If the River Nidd and the brooks adjacent, in the vicinity of Knaresbro',
up the valley to Ramsgill, near Pateley-Bridge, and near the adopted
line, had not possessed the many water-falls, and given motion to the
sixty-seven mills which they do;--or had the great landed proprietors, on
the line now adopted been hostile to this all improving project, of this
highly favoured and not less honoured, their native district;--or had the
hand of Nature, when it varied the surface of our earth, no doubt for
wise purposes, and formed those high hills, composed their bowels of any
other substance than what it is;--or had the commercial necessities of
Knaresbro' and its neighbourhood not existed, and the slow progress of
their redemption, compared with others, at one time of far less note, not
been too apparent; then, perhaps, this project, commendable as it is,
would have shared the same fate, during a season of sickness, which it
did twenty years ago.
But since these falls of water do exist, and are always ready to lend
their willing aid to turn the ponderous wheels which impart motion to
many mill-stones and many thousand spindles, beyond the possibility of
denial;--and since the great landed proprietors have expressed nothing
unfriendly to the project, but, if any thing, the reverse, at this moment
of national difficulties and distress, highly to their credit and
understanding;--and since the all-wise hand of Providence hath permitted
an unceasing demand in one place, and a never-failing supply in another,
at distances perhaps the most suitable and interesting for a work of this
kind; {vi}--and, considering the necessity which the commerce of this
district so evidently requires in an improved mode of transporting, from
place to place, its heavy weights, with despatch and cheapness; then
there can be no doubt of the propriety of prosecuting a scheme of this
kind, so long, as we believe, on substantial data, that the completion of
it will reward the shareholder, and give to this place what it once
possessed, and be the means of rendering it again the first district in
the kingdom for the manufacture of linens.