Canal Company, two for the Worcester and Birmingham Canal Company, two for the Gloucester and Berkeley Canal, one for the Herefordshire and Gloucester Canal, and one for the Coombe Hill Navigation—thirty in all. {171} The toll was fixed at sixpence per ton from Gloucester to Worcester, and fourpence per ton from Worcester to Stourport: this being what the promoters proposed. Having by this time got near the end of the session, the opponents of the measure sought to render all the efforts of the committee nugatory by speaking against time; but this was seen through and defeated by the members of the committee meeting in the evening as well as in the morning, and at last the bill was reported to the House. Mr. Waters, the solicitor to the bill, was publicly thanked in the committee room for the singular exertions by which he had carried the measure through, in the teeth of such a determined opposition. The Parliament being prorogued immediately after the bill was reported, it was obliged to stand over till the next session. In the interval there was some grumbling on the part of the Gloucester corporation and the landowners at the large sums they had to pay for the Parliamentary opposition, but the Worcester and Birmingham Canal Company prepared to renew the fight. It came before the committee again in March, 1842. Some opposition was here offered on behalf of the Tewkesbury people, but the committee would not suffer the question to be reopened; and the only alterations made were those suggested and proposed by the promoters themselves. On the bringing up of the report, Mr. Muntz moved the recommittal of the bill on behalf of the Worcester and Birmingham Canal Company, who complained of the lock at Diglis being placed below the mouth of their canal, and of the unjust exemption of the Shropshire trade from toll. Mr. Mark Phillips and Mr. R. Scott spoke on the same side; while Mr. Pakington, the Honourable R. H. Clive, Mr. Labouchere, Sir C. Douglas, Lord G. Somerset, Sir Thomas Wilde, Sir William Rae, and Mr. Ormsby Gore spoke in favour of the bill passing at once: and Mr. Muntz, seeing the strong feeling of the House, withdrew his motion. There was some further opposition made in committee in the Lords, and four days were consumed there; but the bill passed without any material alteration; and the royal assent being given to it on the 13th of May, 1842, it at length became the law of the land. The first step was taken under the act on the 7th of June, 1842, when the commissioners met, and T. C. Hornyold, Esq., was elected chairman. Mr. Thomas Waters was appointed clerk. Mr. William Cubitt was appointed engineer-in-chief, Mr. E. L. Williams retaining his office as resident engineer; and advertisements were ordered to be inserted in the newspapers for loans. The first stone of Lincombe weir was laid on the 5th of August, 1843.