It would appear that, disheartened by the opposition encountered, the Committee relinquished the prosecution of their first project; and all public operations, with a view to effect this national work, lay in abeyance until just before the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Line in 1830. Meetings were then held in Liverpool and Birmingham, and another line proposed.
It was now arranged that the Liverpool Committee should apply for a line from Liverpool to Chorlton, in Cheshire, and the Birmingham Committee for a line from Birmingham to Chorlton. It is not necessary to insert the particulars of the prospectus then issued, suffice it to say that, after a most violent opposition, the bill from Birmingham to Chorlton was ultimately lost.
The bill from Liverpool to Chorlton was but a little more fortunate, for, having passed its first stages, it was lost by the dissolution of Parliament on the Reform question. The great opposition which the Committee had to encounter, in their progress with this bill, was made by the Mersey and Sankey Canal Companies, on the ground that the bridge which it was proposed to erect across the Mersey would impede the navigation of the river: and when we con-
