The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

In the year 1590, the magistrates of Aberdeen established a post for conveying their despatches to and from Edinburgh, and other places where the royal residence might for the time be. This institution was called the "Council Post"; and the messenger was dressed in a garment of blue cloth, with the armorial bearings of the town worked in silver on his right sleeve. In the year 1715, there was not a single horse-post in Scotland, all the mails being conveyed by runners on foot; and the ground covered by these posts extended from Edinburgh as far north as Thurso, and westward as far as Inveraray. About the year 1750, an improved plan of forwarding the mails was introduced in Scotland by the horse-posts proceeding only from stage to stage--the mails being transferred to a fresh postboy at each point; but in the majority of cases the mails were still carried by foot-runners. Before the change of system the plan of proceeding was this, taking the north road as an example: "A person set out with the mail from Edinburgh to Aberdeen: he did not travel a stage and then deliver the mail to another postboy, but went on to Dundee, where he rested the first night; to Montrose, where he stayed the second; and on the third he arrived at Aberdeen; and as he passed by Kinghorn, it behoved the tide, and sometimes also the weather, to render the time of his arrival more late and uncertain." The plan of conveying mails by the same runners over long distances continued much later, however; for we find that in 1799 a post-runner travelled from Inverness to Lochcarron--a distance across country as the crow flies of about fifty miles--making the journey once a-week, for which he was paid five shillings. Another messenger at the same period made the journey from Inverness to Dunvegan in Skye--a much greater distance--also once a-week, the hebdomadal stipend in this instance being seven shillings and sixpence.