The Age of Bad Roads 67 



which were either deep, or rough and stony, or high or low, 

 as mother nature had placed the materials upon the face of 

 the ground ; the spaces between these were frequently furzy 

 hillocks or thorny brakes, through or among which the 

 equestrian traveller picked out his entangled and uncouth 

 steps. To these horrible, hilly, stony, deep, miry, uncom- 

 fortable, dreary roads the narrow wheel'd waggon seems to be 

 best adapted, and these were frequently drawn by seven, eight, 

 or even ten horses, that with great difficulty and hazard dragged 

 after them twenty-five or thirty hundred, seldom more." 



A writer in the " Gentleman's Magazine " for November, 

 1752, declares that the roads from London to Land's End, 

 and even those as far as Exeter, Plymouth or Falmouth, were 

 then still " what God left them after the flood " ; while in 

 comparing England with some of the Continental countries, 

 he says : 



" Nothing piques me more than that a trumpery despotic 

 government like France should have enchanting roads from 

 the capital to each remote part of use. Some roads in Holland 

 are very fine. . . . The republic of Berne hath made lately 

 three or four magnificent roads, some of which are near 

 100 miles in length, and that, too, in a country to which 

 Cornwall, Derbyshire, Cumberland and Westmoreland are 

 perfect carpet ground." 



Sydney Smith professed to know approximately the 

 number of " severe contusions " he received in going from 

 Taunton to Bath " before stone-breaking McAdam was born." 

 He put the figure at " between 10,000 and 12,000." 



In Sussex the roads were especially bad. In 1702, the year 

 of Queen Anne's accession to the throne, Charles III. of Spain 

 paid a visit to London, travelling by way of Portsmouth. 

 Prince George of Denmark went from Windsor to Petworth to 

 meet him, and an account of this 4O-mile journey by road 

 says : 



" We set out at six in the morning . . . and did not get out 

 of the carriages (save only when we were overturned or stuck 

 fast in the mire) till we arrived at our journey's end. 'Twas a 

 hard service for the Prince to sit fourteen hours in the coach 

 that day without eating anything, and passing through the 

 worst ways I ever saw in my life. . . . The last nine miles of 

 the way cost us six hours to conquer them." 



