TOWARDS THE KM) )!' LAST CKXTUIY. 205 



flu- kingdom. In the metropolis itself little information 

 could be obtained of the movements of the rebel army 

 for several days after they had left Edinburgh. Light 

 of foot, they outstripped the cavalry and artillery of the 

 royal army, which were delayed at all points by impass- 

 able roads. No sooner was the rebellion put down than 

 Government directed its attention to the best means of 

 securing the permanent subordination of the Highlands, 

 and with this object the construction of good highways 

 was declared to be indispensable. The expediency of 

 opening up the communication between the capital and 

 the principal towns of Scotland was also generally ad- 

 mitted ; and from that time, though slowly, the construc- 

 tion of the main high routes between north and south 

 made steady progress. The extension of the turnpike 

 system, however, encountered violent opposition from 

 the people, being regarded as a grievous tax upon their 

 freedom of movement from place to place. Armed 

 bodies of men assembled to destroy the turnpikes; 

 and they burnt down the toll-houses and blew up the 

 posts with gunpowder. The resistance was the greatest 

 in Yorkshire, along the line of the Great North Road 

 t< > wards Scotland, though riots also took place in Somer- 

 setshire and Gloucestershire, and even in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of London. At Selby, in Yorkshire, the 

 public bellman summoned the inhabitants one May 

 n i<> ruing to assemble with their hatchets and axes at 

 midnight, to cut down the turnpikes erected by Act of 

 Parliament; and they were not slow to accept his invi- 

 tation. Soldiers were then sent into the district to 

 protect the tollbars and the tolltakers ; but this was a 

 difficult matter, for the tollgates were numerous, and 

 wherever a "pike" was left unprotected for a night, it 

 was found destroyed in the morning. The Yeadon and 

 Otley mobs, near Leeds, were especially violent. On the 

 18th of June, 1753, they made quite a raid upon the 

 turnpikes, burning or destroying about a dozen of them 



