till December and January, sell them, tho’ not an ounce fatter than before, for an advanc’d price, to the citizens of London; whereas were the roads made good and passable, the city would be serv’d with mutton almost as cheap in the winter as in the summer, or the profit of the advance would be to the graziers of Leicester and Lincolnshires, who were the original breeders. This is evidenc’d to a demonstration in the counties of Essex and Suffolk, from whence they already bring their fat cattle, and particularly their mutton in droves, from sixty, seventy, or eighty miles, without fatiguing, harrassing, or sinking the flesh of the creatures, even in the depth of winter.

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A TOUR THROUGH THE WHOLE ISLAND OF GREAT BRITAIN II

I might give examples of other branches of inland commerce, which would be quite alter’d for the better, by this restoring the goodness of the roads, and particularly that of carrying cheese, a species of provision so considerable, that nothing, except that of live cattle, can exceed it.

This is chiefly made in the three north west counties of England, viz. Cheshire, Gloucester, and Warwickshires, and the parts adjacent, from whence the nation is very meanly supply’d, by reason of the exceeding distance of the country where the cheese is made, from those counties where it is chiefly expended.

The Cheshire men indeed carry great quantities about by long sea, as they call it, to London; a terrible long, and sometimes dangerous, voyage, being thro’ the Irish Channel, round all Wales, cross the Bristol Channel, round the Land’s End of Cornwall, and up the English Channel to the mouth of the Thames, and so up to London; or else by land to Burton upon Trent, and so down that river to Gainesborough and Hull, and so by sea to London.

Again, the Gloucestershire men carry all by land-car- riage to Lechlade and Cricklade on the Thames, and so carry it down the river to London.

But the Warwickshire men have no water-carriage at all, or at least not ‘till they have carry’d it a long way by land to Oxford; but as their quantity is exceeding great, and they supply not only the city of London, but also the counties of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Hertford, Bedford, and Northampton, the gross of their carriage is by meer dead draught, and they carry it either to London by land, which is

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full an hundred miles, and so the London cheese-mongers supply the said counties of Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, besides Kent, and Sussex, and Surrey by sea and river navigation: or the Warwickshire men carry it by land once a year to Sturbridge Fair, whence the shop-keepers of all the inland country above-named, come to buy it; in all which cases land-carriage being long, and the ways bad, makes it very dear to the poor, who are the consumers.

But were the ways from Warwickshire made good, as I have shewn they are already in Essex, and some other places; this carriage would be perform’d for little more than half the price that it now is, and the poor would have their provisions much cheaper.

I could enlarge here upon the convenience that would follow such a restoring the ways, for the carrying of fish from the sea coasts to the inner parts of the kingdom, where, by reason of the badness of the ways, they cannot now carry them sweet; This would greatly encrease the consumption of fish in its season, which now for that very reason, is but small, and would employ an innumerable number of horses and men, as well as encrease the shipping by that consumption.

By this carriage of fish, I do not only mean the carrying herrings and mackerell to London, as is practis’d on the coast of Sussex and Kent in particular, and bringing salmon from the remote rivers of Severn and Trent; but the carrying of herrings, mackerell, and sprats in their season, and whitings and flat fish at other times, from the coasts of Yarmouth, Swole, Ipswich, Colchester, Malden, &c. and supplying all the inland counties with them sweet and good, which ’tis plain they

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