EARLY COACHES 5 



frequently poised it or supported it with their shoulders 

 from Godalming almost to Petworth; and the nearer we 

 approached to the Duke's house the more inaccessible 

 it seemed to be. The last nine miles of the way cost us 

 six hours time to conquer them, and indeed we had never 

 done it if our good master had not several times lent us 

 a pair of horses out of his own coach, whereby we were 

 enabled to trace out the way for him." 



Horace Walpole wrote bitterly of the Sussex roads in 

 1749, and besought his friends, if they valued their lives 

 and constitutions, never to set foot in that appalling 

 county. The inhabitants were savages, the inns, horses, 

 postilions, and coaches all as bad as bad could be, and 

 the roads so execrable that anyone foolish enough to 

 imagine them meant for wheeled traffic would be 

 promptly disillusioned. 



In the North things were little better, for Arthur 

 Young, the agriculturist, in his northern tour of 1770 

 exclaimed vehemently: 



"I know not in the whole range of language terms 

 sufficiently expressive to describe this infernal road. 

 Let me most seriously caution all travellers to avoid 

 it as they would the devil, for a thousand to one they 

 break their necks or their limbs by overthrows or break- 

 ings down. They will meet with ruts which I actually 

 measured four feet deep and floating with mud, only 

 from a wet summer, what therefore must it be after a 

 winter?" 



Even in the vicinity of London, matters, though 

 slightly better than in the provinces, were still nothing 



