Joseph Sandars, who was to take a leading part in the movement for a railway between Liverpool and Manchester, has some strong things to say about the "exorbitant and unjust charges of the water carriers" in a "Letter" on the subject of the proposed railway which he published in 1824. He alleged that, whereas the Duke of Bridgewater had been authorised by his Acts to charge not more than two shillings and sixpence per ton for canal dues, his agents had, by various devices, which Sandars details, exacted five shillings and twopence per ton. The trustees had, also, obtained possession of all the warehouses alongside the canal at Manchester, and they were thus able to exact whatever terms they pleased from the bye-carriers and traders. If the canal trustees carried the goods in their own vessels they were entitled to charge six shillings per ton; and their aim seems to have been to render it impossible for the independent carriers to do their business at a lower rate than this. When the carriers, using boats of their own, would not pay the same rate as if the trustees had themselves done the carrying, they were not allowed to land the goods. Then, by acquiring all the warehouses and all the available land at Preston Brook and Runcorn, the trustees had likewise got control over navigation on the Trent and Mersey Canal, which joins the Bridgewater Canal at Preston Brook. Sandars speaks of Mr Bradshaw, to whom the Duke of Bridgewater had, by his will, given absolute control of his undertakings, as a dictator of canal transport. "No man," he says, in giving examples of the wide extent of the interests that Bradshaw controlled or sought to influence, "can bring a Bill forward for a canal in any part of the Kingdom but Mr Bradshaw interferes as a sort of canal Neptune, directing where, how, and at what price it shall run. He has tortured the trade of the country to become tributory to him in all directions. Every man, every corporate body, seems spellbound the moment Mr Bradshaw interposes his authority." {232}As for the profits of the undertaking, Sandars says: "There is good reason to believe that the nett income of the Duke's canal has, for the last twenty years, averaged nearly £100,000 per annum."