Several energetic men, however, were now at the head of the Stockton and Darlington Railway project, and determined to persevere with it. Among these, the Peases were the most zealous. Edward Pease might be regarded as the back-bone of the concern. Opposition did not daunt him, nor failure discourage him. When apparently overthrown and prostrate, he would rise again like Antæus, stronger than before, and renew his efforts with increased vigor. He had in him the energy and perseverance of many men. One who knew him in 1818 said, "He was a man who could see a hundred years ahead." When the author last saw him in 1854, a few years before his death, Mr. Pease was in his eighty-eighth year; yet he still possessed the hopefulness and mental vigor of a man in his prime. Still sound in health, his eye had not lost its brilliancy, nor his cheek its color, and there was an elasticity in his step which younger men might have envied. [Illustration: EDWARD PEASE.] In getting up a company for surveying and forming a railway, Mr. Pease had great difficulties to encounter. The people of the neighborhood spoke of it as a ridiculous undertaking, and predicted that it would be ruinous to all concerned in it. Even those most interested in the opening up of new markets for the sale of their coal were indifferent, if not hostile. Mr. Pease nevertheless persevered in the formation of a company, and he induced many of his friends and relations to follow his example. The Richardsons and Backhouses, members, like himself, of the Society of Friends, influenced by his persuasion, united themselves with him; and so many of the same denomination (having confidence in these influential Darlington names) followed their example and subscribed for shares, that the railway obtained the designation, which it long retained, of "The Quakers' Line." The Stockton and Darlington scheme had to run the gauntlet of a fierce opposition in three successive sessions of Parliament. The application of 1818 was defeated by the Duke of Cleveland, who afterward profited so largely by the railway. The ground of his opposition was that the line would interfere with one of his fox-covers, and it was mainly through his influence that the bill was thrown out, but only by a majority of thirteen, upward of one hundred members having voted for the bill. A nobleman said, when he heard of the division, "Well, if the Quakers in these times, when nobody knows any thing about railways, can raise such a phalanx in their support, I should recommend the country gentlemen to be very wary how they oppose them in future." The next year, in 1819, an amended survey of the line was made, and, the duke's fox-cover being avoided, his opposition was thus averted; but, on Parliament becoming dissolved on the death of George III., the bill was necessarily suspended until another session.