Letter from George Stephenson to Leonard Raisbeck, Stockton

Stephenson replies to a request from Raisbeck concerning cost of transporting coal for export on the line. Stephenson suggests it will depend ‘a great measure on the quantity of traffic independent of the Export trade’. He advises the coal owners ‘to be quiet for a while [as he is sure] that the competition carried on the Tyne and the Wear will not be of long duration’. He further advises, ‘Let your people get their pits into a state for working, that the coals may be brought into market when a more favourable time arrives’. Signed ‘yours truly Geo Stephenson’.