Sir Richard Phillips was a man of foresight, for, in the year 1813, he
wrote the following words in his “Morning Walk to Kew,” a book of some
popularity in its day:—“I found delight in witnessing at Wandsworth the
economy of horse labour on the iron railway. Yet a heavy sigh escaped me
as I thought of the inconceivable millions of money which had been spent
about Malta, four or five of which might have been the means of extending
double lines of iron railway from London to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Holyhead,
Milford, Falmouth, Yarmouth, Dover, and Portsmouth. A reward of a single
thousand would have supplied coaches and other vehicles of various
degrees of speed, with the best tackle for readily turning out; and we
might ere this have witnessed our mail coaches running at the rate of ten
miles an hour, drawn by a single horse, or impelled fifteen miles an hour
by Blenkinsop’s steam engine. Such would have been a legitimate motive
for overstepping the income of a nation; and the completion of so great
and useful a work would have afforded rational ground for public triumph
in general jubilee.” Mr. Edgeworth, writing to James Watt on the 7th of
August, 1813, remarks, “I have always thought that steam would become the
universal lord, and that we should in time scorn post-horses. An iron
railroad would be a cheaper thing than a road on the common
construction.”