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1
435
Her Majesty's Mails
·
William Lewins
59
In
Scotland,
all
the
difficulties
in
travelling
were
felt
to
even
a
greater
degree
than
in
England.
There
were
no
regular
posts
to
the
extreme
north
of
Scotland,
letters
going
as
best
they
could
by
occasional
travellers
and
different
routes.
Nothing
could
better
show
the
difficulties
attendant
on
locomotion
of
any
sort
in
Scotland,
than
the
fact
that
an
agreement
was
entered
into
in
1678
to
run
a
coach
between
Edinburgh
and
Glasgow,
to
be
drawn
by
six
horses,
the
journey,
there
and
back,
to
be
performed
in
six
days.
The
distance
was
only
forty-four
miles,
and
the
coach
travelled
over
the
principal
post-road
in
the
country!
The
reader
has
thus
some
idea
of
the
difficulties
which
stood
in
the
way
of
efficient
postal
communication
during
the
seventeenth
century.
However
much
the
work
of
the
Post-Office,
and
the
slow
and
unequal
manner
in
which
correspondence
was
distributed,
may
excite
the
scorn
of
the
present
generation,
living
in
the
days
of
cheap
and
quick
postage,
they
must
nevertheless
agree
with
Lord
Macaulay
in
considering
that
the
postal
system
of
the
Stuarts
was
such
as
might
have
moved
the
envy
and
admiration
of
the
polished
nations
of
antiquity,
or
even
of
the
contemporaries
of
our
own
Shakespeare
or
Raleigh.
In
Cornwall,
Lincolnshire,
some
parts
of
Wales,
and
amongst
the
hills
and
dales
of
Cumberland,
Westmoreland,
and
Yorkshire,
letters,
it
is
true,
were
only
received
once
a
week,
if
then;
but
in
numbers
of
large
towns
they
were
delivered
two
and
three
times
a
week.
There
was
daily
communication
between
London
and
the
Downs,
and
the
same
privileges
were
extended
to
Tunbridge
Wells
and
Bath,
at
the
season
when
those
places
were
crowded
with
pleasure-seekers.[32]
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