Telford’s task may be appreciated when we remember that the new policy gave him no direct statutory power to override trusts. Each one had to be argued with, bargained with, and persuaded. This at least was true of the English Trusts and the six Welsh Trusts. The Commissioners, or rather Telford and Parnell, despaired. The trusts controlled so very much the larger part of the trajectory that it was necessary in some way to dispose of them. More than seven years passed before this could be done. But Parnell succeeded in persuading them, by industrious attendance before various meetings, to accept an Act of Parliament which cast them all into one body of fifteen, and they were, by statute, compelled to employ a professional civil engineer, who was, of course, Telford. The 85 remaining miles were taken over, scientifically divided into sections under assistant surveyors and foremen below them, and by 1830, after the labour of twenty years, the whole thing was done. A suspension bridge had been thrown over the Menai Straits, Holyhead Harbour had been improved. These, with the reconstruction of the road, had drawn from Parliament grants of three-quarters of a million. From that moment there existed at least one complete road in Britain, uniting two definite termini and everywhere making possible the rapid travel at the time. The tolls were, of course, maintained. Their cost was increased by one-half. The anomalies, complexities, and corruptions involved in the system were no more done away with on the Holyhead Road than on any other, except in so far as a closer supervision helped to alleviate things and in so far as amalgamation of trusts also helped. But, at any rate, there was at least one continuous and excellent road from the capital to a distant port, and we have the date 1830 for the completion of the great task which was begun in 1810. iv Contemporary with this first great complete model of a road in England went the movement connected with the name of Macadam. It was far less of a revolution than has since been represented. The Continent had made experiments similar to those of Macadam long before him, and what he effected over here was no more than an improvement, for it was not wholly novel.