AND STIRLINGSHmE HUNT 



coach from Edinburgh to Aberdeen — the Wonder * 

 of Scotland — which rightly indeed may it be 

 called. Any person, however, who ma}^ chance to 

 be at Edinburgh, and to step into the coach office 

 of the Waterloo hotel, will see announced, amongst 

 many others, though this stands first on the list, — 

 ' The Defiance Coach to Aberdeen, matchless for 

 speed and safety, at half- past five o'clock every 

 lawful morning.' And 'matchless' no doubt it 

 has been in this part of this world. ... So com- 

 plete are its arrangements ; so respectable and 

 civil are the servants employed upon it ; so well 

 does it keep its time — in addition to the honour 

 of very often being driven by the Captain him- 

 self — that the first people in the country are, or 

 were, found in and about it, including even the 

 late Duke of Gordon himself, who would fre- 

 quently be seen in it on his road south, although 

 some of his own carriages might have been on 

 the road on the same day." ^ 



Mr Ramsay as well as Captain Barclay frequently 

 drove the Defiance, a circumstance which probably 

 tended very much to support and maintain its 

 popularity ; and " even the gravest Edinburgh 

 professors liked to see the Ramsay coaches with 

 their rich brass-mounted harness, and the scarlets 



* " The Shrewsbury and London Wonder Coach is considered the 

 best in England for that length of ground ; and was so called, because 

 it was the first that was attempted to be worked over such a distance 

 — 152 miles in one day" 



1 Nimrod's 'Northern Tour,= 1838, p. 272. 



115 



