The petition was referred to a Committee, who reported favourably on March 8, and the Bill was presented and read a {218}first time on March 15. Then, however, came the opposition from the canal company. On April 8, as the "Journals" further record, the Commons received a petition from the Company of Proprietors of the Glamorganshire Canal Navigation setting forth that they had been authorised under two Acts to make and maintain a navigable canal from Merthyr to Cardiff; that they had expended on this undertaking a sum of £100,000; that they had seen the Bill above-mentioned, and, they proceed:-- "That the Dram Road or Way, proposed to be made by the said Bill, will pass from one End thereof to the other, nearly parallel, and in almost every Part near to the said Canal; and in some places will cross the same; and that the Petitioners were induced to undertake the making of the said Canal, in hopes of being repaid the Expence thereof, with proper remuneration for the Risk of the said Undertaking, by the Carriage of Coal, Lime, Iron, Timber, and other goods and Merchandizes thereon, but if the said Dram Road or Way should be made as proposed they would be deprived of a great Part of those Advantages which they apprehend they have had granted and secured to them, and are therefore now fully entitled to, by the said Two Acts, without the Country adjacent or the Public in General, receiving any particular Benefit or Advantage." The company further pleaded that under their Acts they were "restrained from ever receiving more than a moderate Dividend on their Shares, and whenever the Profits of the Canal shall be more than sufficient to pay the same, their Rates of Tonnage are to be lowered;[35] and for that reason, as well as many others, of equal Justice, they conceive they should be secured in the possession of all the advantages proposed to be granted to them by the said Acts." The House ordered that the petition do lie upon the table until the said Bill be read a second time, and that counsel be then heard on both sides. On May 3 a day was appointed for the second reading, and on May 4 the House received a further petition from landowners, tradesmen and others in support of the Bill. The "Journals," however, contain no record of the second reading having been reached, and their {219}only further reference at all to the Bill is in the "General Index" to the volumes for 1790-1801, where, under the heading "Navigations: Petitions to make Dram Roads to Canals, &c.," it is said of the Bill in question "Not proceeded in."