Her Majesty's Mails

Mr. Pitt was less conservative than the Post-Office authorities. He clearly inherited, as an eloquent writer[58] has pointed out, his father's contempt for impossibilities. He saw, with the clear vision for which he was so remarkable, that Mr. Palmer's scheme would be as profitable as it was practicable, and he resolved, in spite of the short-sighted opposition of the authorities, that it should be adopted. The Lords of the Treasury lost no more time in decreeing that the plan should be tried, and a trial and complete success was the result. On the 24th of July, 1784, the Post-Office Secretary (Mr. Anthony Todd) issued the following order:--"His Majesty's Postmasters-General, being inclined to make an experiment for the more expeditious conveyance of mails of letters by stage-coaches, machines, &c., have been pleased to order that a trial shall be made upon the road between London and Bristol, to commence at each place on Monday, the 2d of August next." Then follows a list of places, letters for which can be sent by these mail-coaches, and thus concludes: "All persons are therefore to take notice, that the letters put into any receiving-house before six of the evening, or seven at this chief office, will be forwarded by these new conveyances; all others for the said post-towns and their districts put in afterwards, or given to the bellmen, must remain until the following post at the same hour of seven." The mail-coaches commenced running according to the above advertisement, not, however, on the 2d, but on the 8th of August. One coach left London at eight in the morning, reaching Bristol about eleven the same night. The distance between London and Bath was accomplished in fourteen hours. The other coach was started from Bristol at four in the afternoon on the same day, reaching London in sixteen hours.