Wed 22 Jul 1840
To T & S S Marling
Ebley Mills
Water is drawn under authority of the Act of Parliament incorporating the Company. Mutual co-operation between Company and mill owners necessary. Problem is partly caused by diversion of Stroudwater River away from Ebley Mill, reducing amount of water available from feeder.
Copy of Mr Fisher's letter to Messrs Thos & Saml S Marling in reply to theirs to the Committee of the Stroud Canal Company
Stroud July 22nd 1840
Dr Sirs
We are requested by the Committee of the Stroudwater Navigation to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 15th instant, wherein you inform them of the Company's Servant having taken up the paddles at their feeder near your Mills at Ebley, for the purpose of supplying the Navigation with water, and requesting to be informed "by what authority the water is thus taken".
And we are directed to reply that the water is taken at that and the other feeders of the Navigation under the authority of the Act of Parliament, which incorporated the Company, for the doing of which that Act contains the most ample and unrestricted powers, both as to the supply itself, and as to the taking of it. and the works by which it is effected.
It has however, always been the desire of the Company to take the water at such times and in such manner as shall be as little inconvenient as possible to the owners of the Mills on the River Stroudwater, and accordingly the Company have often considered, and will always be ready to consider, the suggestions of Mill owners on this subject. But it will be obvious that mutual cooperation will be necessary to give general satisfaction, and that it must often be in the power of a Mill owners to assist in supplying the Cala, when the water would otherwise go to waste.
The Committee beg leave to suggest, also, whether much of the inconvenience sustained, or appearing to be sustained, at your Mills at Ebley, be not occasioned by the diversion of the course of the Stroudwater River (which formerly ran under the Navigation, to "Ebley Mill", now taken down) and the lessening of those greater facilities for feeding the Navigation from the River, which existed before the alterations were made near the Company's feeder there, and whether the restoration of these facilities will not be necessary.
The Committee are happy to believe the assurance contained in your letter that you "have not the least wish to question any right which the Stroud Canal Company possess, or to put them to the slightest inconvenience", and they feel persuaded accordingly that a reference to the Act of Parliament will satisfy you of the Company's right to supply their Navigation with water - at the same time the Committee beg to assure you of their desire to accommodate the Mill owners as far as possible in the mode of taking it.
The Committee will at all times be ready to consider any suggestions you may make, and will be obliged for any intimation which may be conveyed to them, where any of their Servants may be thought to be inattentive to their duty, or to have acted contrary to the above declared desire of the Committee.
We are Dr Sirs
Yours truly
(Signed) P H & S Fisher
