Mon 5 Feb 1776
Petition from owners of land, messuages, tenements and herediaments.
5 Day of February 1776
A Petition of several Persons whose names are thereunto subscribed being Owners and Occupiers of Messuages Lands Tenements and Herediaments near or adjoining the River Stroudwater between Framiload & Wallbridge in the County of Gloucester was presented to the House & read; taking Notive of the Bill to amend an Act, passed in the third year of His late Majesty's Reign, intitled "An Act for making Navigable the River Stroudwater in the County of Gloucester from the River Severn at or near Framiload to Wallbridge near the Town of Stroud in the same County" & for giving other Powers for the purpose of making a Navigation from Framiload to Wallbridge aforesaid; & representing to this House that the Object of the sain Act & of the present Bill are totally different, the former being to make the said River Navigable & the latter to mane a Navigation by Collateral Cuts or Canals, to be supplied with water from the said River, but to communicate with the same only in three Places, & that our for a very short Space; by the making of which Cuts near One Hundred and Twenty Acres of very valuable Land will be destroyed great part of which is worth from Thirty Shillings to Three Pounds per Acre by the year; & that the Soil of the best of the above mentioned Lands after the first Sod of Earth is gut through, being a strong Gravel, great Quantities of other Lands adjacent to the said Navigation will be materially injured by a constant Leakage from the said Canal, where the same is carried above the Level of such Land; and setting forth that there is great Reason to believe that the Money to arise from the Carriage of Goods upon the said Navigation will be insufficient to answer the Expense of making & maintaining the same & therefore the Petitioners are apprehensive that the Undertaking may probably be abandoned, after great Damage done to the Lands through which the said Navigation is intended to be raised & the Proprietors of such Lands left without Remedy for recovering Satisfaction for such Damages; & that supposing the said Navigation should ever be completed, the Petitioners apprehend that the Price of Carriage would be very little reduced thereby, and that the Damage done to the Publick, and to private Property, by making the same will be greater than any advantage that can be reasonably expected to arise from such Undertaking; & therefore praying the House that they may be heard by their Counsel against the said Bill, & that the same may not pass into a Law.
