154 THE COACHING ERA 



in such a conquest of Titans, had an inappreciable value 

 of position — partly for its absolute interference with the 

 plans of our enemy, but still more for its keeping alive 

 through central Europe that sense of a deep-seated vul- 

 nerability in France. Even to tease the coasts of our 

 enemy, to mortify them by continual blockades, to insult 

 them by capturing if it were but a baubling schooner 

 under the eyes of their arrogant armies, repeated from 

 time to time a sullen proclamation of power lodged in 

 one quarter to which the hopes of Christendom turned 

 in secret. How much more loudly must this proclama- 

 tion have spoken in the audacity of having bearded the 

 elite of their troops, and having beaten them in pitched 

 battles! Five years of life it was worth paying down for 

 the privilege of an outside place on a mail-coach, when 

 carrying down the first tidings of any such event. And 

 it is to be noted that, from our insular situation, and the 

 multitude of our frigates disposable for the rapid trans- 

 mission of intelligence, rarely did any unauthorized 

 rumour steal away a prelibation from the first aroma 

 of the regular despatches. The government news was 

 generally the earliest news. 



From eight p.m. to fifteen or twenty minutes later, 

 imagine the mails assembled on parade in Lombard 

 Street, where, at that time, and not in St. Martin's-le- 

 Grand, was seated the General Post Office. In what 

 exadl strength we mustered I do not remember, but 

 from the length of each separate attelage, we filled the 

 street, though a long one, and though we were drawn 

 up in double file. On any night the speftacle was 

 beautiful. The absolute perfeftion of all the appoint- 

 ments about the carriages and harness, their strength, 

 their brilliant cleanliness, their beautiful simplicity — 

 but, more than all, the royal magnificence of the horses — 

 were what might first have fixed the attention. Every 



