by Daniel Defoe
It is a prodigious charge the whole nation groans under for the
repair of highways, which, after all, lie in a very ill posture too.
I make no question but if it was taken into consideration by those
who have the power to direct it, the kingdom might be wholly eased
of that burden, and the highways be kept in good condition, which
now lie in a most shameful manner in most parts of the kingdom, and
in many places wholly unpassable, from whence arise tolls and
impositions upon passengers and travellers, and, on the other hand,
trespasses and encroachments upon lands adjacent, to the great
damage of the owners.
The rate for the highways is the most arbitrary and unequal tax in
the kingdom: in some places two or three rates of sixpence per
pound in the year; in others the whole parish cannot raise wherewith
to defray the charge, either by the very bad condition of the road
or distance of materials; in others the surveyors raise what they
never expend; and the abuses, exactions, connivances, frauds, and
embezzlements are innumerable.
The Romans, while they governed this island, made it one of their
principal cares to make and repair the highways of the kingdom, and
the chief roads we now use are of their marking out; the consequence
of maintaining them was such, or at least so esteemed, that they
thought it not below them to employ their legionary troops in the
work; and it was sometimes the business of whole armies, either when
in winter quarters or in the intervals of truce or peace with the
natives. Nor have the Romans left us any greater tokens of their
grandeur and magnificence than the ruins of those causeways and
street-ways which are at this day to be seen in many parts of the
kingdom, some of which have by the visible remains been discovered
to traverse the whole kingdom, and others for more than a hundred
miles are to be traced from colony to colony, as they had particular
occasion. The famous highway or street called Watling Street, which
some will tell you began at London Stone, and passing that very
street in the City which we to this day call by that name, went on
west to that spot where Tyburn now stands, and then turned north-
west in so straight a line to St. Albans that it is now the exactest
road (in one line for twenty miles) in the kingdom; and though
disused now as the chief, yet is as good, and, I believe, the best
road to St. Albans, and is still called the Streetway. From whence
it is traced into Shropshire, above a hundred and sixty miles, with
a multitude of visible antiquities upon it, discovered and described
very accurately by Mr. Cambden. The Fosse, another Roman work, lies
at this day as visible, and as plain a high causeway, of above
thirty feet broad, ditched on either side, and coped and paved where
need is--as exact and every jot as beautiful as the king's new road
through Hyde Park, in which figure it now lies from near Marshfield
to Cirencester, and again from Cirencester to the Hill, three miles
on this side Gloucester, which is not less than twenty-six miles,
and is made use of as the great road to those towns, and probably
has been so for a thousand years with little repairs.
If we set aside the barbarity and customs of the Romans as heathens,
and take them as a civil government, we must allow they were the
pattern of the whole world for improvement and increase of arts and
learning, civilising and methodising nations and countries conquered
by their valour; and if this was one of their great cares, that
consideration ought to move something. But to the great example of
that generous people I will add three arguments:-
1. It is useful, and that as it is convenient for carriages, which
in a trading country is a great help to negotiation, and promotes
universal correspondence, without which our inland trade could not
be managed. And under this head I could name a thousand
conveniences of a safe, pleasant, well-repaired highway, both to the
inhabitant and the traveller, but I think it is needless.
2. It is easy. I question not to make it appear it is easy to put
all the highroads, especially in England, in a noble figure; large,
dry, and clean; well drained, and free from floods, unpassable
sloughs, deep cart-ruts, high ridges, and all the inconveniences
they now are full of; and, when once done, much easier still to be
maintained so.
3. It may be cheaper, and the whole assessment for the repairs of
highways for ever be dropped or applied to other uses for the public
benefit.
Here I beg the reader's favour for a small digression.
I am not proposing this as an undertaker, or setting a price to the
public for which I will perform it, like one of the projectors I
speak of, but laying open a project for the performance, which,
whenever the public affairs will admit our governors to consider of,
will be found so feasible that no question they may find undertakers
enough for the performance; and in this undertaking age I do not
doubt but it would be easy at any time to procure persons at their
own charge to perform it for any single county, as a pattern and
experiment for the whole kingdom.
The proposal is as follows:- First, that an Act of Parliament be
made with liberty for the undertakers to dig and trench, to cut down
hedges and trees, or whatever is needful for ditching, draining and
carrying off water, cleaning, enlarging and levelling the roads,
with power to lay open or enclose lands; to encroach into lands;
dig, raise, and level fences; plant and pull up hedges or trees (for
the enlarging, widening, and draining the highways), with power to
turn either the roads or watercourses, rivers and brooks, as by the
directors of the works shall be found needful, always allowing
satisfaction to be first made to the owners of such lands (either by
assigning to them equivalent lands or payment in money, the value to
be adjusted by two indifferent persons to be named by the Lord
Chancellor or Lord Keeper for the time being), and no watercourse to
be turned from any water-mill without satisfaction first made both
to the landlord and tenant.
But before I proceed, I must say a word or two to this article.
The chief, and almost the only, cause of the deepness and foulness
of the roads is occasioned by the standing water, which (for want of
due care to draw it off by scouring and opening ditches and drains,
and other watercourses, and clearing of passages) soaks into the
earth, and softens it to such a degree that it cannot bear the
weight of horses and carriages; to prevent which, the power to dig,
trench, and cut down, &c., mentioned above will be of absolute
necessity. But because the liberty seems very large, and some may
think it is too great a power to be granted to any body of men over
their neighbours, it is answered:-
1. It is absolutely necessary, or the work cannot be done, and the
doing of the work is of much greater benefit than the damage can
amount to.<
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2. Satisfaction to be made to the owner (and that first, too,
before the damage be done) is an unquestionable equivalent; and both
together, I think, are a very full answer to any objection in that
case.
Besides this Act of Parliament, a commission must be granted to
fifteen at least, in the name of the undertakers, to whom every
county shall have power to join ten, who are to sit with the said
fifteen so often and so long as the said fifteen do sit for affairs
relating to that county, which fifteen, or any seven of them, shall
be directors of the works, to be advised by the said ten, or any
five of them, in matters of right and claim, and the said ten to
adjust differences in the countries, and to have right by process to
appeal in the name either of lords of manors, or privileges of towns
or corporations, who shall be either damaged or encroached upon by
the said work. All appeals to be heard and determined immediately
by the said Lord Chancellor, or commission from him, that the work
may receive no interruption.
This commission shall give power to the said fifteen to press
waggons, carts, and horses, oxen and men, and detain them to work a
certain limited time, and within certain limited space of miles from
their own dwellings, and at a certain rate of payment. No men,
horses, or carts to be pressed against their consent during the
times of hay-time or harvest, or upon market-days, if the person
aggrieved will make affidavit he is obliged to be with his horses or
carts at the said markets.
It is well known to all who have any knowledge of the condition the
highways in England now lie in that in most places there is a
convenient distance land left open for travelling, either for
driving of cattle, or marching of troops of horse, with perhaps as
few lanes or defiles as in any countries. The cross-roads, which
are generally narrow, are yet broad enough in most places for two
carriages to pass; but, on the other hand, we have on most of the
highroads a great deal, if waste land thrown in (as it were, for an
overplus to the highway), which, though it be used of course by
cattle and travellers on occasion, is indeed no benefit at all
either to the traveller as a road or to the poor as a common, or to
the lord of the manor as a waste; upon it grows neither timber nor
grass, in any quantity answerable to the land, but, though to no
purpose, is trodden down, poached, and overrun by drifts of cattle
in the winter, or spoiled with the dust in the summer. And this I
have observed in many parts of England to be as good land as any of
the neighbouring enclosures, as capable of improvement, and to as
good purpose.
These lands only being enclosed and manured, leaving the roads to
dimensions without measure sufficient, are the fund upon which I
build the prodigious stock of money that must do this work. These
lands (which I shall afterwards make an essay to value), being
enclosed, will be either saleable to raise money, or fit to exchange
with those gentlemen who must part with some land where the ways are
narrow, always reserving a quantity of these lands to be let out to
tenants, the rent to be paid into the public stock or bank of the
undertakers, and to be reserved for keeping the ways in the same
repair, and the said bank to forfeit the lands if they are not so
maintained.
Another branch of the stock must be hands (for a stock of men is a
stock of money), to which purpose every county, city, town, and
parish shall be rated at a set price, equivalent to eight years'
payment, for the repair of highways, which each county, &c., shall
raise, not by assessment in money, but by pressing of men, horses,
and carriages for the work (the men, horses, &,c., to be employed by
the directors); in which case all corporal punishments--as of
whippings, stocks, pillories, houses of correction, &c.--might be
easily transmitted to a certain number of days' work on the
highways, and in consideration of this provision of men the country
should for ever after be acquitted of any contribution, either in
money or work, for repair of the highways--building of bridges
excepted.
There lie some popular objections against this undertaking; and the
first is (the great controverted point of England) enclosure of the
common, which tends to depopulation, and injures the poor.
2. Who shall be judges or surveyors of the work, to oblige the
undertakers to perform to a certain limited degree?
For the first, "the enclosure of the common"--a clause that runs as
far as to an encroachment upon Magna Charta, and a most considerable
branch of the property of the poor--I answer it thus:-
1. The lands we enclose are not such as from which the poor do
indeed reap any benefit--or, at least, any that is considerable.
2. The bank and public stock, who are to manage this great
undertaking, will have so many little labours to perform and offices
to bestow, that are fit only for labouring poor persons to do, as
will put them in a condition to provide for the poor who are so
injured, that can work; and to those who cannot, may allow pensions
for overseeing, supervising, and the like, which will be more than
equivalent.
3. For depopulations, the contrary should be secured, by obliging
the undertakers, at such and such certain distances, to erect
cottages, two at least in a place (which would be useful to the work
and safety of the traveller), to which should be an allotment of
land, always sufficient to invite the poor inhabitant, in which the
poor should be tenant for life gratis, doing duty upon the highway
as should be appointed, by which, and many other methods, the poor
should be great gainers by the proposal, instead of being injured.
4. By this erecting of cottages at proper distances a man might
travel over all England as through a street, where he could never
want either rescue from thieves or directions for his way.
5. This very undertaking, once duly settled, might in a few years
so order it that there should be no poor for the common; and, if so,
what need of a common for the poor? Of which in its proper place.
As to the second objection, "Who should oblige the undertakers to
the performance?" I answer -
1. Their Commission and charter should become void, and all their
stock forfeit, and the lands enclosed and unsold remain as a pledge,
which would be security sufficient.
2. The ten persons chosen out of every county should have power to
inspect and complain, and the Lord Chancellor, upon such complaint,
to make a survey, and to determine by a jury, in which case, on
default, they shall be obliged to proceed.
3. The lands settled on the bank shall be liable to be extended for
the uses mentioned, if the same at any time be not maintained in the
condition at first provided, and the bank to be amerced upon
complaint of the country.
These and other conditions, which on a legal set
tlement to be made
by wiser heads than mine might be thought on, I do believe would
form a constitution so firm, so fair, and so equally advantageous to
the country, to the poor, and to the public, as has not been put in
practice in these later ages of the world. To discourse of this a
little in general, and to instance in a place perhaps that has not
its fellow in the kingdom--the parish of Islington, in Middlesex.
There lies through this large parish the greatest road in England,
and the most frequented, especially by cattle for Smithfield market;
this great road has so many branches, and lies for so long a way
through the parish, and withal has the inconvenience of a clayey
ground, and no gravel at hand, that, modestly speaking, the parish
is not able to keep it in repair; by which means several cross-roads
in the parish lie wholly unpassable, and carts and horses (and men
too) have been almost buried in holes and sloughs; and the main road
itself has for many years lain in a very ordinary condition, which
occasioned several motions in Parliament to raise a toll at Highgate
for the performance of what it was impossible the parish should do,
and yet was of so absolute necessity to be done. And is it not very
probable the parish of Islington would part with all the waste land
upon their roads, to be eased of the intolerable assessment for
repair of the highway, and answer the poor, who reap but a small
benefit from it, some other way? And yet I am free to affirm that
for a grant of waste and almost useless land, lying open to the
highway (those lands to be improved, as they might easily be),
together with the eight years' assessment to be provided in workmen,
a noble, magnificent causeway might be erected, with ditches on
either side, deep enough to receive the water, and drains sufficient
to carry it off, which causeway should be four feet high at least,
and from thirty to forty feet broad, to reach from London to Barnet,
paved in the middle, to keep it coped, and so supplied with gravel
and other proper materials as should secure it from decay with small
repairing.
I hope no man would be so weak now as to imagine that by lands lying
open to the road, to be assigned to the undertakers, I should mean
that all Finchley Common should be enclosed and sold for this work;
but, lest somebody should start such a preposterous objection, I
think it is not improper to mention, that wherever a highway is to
be carried over a large common, forest, or waste, without a hedge on
either hand for a certain distance, there the several parishes shall
allot the directors a certain quantity of the common, to lie
parallel with the road, at a proportioned number of feet to the
length and breadth of the said road--consideration also to be had to
the nature of the ground; or else, giving them only room for the
road directly shall suffer them to inclose in any one spot so much
of the said common as shall be equivalent to the like quantity of
land lying by the road. Thus where the land is good and the
materials for erecting a causeway near, the less land may serve; and
on the contrary, the more; but in general allowing them the quantity
of land proportioned to the length of the causeway, and forty rods
in breadth: though where the land is poor, as on downs and plains,
the proportion must be considered to be adjusted by the country.
Another point for the dimensions of roads should be adjusted; and
the breadth of them, I think, cannot be less than thus:
From London every way ten miles the high post-road to be built full
forty feet in breadth and four feet high, the ditches eight feet
broad and six feet deep, and from thence onward thirty feet, and so
in proportion.
Cross-roads to be twenty feet broad, and ditches proportioned; no
lanes and passes less than nine feet without ditches.
The middle of the high causeways to be paved with stone, chalk, or
gravel, and kept always two feet higher than the sides, that the
