Although an Act of Parliament had been obtained many years previously for the purpose of making the Mersey and the Irwell navigable from Liverpool to Manchester, the facilities thereby provided were defective and unsatisfactory in the extreme. The freight charged for water transport between the two towns was 12_s._ per ton, when the navigation was available, but this was not always at command. Boats could not pass between the lowest lock and Liverpool without the assistance of a spring tide. There were many fords or shallows in the Irwell, over which boats could not pass at all “except in great freshes, or by drawing extraordinary quantities of water from the locks above.” The consequence was that most of the traffic between the two towns was carried on by road, at a much higher cost for rather over thirty miles. The new navigation, although it promised to reduce this charge to 6_s._ per ton, to abridge the distance by nine miles, to provide wharfage that was not already available, and to give transportation facilities at all times, was strongly denounced and opposed. It was argued that the canal would cut through and separate the land in the possession of several gentlemen along the proposed line of route, that a great number of acres would be covered with water and for ever lost to the public, that the canal could confer no advantage not already secured by the Irwell and the Mersey, that the taking from those streams of the water required for the canal would greatly prejudice, if it did not totally obstruct, the old navigation in dry seasons, and that the property of the old navigation should not be prejudiced without full compensation being made to the proprietors.[42] A letter written in 1767,[43] at Burslem, states that “gentlemen come to see our eighth wonder of the world—the subterraneous navigation, which is cutting by the great Mr. Brindley, who handles rocks as easily as you would plum-pies, and makes the four elements subservient to his will. He is as plain a looking man as one of the boors of the Peake, or one of his own carters, but when he speaks all ears listen, and every mind is filled with wonder at the things he pronounces to be practicable. He has cut a mile through bogs, which he binds up, embanking them with stones which he gets out of other parts of the navigation, besides about a quarter of a mile into the hill Yelden; on the side of which he has a pump, which is worked by water, and a stove, the fire of which sucks through a pipe the damps that would annoy the men who are cutting towards the centre of the hill.” The Bridgwater Canal has had a very remarkable career. It was sold by Lord Ellesmere to the Bridgwater Navigation Company for 989,612_l._, including plant valued at 150,000_l._ In 1886, the Bridgwater Navigation Company sold the canal to the Manchester Ship Canal Company for 1,710,000_l._ The Bridgwater Canal was followed, after a few years, by a number of similar undertakings.