Volume Twelve - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - further aspects - Railway Magazine - Interview with Mr. Ammon Beasley - TVR - 1898 . . . .

exchange for a lease for 250 years of a large part of the eastern side of his dock - now known as the West Dock - and on this land they constructed the necessary appliances for shipping coal, with a branch leading thereto.

Lord Bute, I may say had not himself provided any coal shipping appliances. These works cost the Taff Vale Company over £100,000, and the lease has entailed a loss upon them of some £8,000 or £9,000 every year since, while the arrangement has been very profitable to Lord Bute. Hence these tears!

"Singularly enough, the yery first letter in the first volume of the Taff library of letterbooks deals with this subject, and, as its reproduction now may be a matter of some interest, I will have it transcribed for you. It is a singular, and probably an unique, circumstance that a son of the original promoter of the railway should, more than sixty years later, be the Chairman of the Company. This is the letter :

                                                                       Dowlais, 12th Oct., 1835.

My Lord, - As Chairman of a meeting held this day upon the subject of the present state of the communication from the valley of the Taff, etc., to the port of Cardiff, I beg to send you herewith a copy of the resolutions entered into at the meeting. I am also desired by the provincial committee to acquaint you that they would be glad to put themselves in communication with your Lordship or with any person whom you may please to appoint upon the subject of the dues and wharfage which your Lordship would charge upon the trade which may be brought to your new basin at Cardiff by the proposed road, aswell as to solicit the concurrence ofyour Lordship in the object cortemplated by the subscribers, - I am, my Lord, your very faithful servant.

                                                                             (signed) J. J. GUEST.

To the Marquis of Bute.