In the mean time the survey was proceeded with, in the face of great opposition from the proprietors of the lands through which the railway was intended to pass. The prejudices of the farming and labouring classes were strongly excited against the persons employed upon the ground, and it was with the greatest difficulty that the levels could be taken. At one place, Stephenson was driven off the ground by the keepers, and threatened to be ducked in the pond if found there again. The farmers also turned out their men to watch the surveying party, and prevent them entering upon any lands where they had the power of driving them off. One of the proprietors declared that he would order his game-keepers to shoot or apprehend any persons attempting a survey over his property. But one moonlight night a survey was obtained by the following ruse. Some men, under the orders of the surveying party, were set to fire off guns in a particular quarter; on which all the game-keepers on the watch made off in that direction, and they were drawn away to such a distance in pursuit of the supposed poachers, as to enable a rapid survey to be made during their absence. When the canal companies found that the Liverpool merchants were determined to proceed with their scheme—that they had completed their survey, and were ready to apply to Parliament for an Act to enable them to form the railway—they at last reluctantly, and with a bad grace, made overtures of conciliation. They promised to employ steam-vessels both on the Mersey and on the Canal. One of the companies offered to reduce its length by three miles, at a considerable outlay. At the same time they made a show of lowering their rates. But it was too late; for the project of the railway had now gone so far that the promoters (who might have been conciliated by such overtures at an earlier period) felt they were fully committed to it, and that now they could not well draw back. Besides, the remedies offered by the canal companies could only have had the effect of staving off the difficulty for a brief season,—the absolute necessity of forming a new line of communication between Liverpool and Manchester becoming more urgent from year to year. Arrangements were therefore made for proceeding with the bill in the parliamentary session of 1825.