On the following Sunday, the municipality of Baden, a place some miles from Vienna, invited us to another banquet, and sent comfortable carriages to take us there and back. The burgomaster and councillors received us on our arrival, and gave us a most excellent entertainment, accompanied by the greatest cordiality and kindness. When we arrived it wanted about two hours to dinner; and a friend of mine, high in office, asked me if I should like to be introduced to the celebrated Archduke Charles, the Commander-in-Chief of the Austrian armies, and who was the first general who defeated the great Emperor Buonaparte, viz. at Aspern. The proposition was quite unexpected, and I eagerly accepted it. We accordingly went to the Archduke’s palace, where, on account of ill-health, His Imperial Highness was living very quietly, taking the baths. Upon arriving, we were shown into an ante-room furnished in the most simple manner. After waiting a few minutes, a chamberlain made his appearance, and ushered us into the Archduke’s presence, when we were formally introduced to His Imperial Highness—a most simple, unaffected, dignified gentleman, characterized strongly by the features of the imperial family, at the same time possessing all the dignity and command of a great soldier. He received us with great courtesy, and after bidding us be seated, entered into conversation with us in the most easy and familiar manner. He addressed me very kindly in French, asked after the Duke of Wellington in particular (whom fortunately I had the honour of knowing), and expressed in the highest terms his admiration of him as a soldier and statesman, and said that England owed much to him. He then entered into a general conversation about England, her great importance and power, saying that she was the saviour of Europe, and expressed an ardent wish that she might long retain her present influence. He said that he should have been most happy to have dined with the municipality, to meet us there, but unfortunately his health would not permit. After an excellent dinner the Association returned in the evening to Vienna, much gratified with their entertainment.
CHAPTER VI.
Ship Canal from Portsmouth to London—Machinery and Engine Making—Screw Steam Ships—Hartlepool and Coquet Harbours—Railways round London—Railway Mania—South-Eastern Railway—London, Chatham, and Dover Railway.
Railways had by this time made rapid progress, and had been completely established as the future means of conveyance for goods and passengers. The Manchester and Liverpool and the Stockton and Darlington had been completed with the most successful results. The Grand Junction between Liverpool and Birmingham, the London and Birmingham, and Great Western, were making rapid progress towards completion, and numerous other lines were either projected or about being carried into effect. Still the canals were not altogether supplanted; and it was proposed to make a ship canal from London to Portsmouth, by means of which the dangerous, tedious, and expensive navigation between those places would be avoided. The late Mr. Horace Twiss, M.P. for Wootton-Bassett, and afterwards Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, took the greatest interest in this undertaking; and from calculations which he had carefully made from official returns, he stated that a clear revenue of 1,000,000l. per annum might be derived from it. The first Lord Ashburton, then Alexander Baring, with whom I had a long conversation on the subject, said that, if practicable at reasonable cost, it would be a valuable national work.
During the height of the great revolutionary war with France, long before the public had been accustomed to the vast sums which have been raised and expended upon great works in modern times, a canal between London and Portsmouth had been considered as a very desirable and profitable work. My father made a plan for it in 1807, and the then Earl of Egremont offered to subscribe largely to it: a money crisis however occurred, and it was abandoned for the time. A canal, however, upon a much smaller scale was afterwards made by Mr. Josias Jessop, between the Wey and Arun, and from thence through Chichester and Longston harbours to Portsmouth. It was upon too small and imperfect a scale, and therefore did not answer.
A ship canal, however, capable of transporting a 74-gun ship and Indiamen of the largest class, was afterwards contemplated. A very influential committee requested me to investigate the subject thoroughly; firstly, as to its practicability; secondly, what was the best time for such a canal; and thirdly, what would be the cost. I accordingly, with the assistance of the late Mr. Francis Giles, who took the levels and surveys, explored and examined the three lines which were most practicable—the first by the Merstham, the second by the Dorking, and the third by the Guildford valley. The last was decidedly the best line, having the least height, the easiest route, and the best supply of water for the lockage. It commenced at the Thames, and continued up the valley of the Wey to Guildford, where it crossed the summit, descended into the vale of the Arun, which it crossed by an aqueduct, and thence along the base of the hills to Portsmouth Harbour.
The canal was to have been 100 yards wide at the top, and 24 feet deep. At the summit there were to have been ample reservoirs, and capacious basins or docks at each end. The voyage from London to Portsmouth would have been made in two days—that is to say, by common haulage—but steam tugs would have reduced it to twenty-four hours. The estimate was 7,000,000l., which was considered so large at the time, that all idea of prosecuting the undertaking further was at once abandoned. The world had not then been accustomed to the enormous sums since spent upon railways, and then they would never have believed that 16,000,000l. would be spent upon the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway, only the same length as the proposed canal, or that a similar amount would be spent in the same county upon the South-Eastern Railway.