242 DRIVING. 



on, making six stages. He drove it till almost the day of his 

 death. 



There were a great many coaches on the Bristol and Bath 

 road to London. The one I usually travelled by was the York 

 House coach from Bath, starting from both ends at seven A.M., 

 and reaching London about seven, covering no miles. It 

 stopped twenty minutes at Marlborough going up and at Salt 

 Hill going down for breakfast, and half an hour at the Pelican 

 at Speenhamland, better known as Newbury, both ways, for 

 dinner. Old Mrs. Botham kept that hotel, and horsed the 

 coach a couple of stages, and her nephews the Brothers 

 Botham kept the Windmill at Salt Hill, where the coach 

 breakfasted, and horsed it two or three stages. There was an 

 hotel at Salt Hill, the Castle, where other coaches changed 

 horses and breakfasted. Reilly, who kept the York House at 

 Bath, horsed it some part of the way ; I am not sure who 

 horsed it out of London, but think it was Mr. Nelson. Their 

 first change was nearly a mile short of Hounslow, close to where 

 the railway arch now stands. That was the first public coach I 

 ever drove, as I have mentioned before. James Adlam was 

 not nearly so good a coachman as Jack Sprawson ; the former 

 was always going faster and taking more out of his horses than 

 Jack. Adlam made his wheel-horses do all the work the first 

 half of the stage, and when they were beat made the leaders 

 pull both the coach and the beaten wheel-horses, so that he 

 got the whole lot well tired before the end of the stage, and in 

 spite of going faster he was always late always a minute, some- 

 times five, sometimes more. Jack Sprawson made his horses 

 work level, never seemed to be going so fast, and yet was 

 always punctual to a minute. When they were run off the road 

 Sprawson started a coach of his own from Reading to Devizes, 

 and when the railway opened, first to Newbury and then to 

 Hungerford ; he ran from those places to Devizes through 

 Marlborough, till finally the rail opened to Devizes and he had 

 to shut up. He was universally liked and respected by every 

 one, which I cannot say of the other man. They drove alternate 



