94 Notes and Sketches. 



The business of facilitating mail arrangements was 

 not quickly disposed of, for in 1794 the county had 

 represented to it the great inconvenience suffered over 

 all the north of Scotland by detention of the north 

 mail at Edinburgh " for near ten hours," with the result 

 of its arriving at Aberdeen at night. The demand 

 made on behalf of town and county was, that the 

 mails be sent on from Edinburgh " within three hours 

 of arrival there." Two years after, the complaint still 

 was that all the north mails lay at Edinburgh from five 

 or six in the morning till one or two in the afternoon 

 a delay equal to two and a-half days in the week, 

 or " a space of time equal to four months and ten days 

 in the year " during which the mails " lay dormant " 

 at Edinburgh. In October, 1796, it was intimated 

 that the Postmaster-General had agreed to run a mail 

 coach from Edinburgh to Montrose " on and from 5th 

 April next," and that the coach " would be forwarded 

 to Aberdeen how soon the turnpike road was com- 

 pleted from Montrose." It does not appear that this 

 promise was carried out so fully as had been expected, 

 for in May, 1797, there was a proposal for the ill-used 

 northern counties to unite in an application to Parlia- 

 ment on the subject. But at last, in July 1798, a mail 

 coach, drawn by four horses, commenced to run through 

 between Edinburgh and Aberdeen, performing the 

 journey in about twenty-one hours. The time required 

 previously by the post-boys was thirty-five or thirty- 

 six hours. 



The "Aberdeen and Edinburgh Fly" and the 

 " Strathmore Diligence " were two of the earliest 

 stage conveyances southward from Aberdeen, and 

 which supplied the wants of the travelling public in 

 the latter years of the last and first years of the pre- 

 sent century the smartly equipped " Defiance " came 

 later. The very full particulars printed oh the ticket 

 of each passenger by the Fly may be given. They 

 are taken from a ticket endorsed on the reverse side, 



