64 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



ride in the boote all the waye. The company 

 y* came np with mee were persons of greate 

 qualitie, as knightes and ladyes. My journey's 

 expense was 30'. This travel! hath soe indisposed 

 mee, y* I am resolved never to ride up againe 

 in y^ coatche. I am extremely liott and feverish. 

 What this may tend to I know not. I have not 

 as yet advised my doctor." 



Our natural curiosity on that head cannot 

 he satisfied, for the Parker corresj^ondence ends 

 abruptly there ; but we fear the worst. Eeading 

 that testimony to the quality of early coach- 

 travelling, we may find it not altogether without 

 significance that from this year forAvard to 16G7 

 little is heard of coaches. Perhaps those who 

 gave the early ones a trial Avere glad to get back 

 to their saddles and ride horseback again. How- 

 ever that may be, certainly coaching history, 

 except by inference, is in those years a blank. 

 We may infer services to other towns from oblique 

 and scattered references, but direct information is 

 lacking. That a stage-coach — or possibly more 

 than one — was on the road between London and 

 Norwich in 1665 is to be gathered from the 

 proclamation issued in that East Anglian city 

 on July 20tli of that terrible year of the Great 

 Plague, Avliich destroyed half the population of 

 London : " Prom this dale," ran that ordinance, 

 " all ye passage coaches shall be prohibited to goe 

 from ye city to London, and come from thence 

 hither, and also ye common carts and wagons." 

 Alreadv, before that notice was issued, Avavfarers 



