In 1678 a contract was made to establish a coach for passengers between Edinburgh and Glasgow, a distance of forty-four miles. This coach was drawn by six horses, and the journey between the two places, to and fro, was completed in six days. At the close of the reign of Charles II. flying carriages ran thrice a week from London to all the chief towns; but no stage-coach appears to have proceeded further north than York, or further west than Exeter. The ordinary day's journey of a flying coach was about fifty miles in the Summer; but in Winter, when the ways were bad and the nights long, little more than thirty miles. The Chester coach, the York coach, and the Exeter coach generally reached London in four days during the fine season, but at Christmas not till the sixth day. The passengers, six in number, were all seated in the carriage; for accidents were so frequent that it would have been most perilous to mount the roof. The ordinary fare was about twopence half-penny a mile in Summer, and somewhat more in Winter. "This mode of travelling, which by Englishmen of the present day would be regarded as insufferably slow, seemed to our ancestors wonderfully, and indeed alarmingly rapid; for, in a work published a few months before the death of Charles II., the flying coaches are extolled as far superior to any similar vehicles ever known in the world. Their velocity is the subject of special commendation, and is triumphantly contrasted with the sluggish pace of the Continental posts. But with boasts like these was mingled the sound of complaint and invective. "The interest of large classes had been unfavourably affected by the establishment of the new diligences, and, as usual, many persons were, from mere stupidity and obstinacy, disposed to clamour against the innovation. It was vehemently argued that this mode of conveyance would be fatal to the breed of horses and to the noble art of horsemanship; that the Thames, which had long been an important nursery of seamen, would cease to be the chief thoroughfare from London up to Windsor, and down to Gravesend; that saddlers and spurriers would be ruined by hundreds; that numerous inns at which mounted travellers had been in the habit of stopping would be deserted, and could no longer pay any rent; that the new carriages were too hot in Summer and too cold in Winter; that the passengers were grievously annoyed by invalids and crying children; that the coach sometimes reached the inn so late that it was impossible to get supper, and sometimes started so early that it was impossible to get breakfast.