62 The Dumfries Post Office, 1642-1910. 



He says : " The Post at present, instead of being the swiftest, 

 is almost the slowest, conveyance in the country ; and though, 

 from the great improvement in our roads, other carriers have pro- 

 portionately mended their speed, the post is as slow as ever. It 

 is likewise very unsafe, as the frequent robberies of it testify, and 

 to avoid a loss of this nature people generally cut bank bills or 

 bills at sight in two and send the bills by different posts. The 

 mails are generally intrusted to some idle boy, without character, 

 mounted on a worn-out hack, and who, so far from being able to 

 defend himself or escape from a robber, is much more likely to be 

 in league with him." 



Although the advantages accruing to such a system as Palmer 

 suggested must have been apparent to many it met with consider- 

 able opposition from the postal authorities, and had it not been 

 that its merits were recognised by Mr Pitt, under whose guidance 

 the Act of Parliament authorising its adoption was passed, it is 

 doubtful if Palmer, at that time, would have succeeded in his 

 efforts. The success that attended the new system exceeded the 

 most sanguine expectations. The speed of the mails was almost 

 doubled, still greater acceleration being subsequently effected. 



It was not, however, until the summer of 1786 that a mail- 

 coach was established in Scotland on what was known as the 

 Great North Road. Two years later (7th July, 1788) direct mail- 

 coach connection was established between London and Glasgow, 

 and additional coaches were shortly afterwards arranged for from 

 Edinburgh and Carlisle to Dumfries and Port Patrick. ^2 



Dr Burnside, in his valuable MS. History of Dumfries, 

 written in the year 1791, refers to the mail coaches in the follow- 

 ing terms: — "We have at present an English, Irish, and Edin- 

 burgh mail coach out and in every day of the week. When our 

 new bridge is built and a road open that is now framing by Muir- 

 kirk we are in hopes of having the Glasgow mail coach this way 

 likewise. The country in that direction is more populous, and 

 the road more level and nearly as short as by the tract in which 

 it at present runs." (p. 72.) 



22. The writer of the General Observations for the New Statis- 

 tical Account of the County of Wigtown is in error when he states 

 (p. 223) that the mail coach was first introduced into Galloway in 

 1804. 



