“The attention of your Committee has been directed to the claim of Mr. John Loudon MᶜAdam for public remuneration, contained in his petition referred to them by the House.
“Your Committee apprehend, that the ability, industry and zeal of Mr. MᶜAdam in his successful pursuit of the best means for constructing roads are become matters of general notoriety. It appears that Mr. MᶜAdam first directed the public attention to this important fact, that angular fragments of hard materials, sufficiently reduced in size, will coalesce or bind, without other mixture, into a compacted mass of stone nearly impenetrable to water, which being laid almost flat, so as to allow of carriages passing freely upon all parts of the road, will wear evenly throughout, not exhibiting the appearance of ruts or of any other inequalities. This principle, once brought under notice, may appear sufficiently obvious; but Mr. MᶜAdam has had the honour at much expense of labour, of time, and of his private fortune, to bring it into practice on an extensive scale.
“Your Committee are therefore clearly of opinion, that Mr. MᶜAdam is entitled to reward, and they approve of the advance made to him by the Postmaster General, under sanction of the Treasury. Your Committee have called for the correspondence which passed upon that occasion. They have examined Mr. Freeling, Chief Secretary to the Post Office; Mr. Johnson, Surveyor or Superintendent of Mailcoaches; and they have received statements from Mr. MᶜAdam, in support of his further claim, all of which they insert in the Appendix; and after a full investigation of the matters submitted to them, your Committee are of opinion, that Mr. MᶜAdam is entitled to further reward for his services, but they think it much better in all respects to leave the amount to the Post Office, than to mention any specific sum themselves.
“While every individual throughout the nation, and almost every concern is benefited by good roads, the Post Office derives peculiar and more direct advantage from them, combined with constant and accurate intelligence respecting their state; your Committee, therefore, consider the Post Office best able to form a correct opinion upon the subject, and they moreover feel that a debt is due from the revenue of the Post Office, to be paid on any extraordinary occasion to the Roads of Great Britain, a debt contracted by the exemption, however properly given, of their carriages from toll.
“On all these grounds your Committee think it right to refer the Petition of Mr. MᶜAdam to the Postmasters General, under the sanction of the Treasury, with their favourable recommendation.”
And in the Appendix to that Report it will be found from the Evidence of Mr. Freeling, “That the Post Office did not take Mr. MᶜAdam’s services into consideration, or suppose that 2,000l. would be a sufficient remuneration for those services; they merely stated, in answer to papers from the Treasury, that they considered it would be right to advance to Mr. MᶜAdam the sum of 2,000l. and consider Mr. MᶜAdam’s claims as establishing a ground for further remuneration.”
In consequence of that Report the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty’s Treasury again, on the 23d of September, refer the subject to the Postmasters General, who, considering the first sum of 5,019l. 6s. to be admitted as proved before the Committee, recommended the payment of his expenses from 1814, to be calculated upon the same principle as the travelling allowance is made to the Superintendent of the Mailcoaches, amounting to 1,837l. 17s. 6d. and they further propose the sum of 2,000l. or 2,500l. to be granted to Mr. MᶜAdam, as a moderate compensation for his services; upon this the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury issued a second sum of 2,000l. stating that their Lordships, adverting to the large amount of Mr. MᶜAdam’s claims, cannot feel themselves justified in issuing any further sum to him on account thereof, without the express authority of Parliament for that purpose. On the 5th December 1820, Mr. MᶜAdam again addressed a letter to the Lords of the Treasury, which was transmitted to the Post Office; and the Postmasters General, referring to their former letter, observe that they have no difficulty in bearing their testimony to the services of Mr. MᶜAdam, and to the benefits which the Public were likely to derive from them, and also stated that in their opinions the charges were reasonable.
The last Memorial presented by Mr. MᶜAdam was to the Postmasters General, who, in transmitting it to the Treasury, observe, “The favourable opinions which we entertained and expressed in our former Reports upon this subject have been confirmed by experience; and that by employing Mr. MᶜAdam to survey the roads in Lancashire the most beneficial results are likely to follow.”
Having thus given a succinct and connected account of these different proceedings, and having taken into their consideration the whole of the correspondence which has passed previous to this inquiry between the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty’s Treasury and the Postmasters General, together with the several Memorials presented at different periods to these departments by the Petitioner, with the documents accompanying them, and having considered Mr. MᶜAdam’s statement of his case, and the proof adduced in support of it, which accompany this Report, your Committee are of opinion that Mr. MᶜAdam has, by means of great assiduity, skill, and many years personal labour, and at a considerable expense, out of his private property, introduced into very extensive practice a system of repairing, making and managing the turnpike roads and highways of the kingdom, from which the Public have derived most important and valuable advantages.
That in addition to the notoriety of the fact, that the improved condition of the public roads is in a great degree to be ascribed to the ability, zeal, and indefatigable exertions of Mr. MᶜAdam, it now for the first time appears, that Mr. MᶜAdam has gratuitously given his personal attention upon, and advice and assistance to, no less a number than seventy turnpike trusts in twenty-eight counties of the kingdom, from many of which he has not received the payment even of his expenses; that he has, for a considerable length of time, been engaged in an extensive correspondence with persons connected with the management and improvement of roads, affording, in the most unreserved manner, information and instruction wherever required; and that he has attended, during several sessions of Parliament, the Committee of this House, for the same purpose of communicating information: all which services, together with the assistance he has been called upon to give to the Post Office, he has rendered without reward or pecuniary compensation of any kind, beyond the sum of 4,000l. advanced to him by the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, in part payment of his expenses.