An Essay Upon Projects

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