Thus ended this memorable contest, which had extended over two months—carried on throughout with great pertinacity and skill, especially on the part of the opposition, who left no stone unturned to defeat the measure. The want of a third line of communication between Liverpool and Manchester had been clearly proved; but the engineering evidence in support of the proposed railway having been thrown almost entirely upon Stephenson, who fought this, the most important part of the battle, single-handed, was not brought out so clearly as it would have been, had he secured more efficient engineering assistance—which he was not able to do, as the principal engineers of that day were against the locomotive railway. The obstacles thrown in the way of the survey by the landowners and canal companies, by which the plans were rendered exceedingly imperfect, also tended in a great measure to defeat the bill. The rejection of the bill was probably the most severe trial George Stephenson underwent in the whole course of his life. The circumstances connected with the defeat of the measure, the errors in the levels, his rigid cross-examination, followed by the fact of his being superseded by another engineer, all told fearfully upon him, and for some time he was as much weighed down as if a personal calamity of the most serious kind had befallen him. Stephenson had been so terribly abused by the leading counsel for the opposition in the course of the proceedings before the Committee—stigmatised by them as an ignoramus, a fool, and a maniac—that even his friends seem for a time to have lost faith in him and in the locomotive system, whose efficiency he nevertheless continued to uphold. Things never looked blacker for the success of the railway system than at the close of this great parliamentary struggle. And yet it was on the very eve of its triumph. The Committee of Directors appointed to watch the measure in Parliament were so determined to press on the project of a railway, even though it should have to be worked merely by horse-power, that the bill had scarcely been thrown out ere they met in London to consider their next step. They called their parliamentary friends together to consult as to future proceedings; and the result was that they went back to Liverpool determined to renew their application to Parliament in the ensuing session.