In 1826, the project of a railway from Liverpool to Manchester came before a Committee of the House of Commons, and, after a long investigation, the principle was approved, but the bill thrown out in consequence of defects in the survey. The promoters rested their case entirely on a goods' traffic, to be conveyed at the rate of six or seven miles an hour. The engineer was George Stephenson, the father of the railway system, a man of genius, who, although he clearly foresaw the ultimate results of his project, had neither temper nor tact enough to conciliate the ignorant obstinacy of his opponents; in fact, he was a very bad witness and a very great man. It is curious, in reading the evidence, to observe the little confidence the counsel for the bill had in their engineer, and the contempt with which the counsel for the opposition treated him. The promoters of the railway expected few passengers, hoped to lower the rates of the canals, and had not made up their minds whether to employ locomotives or horses; George Stephenson looked forward confidently at that same period to conveying the greater portion of the goods and passenger traffic by a complete railway system; but he either would not or could not explain the grounds of his confidence, and therefore we find Mr. Harrison, the most eminent Parliamentary counsel of that day, speaking in the following insolent strain of a man whose genius he and his friends were unable to appreciate:-- "Every part of this scheme shows that this man (George Stephenson) has applied himself to a subject of which he has no knowledge, and to which he has no science to apply. . . . . When we set out with the original prospectus, we were to gallop at the rate of twelve miles an hour, with the aid of the devil in the form of a locomotive, sitting as postillion on the fore horse. But the speed of these locomotives has slackened. The learned Sergeant would like to go seven, but he will be content with six miles an hour. I will show that he cannot go six. Practically, or for any useful purposes, they may go at something more than four miles an hour. The wind will affect them: any gale of wind which would affect the traffic on the Mersey, would render it impossible to set off a locomotive engine, either by poking the fire, or keeping up the pressure of the steam until the boiler burst. A shower of rain retards a railway, and snow entirely stops it." In reply, Mr. Adams modestly observed, "I should like my learned friend to have pointed out any part of the publication in favour of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, which justified his statement that we professed that goods were to be carried at the rate of twelve miles an hour; we have proved that they can be carried at seven miles an hour, and it was never intended they should be conveyed at a higher rate."