The Wye was found to be an exceptionally difficult stream to tame and control, and Sandys' attempt to make it navigable by locks and weirs on the pound-lock system was a failure. The scheme was, however, afterwards carried through on different lines; and in summing up the results John Lloyd, Junr., says in "Papers Relating to the History and Navigation of the Rivers Wye and Lugg" (1873):-- "Although, through the uncertainty of its stream, the Wye was never brought to answer the purpose of a regular conveyance, its navigation has proved of great service throughout the county of Hereford. Throughout the last[21] century most of the coal consumed in Hereford and its neighbourhood was brought up in barges after a flood. Various other heavy articles, such as grocery, wines and spirits, having been first conveyed from Bristol to Brockweir in larger vessels, were carried up thence in barges at a much easier rate than by land carriage. In return the boats were freighted with the valuable oak timber, bark, cider, wheat, flour and other produce of the county. The opening of the towing-path for horses by the Act of 1809 gave a further impetus to navigation, and especially to the trade in coal from Lidbrook, and while every river-side village could boast of its quay and its barge, the quay walls at Hereford were thronged with loading and unloading barges.... "Since the opening of the Hereford, Ross and Gloucester Railway, in 1855, and the consequent dissolution of the Towing-path Company, nearly all navigation on the Wye above Monmouth has ceased." Francis Mathew addressed, in 1655, to Oliver Cromwell, "Lord Protector of the Commonwealth," a powerful argument in favour of "The Opening of Rivers for Navigation," the benefit thereof which he sought to show being, as his title-page said, "exemplified by the Two Avons of Salisbury and Bristol, {132}with a Mediterranean Passage by Water for Billanders of Thirty Tun between Bristol and London." The writer described his little book as a plea that "England's fair valleys and rich Inlets through which so many noble Rivers insinuate themselves might with the imitation of the industrious Netherlanders be made in many places docible of Navigation, to the inestimable comfort, satisfaction, ease and profit of the publick." "Rivers," he further observed, "may be compared to States-men, sent abroad; they are never out of their way so they pass by great Cities, Marts, Courts of Princes, Armies, Leaguers, Diets and the like Theatres of Action, which still contribute to the increase of their Observation; So Navigable Rivers, the more places of Note they pass by, the more they take up, or bring, still gleaning one Commodity or other from the Soyl they pass through, and are supplied by every Town they touch at with imployment."