IT is a prodigious charge the whole nation groans under for the repair of
highways, which, after all, lie in a very ill posture too. I make no
question but if it was taken into consideration by those who have the
power to direct it, the kingdom might be wholly eased of that burden, and
the highways be kept in good condition, which now lie in a most shameful
manner in most parts of the kingdom, and in many places wholly
unpassable, from whence arise tolls and impositions upon passengers and
travellers, and, on the other hand, trespasses and encroachments upon
lands adjacent, to the great damage of the owners.
The rate for the highways is the most arbitrary and unequal tax in the
kingdom: in some places two or three rates of sixpence per pound in the
year; in others the whole parish cannot raise wherewith to defray the
charge, either by the very bad condition of the road or distance of
materials; in others the surveyors raise what they never expend; and the
abuses, exactions, connivances, frauds, and embezzlements are
innumerable.
The Romans, while they governed this island, made it one of their
principal cares to make and repair the highways of the kingdom, and the
chief roads we now use are of their marking out; the consequence of
maintaining them was such, or at least so esteemed, that they thought it
not below them to employ their legionary troops in the work; and it was
sometimes the business of whole armies, either when in winter quarters or
in the intervals of truce or peace with the natives. Nor have the Romans
left us any greater tokens of their grandeur and magnificence than the
ruins of those causeways and street-ways which are at this day to be seen
in many parts of the kingdom, some of which have by the visible remains
been discovered to traverse the whole kingdom, and others for more than a
hundred miles are to be traced from colony to colony, as they had
particular occasion. The famous highway or street called Watling Street,
which some will tell you began at London Stone, and passing that very
street in the City which we to this day call by that name, went on west
to that spot where Tyburn now stands, and then turned north-west in so
straight a line to St. Albans that it is now the exactest road (in one
line for twenty miles) in the kingdom; and though disused now as the
chief, yet is as good, and, I believe, the best road to St. Albans, and
is still called the Streetway. From whence it is traced into Shropshire,
above a hundred and sixty miles, with a multitude of visible antiquities
upon it, discovered and described very accurately by Mr. Cambden. The
Fosse, another Roman work, lies at this day as visible, and as plain a
high causeway, of above thirty feet broad, ditched on either side, and
coped and paved where need is—as exact and every jot as beautiful as the
king’s new road through Hyde Park, in which figure it now lies from near
Marshfield to Cirencester, and again from Cirencester to the Hill, three
miles on this side Gloucester, which is not less than twenty-six miles,
and is made use of as the great road to those towns, and probably has
been so for a thousand years with little repairs.
If we set aside the barbarity and customs of the Romans as heathens, and
take them as a civil government, we must allow they were the pattern of
the whole world for improvement and increase of arts and learning,
civilising and methodising nations and countries conquered by their
valour; and if this was one of their great cares, that consideration
ought to move something. But to the great example of that generous
people I will add three arguments:—
1. It is useful, and that as it is convenient for carriages, which in a
trading country is a great help to negotiation, and promotes universal
correspondence, without which our inland trade could not be managed. And
under this head I could name a thousand conveniences of a safe, pleasant,
well-repaired highway, both to the inhabitant and the traveller, but I
think it is needless.
2. It is easy. I question not to make it appear it is easy to put all
the highroads, especially in England, in a noble figure; large, dry, and
clean; well drained, and free from floods, unpassable sloughs, deep
cart-ruts, high ridges, and all the inconveniences they now are full of;
and, when once done, much easier still to be maintained so.
3. It may be cheaper, and the whole assessment for the repairs of
highways for ever be dropped or applied to other uses for the public
benefit.
Here I beg the reader’s favour for a small digression.
I am not proposing this as an undertaker, or setting a price to the
public for which I will perform it, like one of the projectors I speak
of, but laying open a project for the performance, which, whenever the
public affairs will admit our governors to consider of, will be found so
feasible that no question they may find undertakers enough for the
performance; and in this undertaking age I do not doubt but it would be
easy at any time to procure persons at their own charge to perform it for
any single county, as a pattern and experiment for the whole kingdom.
The proposal is as follows:—First, that an Act of Parliament be made with
liberty for the undertakers to dig and trench, to cut down hedges and
trees, or whatever is needful for ditching, draining and carrying off
water, cleaning, enlarging and levelling the roads, with power to lay
open or enclose lands; to encroach into lands; dig, raise, and level
fences; plant and pull up hedges or trees (for the enlarging, widening,
and draining the highways), with power to turn either the roads or
watercourses, rivers and brooks, as by the directors of the works shall
be found needful, always allowing satisfaction to be first made to the
owners of such lands (either by assigning to them equivalent lands or
payment in money, the value to be adjusted by two indifferent persons to
be named by the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper for the time being), and
no watercourse to be turned from any water-mill without satisfaction
first made both to the landlord and tenant.
But before I proceed, I must say a word or two to this article.
The chief, and almost the only, cause of the deepness and foulness of the
roads is occasioned by the standing water, which (for want of due care to
draw it off by scouring and opening ditches and drains, and other
watercourses, and clearing of passages) soaks into the earth, and softens
it to such a degree that it cannot bear the weight of horses and
carriages; to prevent which, the power to dig, trench, and cut down, &c.,
mentioned above will be of absolute necessity. But because the liberty
seems very large, and some may think it is too great a power to be
granted to any body of men over their neighbours, it is answered:—
1. It is absolutely necessary, or the work cannot be done, and the doing
of the work is of much greater benefit than the damage can amount to.
2. Satisfaction to be made to the owner (and that first, too, before the
damage be done) is an unquestionable equivalent; and both together, I
think, are a very full answer to any objection in that case.
Besides this Act of Parliament, a commission must be granted to fifteen
at least, in the name of the undertakers, to whom every county shall have
power to join ten, who are to sit with the said fifteen so often and so
long as the said fifteen do sit for affairs relating to that county,
which fifteen, or any seven of them, shall be directors of the works, to
be advised by the said ten, or any five of them, in matters of right and
claim, and the said ten to adjust differences in the countries, and to
have right by process to appeal in the name either of lords of manors, or
privileges of towns or corporations, who shall be either damaged or
encroached upon by the said work. All appeals to be heard and determined
immediately by the said Lord Chancellor, or commission from him, that the
work may receive no interruption.
This commission shall give power to the said fifteen to press waggons,
carts, and horses, oxen and men, and detain them to work a certain
limited time, and within certain limited space of miles from their own
dwellings, and at a certain rate of payment. No men, horses, or carts to
be pressed against their consent during the times of hay-time or harvest,
or upon market-days, if the person aggrieved will make affidavit he is
obliged to be with his horses or carts at the said markets.
It is well known to all who have any knowledge of the condition the
highways in England now lie in that in most places there is a convenient
distance land left open for travelling, either for driving of cattle, or
marching of troops of horse, with perhaps as few lanes or defiles as in
any countries. The cross-roads, which are generally narrow, are yet
broad enough in most places for two carriages to pass; but, on the other
hand, we have on most of the highroads a great deal, if waste land thrown
in (as it were, for an overplus to the highway), which, though it be used
of course by cattle and travellers on occasion, is indeed no benefit at
all either to the traveller as a road or to the poor as a common, or to
the lord of the manor as a waste; upon it grows neither timber nor grass,
in any quantity answerable to the land, but, though to no purpose, is
trodden down, poached, and overrun by drifts of cattle in the winter, or
spoiled with the dust in the summer. And this I have observed in many
parts of England to be as good land as any of the neighbouring
enclosures, as capable of improvement, and to as good purpose.
These lands only being enclosed and manured, leaving the roads to
dimensions without measure sufficient, are the fund upon which I build
the prodigious stock of money that must do this work. These lands (which
I shall afterwards make an essay to value), being enclosed, will be
either saleable to raise money, or fit to exchange with those gentlemen
who must part with some land where the ways are narrow, always reserving
a quantity of these lands to be let out to tenants, the rent to be paid
into the public stock or bank of the undertakers, and to be reserved for
keeping the ways in the same repair, and the said bank to forfeit the
lands if they are not so maintained.
Another branch of the stock must be hands (for a stock of men is a stock
of money), to which purpose every county, city, town, and parish shall be
rated at a set price, equivalent to eight years’ payment, for the repair
of highways, which each county, &c., shall raise, not by assessment in
money, but by pressing of men, horses, and carriages for the work (the
men, horses, &c., to be employed by the directors); in which case all
corporal punishments—as of whippings, stocks, pillories, houses of
correction, &c.—might be easily transmitted to a certain number of days’
work on the highways, and in consideration of this provision of men the
country should for ever after be acquitted of any contribution, either in
money or work, for repair of the highways—building of bridges excepted.
There lie some popular objections against this undertaking; and the first
is (the great controverted point of England) enclosure of the common,
which tends to depopulation, and injures the poor.
2. Who shall be judges or surveyors of the work, to oblige the
undertakers to perform to a certain limited degree?
For the first, “the enclosure of the common”—a clause that runs as far as
to an encroachment upon Magna Charta, and a most considerable branch of
the property of the poor—I answer it thus:—
1. The lands we enclose are not such as from which the poor do indeed
reap any benefit—or, at least, any that is considerable.
2. The bank and public stock, who are to manage this great undertaking,
will have so many little labours to perform and offices to bestow, that
are fit only for labouring poor persons to do, as will put them in a
condition to provide for the poor who are so injured, that can work; and
to those who cannot, may allow pensions for overseeing, supervising, and
the like, which will be more than equivalent.
3. For depopulations, the contrary should be secured, by obliging the
undertakers, at such and such certain distances, to erect cottages, two
at least in a place (which would be useful to the work and safety of the
traveller), to which should be an allotment of land, always sufficient to
invite the poor inhabitant, in which the poor should be tenant for life
gratis, doing duty upon the highway as should be appointed, by which, and
many other methods, the poor should be great gainers by the proposal,
instead of being injured.
4. By this erecting of cottages at proper distances a man might travel
over all England as through a street, where he could never want either
rescue from thieves or directions for his way.
5. This very undertaking, once duly settled, might in a few years so
order it that there should be no poor for the common; and, if so, what
need of a common for the poor? Of which in its proper place.
As to the second objection, “Who should oblige the undertakers to the
performance?” I answer—
1. Their Commission and charter should become void, and all their stock
forfeit, and the lands enclosed and unsold remain as a pledge, which
would be security sufficient.
2. The ten persons chosen out of every county should have power to
inspect and complain, and the Lord Chancellor, upon such complaint, to
make a survey, and to determine by a jury, in which case, on default,
they shall be obliged to proceed.
3. The lands settled on the bank shall be liable to be extended for the
uses mentioned, if the same at any time be not maintained in the
condition at first provided, and the bank to be amerced upon complaint of
the country.
These and other conditions, which on a legal settlement to be made by
wiser heads than mine might be thought on, I do believe would form a
constitution so firm, so fair, and so equally advantageous to the
country, to the poor, and to the public, as has not been put in practice
in these later ages of the world. To discourse of this a little in
general, and to instance in a place perhaps that has not its fellow in
the kingdom—the parish of Islington, in Middlesex. There lies through
this large parish the greatest road in England, and the most frequented,
especially by cattle for Smithfield market; this great road has so many
branches, and lies for so long a way through the parish, and withal has
the inconvenience of a clayey ground, and no gravel at hand, that,
modestly speaking, the parish is not able to keep it in repair; by which
means several cross-roads in the parish lie wholly unpassable, and carts
and horses (and men too) have been almost buried in holes and sloughs;
and the main road itself has for many years lain in a very ordinary
condition, which occasioned several motions in Parliament to raise a toll
at Highgate for the performance of what it was impossible the parish
should do, and yet was of so absolute necessity to be done. And is it
not very probable the parish of Islington would part with all the waste
land upon their roads, to be eased of the intolerable assessment for
repair of the highway, and answer the poor, who reap but a small benefit
from it, some other way? And yet I am free to affirm that for a grant of
waste and almost useless land, lying open to the highway (those lands to
be improved, as they might easily be), together with the eight years’
assessment to be provided in workmen, a noble, magnificent causeway might
be erected, with ditches on either side, deep enough to receive the
water, and drains sufficient to carry it off, which causeway should be
four feet high at least, and from thirty to forty feet broad, to reach
from London to Barnet, paved in the middle, to keep it coped, and so
supplied with gravel and other proper materials as should secure it from
decay with small repairing.
I hope no man would be so weak now as to imagine that by lands lying open
to the road, to be assigned to the undertakers, I should mean that all
Finchley Common should be enclosed and sold for this work; but, lest
somebody should start such a preposterous objection, I think it is not
improper to mention, that wherever a highway is to be carried over a
large common, forest, or waste, without a hedge on either hand for a
certain distance, there the several parishes shall allot the directors a
certain quantity of the common, to lie parallel with the road, at a
proportioned number of feet to the length and breadth of the said
road—consideration also to be had to the nature of the ground; or else,
giving them only room for the road directly shall suffer them to inclose
in any one spot so much of the said common as shall be equivalent to the
like quantity of land lying by the road. Thus where the land is good and
the materials for erecting a causeway near, the less land may serve; and
on the contrary, the more; but in general allowing them the quantity of
land proportioned to the length of the causeway, and forty rods in
breadth: though where the land is poor, as on downs and plains, the
proportion must be considered to be adjusted by the country.
Another point for the dimensions of roads should be adjusted; and the
breadth of them, I think, cannot be less than thus:
From London every way ten miles the high post-road to be built full forty
feet in breadth and four feet high, the ditches eight feet broad and six
feet deep, and from thence onward thirty feet, and so in proportion.
Cross-roads to be twenty feet broad, and ditches proportioned; no lanes
and passes less than nine feet without ditches.
The middle of the high causeways to be paved with stone, chalk, or
gravel, and kept always two feet higher than the sides, that the water
might have a free course into the ditches; and persons kept in constant
employ to fill up holes, let out water, open drains, and the like, as
there should be occasion—a proper work for highwaymen and such
malefactors, as might on those services be exempted from the gallows.
It may here be objected that eight years’ assessment to be demanded down
is too much in reason to expect any of the poorer sort can pay; as, for
instance, if a farmer who keeps a team of horse be at the common
assessment to work a week, it must not be put so hard upon any man as to
work eight weeks together. It is easy to answer this objection.
So many as are wanted, must be had; if a farmer’s team cannot be spared
without prejudice to him so long together, he may spare it at sundry
times, or agree to be assessed, and pay the assessment at sundry
payments; and the bank may make it as easy to them as they please.
Another method, however, might be found to fix this work at once. As
suppose a bank be settled for the highways of the county of Middlesex,
which as they are, without doubt, the most used of any in the kingdom, so
also they require the more charge, and in some parts lie in the worst
condition of any in the kingdom.
If the Parliament fix the charge of the survey of the highways upon a
bank to be appointed for that purpose for a certain term of years, the
bank undertaking to do the work, or to forfeit the said settlement.
As thus: suppose the tax on land and tenements for the whole county of
Middlesex does, or should be so ordered as it might, amount to £20,000
per annum more or less, which it now does, and much more, including the
work of the farmers’ teams, which must be accounted as money, and is
equivalent to it, with some allowance to be rated for the city of London,
&c., who do enjoy the benefit, and make the most use of the said roads,
both for carrying of goods and bringing provisions to the city, and
therefore in reason ought to contribute towards the highways (for it is a
most unequal thing that the road from Highgate to Smithfield Market, by
which the whole city is, in a manner, supplied with live cattle, and the
road by those cattle horribly spoiled, should lie all upon that one
parish of Islington to repair); wherefore I will suppose a rate for the
highways to be gathered through the city of London of £10,000 per annum
more, which may be appointed to be paid by carriers, drovers, and all
such as keep teams, horses, or coaches, and the like, or many ways, as is
most equal and reasonable; the waste lands in the said county, which by
the consent of the parishes, lords of the manors, and proprietors shall
be allowed to the undertakers, when inclosed and let out, may (the land
in Middlesex generally letting high) amount to £5,000 per annum more.
If, then, an Act of Parliament be procured to settle the tax of £30,000
per annum for eight years, most of which will be levied in workmen and
not in money, and the waste lands for ever, I dare be bold to offer that
the highways for the whole county of Middlesex should be put into the
following form, and the £5,000 per annum land be bound to remain as a
security to maintain them so, and the county be never burdened with any
further tax for the repair of the highways.
And that I may not propose a matter in general, like begging the
question, without demonstration, I shall enter into the particulars how
it may be performed, and that under these following heads of articles: