The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (diy ebook reader .txt) π
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of the rural population scattered between
them is obviously unjust; and this injustice was peculiarly
glaring in the case of the great North road, which traversed very
poor and thinly inhabited districts, and joined very rich and
populous districts. Indeed it was not in the power of the
parishes of Huntingdonshire to mend a high-way worn by the
constant traffic between the West Riding of Yorkshire and London.
Soon after the Restoration this grievance attracted the notice of
Parliament; and an act, the first of our many turnpike acts, was
passed imposing a small toll on travellers and goods, for the
purpose of keeping some parts of this important line of
communication in good repair.142 This innovation, however,
excited many murmurs; and the other great avenues to the capital
were long left under the old system. A change was at length
effected, but not without much difficulty. For unjust and absurd
taxation to which men are accustomed is often borne far more
willingly than the most reasonable impost which is new. It was
not till many toll bars had been violently pulled down, till the
troops had in many districts been forced to act against the
people, and till much blood had been shed, that a good system was
introduced.143 By slow degrees reason triumphed over prejudice;
and our island is now crossed in every direction by near thirty
thousand miles of turnpike road.
On the best highways heavy articles were, in the time of Charles
the Second, generally conveyed from place to place by stage
waggons. In the straw of these vehicles nestled a crowd of
passengers, who could not afford to travel by coach or on
horseback, and who were prevented by infirmity, or by the weight
of their luggage, from going on foot. The expense of transmitting
heavy goods in this way was enormous. From London to Birmingham
the charge was seven pounds a ton; from London to Exeter twelve
pounds a ton.144 This was about fifteen pence a ton for every
mile, more by a third than was afterwards charged on turnpike
roads, and fifteen times what is now demanded by railway
companies. The cost of conveyance amounted to a prohibitory tax
on many useful articles. Coal in particular was never seen except
in the districts where it was produced, or in the districts to
which it could be carried by sea, and was indeed always known in
the south of England by the name of sea coal.
On byroads, and generally throughout the country north of York
and west of Exeter, goods were carried by long trains of
packhorses. These strong and patient beasts, the breed of which
is now extinct, were attended by a class of men who seem to have
borne much resemblance to the Spanish muleteers. A traveller of
humble condition often found it convenient to perform a journey
mounted on a packsaddle between two baskets, under the care of
these hardy guides. The expense of this mode of conveyance was
small. But the caravan moved at a foot's pace; and in winter the
cold was often insupportable.145
The rich commonly travelled in their own carriages, with at least
four horses. Cotton, the facetious poet, attempted to go from
London to the Peak with a single pair, but found at Saint Albans
that the journey would be insupportably tedious, and altered his
Plan.146 A coach and six is in our time never seen, except as
part of some pageant. The frequent mention therefore of such
equipages in old books is likely to mislead us. We attribute to
magnificence what was really the effect of a very disagreeable
necessity. People, in the time of Charles the Second, travelled
with six horses, because with a smaller number there was great
danger of sticking fast in the mire. Nor were even six horses
always sufficient. Vanbrugh, in the succeeding generation,
described with great humour the way in which a country gentleman,
newly chosen a member of Parliament, went up to London. On that
occasion all the exertions of six beasts, two of which had been
taken from the plough, could not save the family coach from being
embedded in a quagmire.
Public carriages had recently been much improved. During the
years which immediately followed the Restoration, a diligence ran
between London and Oxford in two days. The passengers slept at
Beaconsfield. At length, in the spring of 1669, a great and
daring innovation was attempted. It was announced that a vehicle,
described as the Flying Coach, would perform the whole journey
between sunrise and sunset. This spirited undertaking was
solemnly considered and sanctioned by the Heads of the
University, and appears to have excited the same sort of interest
which is excited in our own time by the opening of a new railway.
The Vicechancellor, by a notice affixed in all public places,
prescribed the hour and place of departure. The success of the
experiment was complete. At six in the morning the carriage began
to move from before the ancient front of All Souls College; and
at seven in the evening the adventurous gentlemen who had run the
first risk were safely deposited at their inn in London.147 The
emulation of the sister University was moved; and soon a
diligence was set up which in one day carried passengers from
Cambridge to the capital. At the close of the reign of Charles
the Second flying carriages ran thrice a week from London to the
chief towns. But no stage coach, indeed no stage waggon, appears
to have proceeded further north than York, or further west than
Exeter. The ordinary day's journey of a flying coach was about
fifty miles in the summer; but in winter, when the ways were bad
and the nights long, little more than thirty. The Chester coach,
the York coach, and the Exeter coach generally reached London in
four days during the fine season, but at Christmas not till the
sixth day. The passengers, six in number, were all seated in the
carriage. For accidents were so frequent that it would have been
most perilous to mount the roof. The ordinary fare was about
twopence halfpenny a mile in summer, and somewhat more in
winter.148
This mode of travelling, which by Englishmen of the present day
would be regarded as insufferably slow, seemed to our ancestors
wonderfully and indeed alarmingly rapid. In a work published a
few months before the death of Charles the Second, the flying
coaches are extolled as far superior to any similar vehicles ever
known in the world. Their velocity is the subject of special
commendation, and is triumphantly contrasted with the sluggish
pace of the continental posts. But with boasts like these was
mingled the sound of complaint and invective. The interests of
large classes had been unfavourably affected by the establishment
of the new diligences; and, as usual, many persons were, from
mere stupidity and obstinacy, disposed to clamour against the
innovation, simply because it was an innovation. It was
vehemently argued that this mode of conveyance would be fatal to
the breed of horses and to the noble art of horsemanship; that
the Thames, which had long been an important nursery of seamen,
would cease to be the chief thoroughfare from London up to
Windsor and down to Gravesend; that saddlers and spurriers would
be ruined by hundreds; that numerous inns, at which mounted
travellers had been in the habit of stopping, would be deserted,
and would no longer pay any rent; that the new carriages were too
hot in summer and too cold in winter; that the passengers were
grievously annoyed by invalids and crying children; that the
coach sometimes reached the inn so late that it was impossible to
get supper, and sometimes started so early that it was impossible
to get breakfast. On these grounds it was gravely recommended
that no public coach should be permitted to have more than four
horses, to start oftener than once a week, or to go more than
thirty miles a day. It was hoped that, if this regulation were
adopted, all except the sick and the lame would return to the old
mode of travelling. Petitions embodying such opinions as these
were presented to the King in council from several companies of
the City of London, from several provincial towns, and from the
justices of several counties. We Smile at these things. It is not
impossible that our descendants, when they read the history of
the opposition offered by cupidity and prejudice to the
improvements of the nineteenth century, may smile in their
turn.149
In spite of the attractions of the flying coaches, it was still
usual for men who enjoyed health and vigour, and who were not
encumbered by much baggage, to perform long journeys on
horseback. If the traveller wished to move expeditiously he rode
post. Fresh saddle horses and guides were to be procured at
convenient distances along all the great lines of road. The
charge was threepence a mile for each horse, and fourpence a
stage for the guide. In this manner, when the ways were good, it
was possible to travel, for a considerable time, as rapidly as by
any conveyance known in England, till vehicles were propelled by
steam. There were as yet no post chaises; nor could those who
rode in their own coaches ordinarily procure a change of horses.
The King, however, and the great officers of state were able to
command relays. Thus Charles commonly went in one day from
Whitehall to New-market, a distance of about fifty-five miles
through a level country; and this was thought by his subjects a
proof of great activity. Evelyn performed the same journey in
company with the Lord Treasurer Clifford. The coach was drawn by
six horses, which were changed at Bishop Stortford and again at
Chesterford. The travellers reached Newmarket at night. Such a
mode of conveyance seems to have been considered as a rare luxury
confined to princes and ministers.150
Whatever might be the way in which a journey was performed, the
travellers, unless they were numerous and well armed, ran
considerable risk of being stopped and plundered. The mounted
highwayman, a marauder known to our generation only from books,
was to be found on every main road. The waste tracts which lay on
the great routes near London were especially haunted by
plunderers of this class. Hounslow Heath, on the Great Western
Road, and Finchley Common, on the Great Northern Road, were
perhaps the most celebrated of these spots. The Cambridge
scholars trembled when they approached Epping Forest, even in
broad daylight. Seamen who had just been paid off at Chatham were
often compelled to deliver their purses on Gadshill, celebrated
near a hundred years earlier by the greatest of poets as the
scene of the depredations of Falstaff. The public authorities
seem to have been often at a loss how to deal with the
them is obviously unjust; and this injustice was peculiarly
glaring in the case of the great North road, which traversed very
poor and thinly inhabited districts, and joined very rich and
populous districts. Indeed it was not in the power of the
parishes of Huntingdonshire to mend a high-way worn by the
constant traffic between the West Riding of Yorkshire and London.
Soon after the Restoration this grievance attracted the notice of
Parliament; and an act, the first of our many turnpike acts, was
passed imposing a small toll on travellers and goods, for the
purpose of keeping some parts of this important line of
communication in good repair.142 This innovation, however,
excited many murmurs; and the other great avenues to the capital
were long left under the old system. A change was at length
effected, but not without much difficulty. For unjust and absurd
taxation to which men are accustomed is often borne far more
willingly than the most reasonable impost which is new. It was
not till many toll bars had been violently pulled down, till the
troops had in many districts been forced to act against the
people, and till much blood had been shed, that a good system was
introduced.143 By slow degrees reason triumphed over prejudice;
and our island is now crossed in every direction by near thirty
thousand miles of turnpike road.
On the best highways heavy articles were, in the time of Charles
the Second, generally conveyed from place to place by stage
waggons. In the straw of these vehicles nestled a crowd of
passengers, who could not afford to travel by coach or on
horseback, and who were prevented by infirmity, or by the weight
of their luggage, from going on foot. The expense of transmitting
heavy goods in this way was enormous. From London to Birmingham
the charge was seven pounds a ton; from London to Exeter twelve
pounds a ton.144 This was about fifteen pence a ton for every
mile, more by a third than was afterwards charged on turnpike
roads, and fifteen times what is now demanded by railway
companies. The cost of conveyance amounted to a prohibitory tax
on many useful articles. Coal in particular was never seen except
in the districts where it was produced, or in the districts to
which it could be carried by sea, and was indeed always known in
the south of England by the name of sea coal.
On byroads, and generally throughout the country north of York
and west of Exeter, goods were carried by long trains of
packhorses. These strong and patient beasts, the breed of which
is now extinct, were attended by a class of men who seem to have
borne much resemblance to the Spanish muleteers. A traveller of
humble condition often found it convenient to perform a journey
mounted on a packsaddle between two baskets, under the care of
these hardy guides. The expense of this mode of conveyance was
small. But the caravan moved at a foot's pace; and in winter the
cold was often insupportable.145
The rich commonly travelled in their own carriages, with at least
four horses. Cotton, the facetious poet, attempted to go from
London to the Peak with a single pair, but found at Saint Albans
that the journey would be insupportably tedious, and altered his
Plan.146 A coach and six is in our time never seen, except as
part of some pageant. The frequent mention therefore of such
equipages in old books is likely to mislead us. We attribute to
magnificence what was really the effect of a very disagreeable
necessity. People, in the time of Charles the Second, travelled
with six horses, because with a smaller number there was great
danger of sticking fast in the mire. Nor were even six horses
always sufficient. Vanbrugh, in the succeeding generation,
described with great humour the way in which a country gentleman,
newly chosen a member of Parliament, went up to London. On that
occasion all the exertions of six beasts, two of which had been
taken from the plough, could not save the family coach from being
embedded in a quagmire.
Public carriages had recently been much improved. During the
years which immediately followed the Restoration, a diligence ran
between London and Oxford in two days. The passengers slept at
Beaconsfield. At length, in the spring of 1669, a great and
daring innovation was attempted. It was announced that a vehicle,
described as the Flying Coach, would perform the whole journey
between sunrise and sunset. This spirited undertaking was
solemnly considered and sanctioned by the Heads of the
University, and appears to have excited the same sort of interest
which is excited in our own time by the opening of a new railway.
The Vicechancellor, by a notice affixed in all public places,
prescribed the hour and place of departure. The success of the
experiment was complete. At six in the morning the carriage began
to move from before the ancient front of All Souls College; and
at seven in the evening the adventurous gentlemen who had run the
first risk were safely deposited at their inn in London.147 The
emulation of the sister University was moved; and soon a
diligence was set up which in one day carried passengers from
Cambridge to the capital. At the close of the reign of Charles
the Second flying carriages ran thrice a week from London to the
chief towns. But no stage coach, indeed no stage waggon, appears
to have proceeded further north than York, or further west than
Exeter. The ordinary day's journey of a flying coach was about
fifty miles in the summer; but in winter, when the ways were bad
and the nights long, little more than thirty. The Chester coach,
the York coach, and the Exeter coach generally reached London in
four days during the fine season, but at Christmas not till the
sixth day. The passengers, six in number, were all seated in the
carriage. For accidents were so frequent that it would have been
most perilous to mount the roof. The ordinary fare was about
twopence halfpenny a mile in summer, and somewhat more in
winter.148
This mode of travelling, which by Englishmen of the present day
would be regarded as insufferably slow, seemed to our ancestors
wonderfully and indeed alarmingly rapid. In a work published a
few months before the death of Charles the Second, the flying
coaches are extolled as far superior to any similar vehicles ever
known in the world. Their velocity is the subject of special
commendation, and is triumphantly contrasted with the sluggish
pace of the continental posts. But with boasts like these was
mingled the sound of complaint and invective. The interests of
large classes had been unfavourably affected by the establishment
of the new diligences; and, as usual, many persons were, from
mere stupidity and obstinacy, disposed to clamour against the
innovation, simply because it was an innovation. It was
vehemently argued that this mode of conveyance would be fatal to
the breed of horses and to the noble art of horsemanship; that
the Thames, which had long been an important nursery of seamen,
would cease to be the chief thoroughfare from London up to
Windsor and down to Gravesend; that saddlers and spurriers would
be ruined by hundreds; that numerous inns, at which mounted
travellers had been in the habit of stopping, would be deserted,
and would no longer pay any rent; that the new carriages were too
hot in summer and too cold in winter; that the passengers were
grievously annoyed by invalids and crying children; that the
coach sometimes reached the inn so late that it was impossible to
get supper, and sometimes started so early that it was impossible
to get breakfast. On these grounds it was gravely recommended
that no public coach should be permitted to have more than four
horses, to start oftener than once a week, or to go more than
thirty miles a day. It was hoped that, if this regulation were
adopted, all except the sick and the lame would return to the old
mode of travelling. Petitions embodying such opinions as these
were presented to the King in council from several companies of
the City of London, from several provincial towns, and from the
justices of several counties. We Smile at these things. It is not
impossible that our descendants, when they read the history of
the opposition offered by cupidity and prejudice to the
improvements of the nineteenth century, may smile in their
turn.149
In spite of the attractions of the flying coaches, it was still
usual for men who enjoyed health and vigour, and who were not
encumbered by much baggage, to perform long journeys on
horseback. If the traveller wished to move expeditiously he rode
post. Fresh saddle horses and guides were to be procured at
convenient distances along all the great lines of road. The
charge was threepence a mile for each horse, and fourpence a
stage for the guide. In this manner, when the ways were good, it
was possible to travel, for a considerable time, as rapidly as by
any conveyance known in England, till vehicles were propelled by
steam. There were as yet no post chaises; nor could those who
rode in their own coaches ordinarily procure a change of horses.
The King, however, and the great officers of state were able to
command relays. Thus Charles commonly went in one day from
Whitehall to New-market, a distance of about fifty-five miles
through a level country; and this was thought by his subjects a
proof of great activity. Evelyn performed the same journey in
company with the Lord Treasurer Clifford. The coach was drawn by
six horses, which were changed at Bishop Stortford and again at
Chesterford. The travellers reached Newmarket at night. Such a
mode of conveyance seems to have been considered as a rare luxury
confined to princes and ministers.150
Whatever might be the way in which a journey was performed, the
travellers, unless they were numerous and well armed, ran
considerable risk of being stopped and plundered. The mounted
highwayman, a marauder known to our generation only from books,
was to be found on every main road. The waste tracts which lay on
the great routes near London were especially haunted by
plunderers of this class. Hounslow Heath, on the Great Western
Road, and Finchley Common, on the Great Northern Road, were
perhaps the most celebrated of these spots. The Cambridge
scholars trembled when they approached Epping Forest, even in
broad daylight. Seamen who had just been paid off at Chatham were
often compelled to deliver their purses on Gadshill, celebrated
near a hundred years earlier by the greatest of poets as the
scene of the depredations of Falstaff. The public authorities
seem to have been often at a loss how to deal with the
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