“We set out at six o’clock in the morning to go to Petworth, and did not get out of the coaches (save only when we were overturned or stuck fast in the mire) til we arrived at our journey’s end. “’Twas hard service for the prince to sit fourteen hours in the coach that day without eating anything and passing through the worst ways that I ever saw in my life; we were thrown but once indeed in going, but both our coach, which was the leading, and his highnesse’s body-coach would have suffered very often if the nimble boors of Sussex had not frequently poised it or supported it with their shoulders from Godalmin almost to Petworth; and the nearer we approached to the Duke’s house the more unaccessible it seemed to be. The last nine miles of the way cost us six hours time to conquer them, and indeed we had never done it if our good master had not several times lent us a pair of horses out of his own coach, whereby we were enabled to trace out the way for him.” COACHING IN GEORGE I.’S AND GEORGE II.’S REIGNS. Markland,[16] referring to the above passage, states on the authority of a correspondent that in 1748 persons travelling from Petworth to Guildford were obliged to make for the nearest point of the great road from Portsmouth to London; plainly indicating that the main arteries of traffic were much superior to the cross-roads. [16] _Remarks on the Early Use of Carriages in England._ Dean Swift, writing to Pope on August 22, 1726, refers to the “closeness and confinement of the uneasy coach.” At this period there was still considerable prejudice against the use of carriages by men who were physically able to ride, as appears from a letter written by Swift to his friend Mr. Gay, on September 10, 1731:— “If your ramble was on horseback I am glad of it on account of your health; but I know your arts of patching up a journey between stage coaches and your friends’ coaches; for you are as arrant a cockney as any hosier in Cheapside ... you love twelve-penny coaches too well, considering that the interest of a whole thousand pounds brings you but half-a-crown a day ... a coach and six horses is all the exercise you can bear.” The reference to Mr. Gay’s income indicates that the saddle was a much cheaper means of travelling than the coach. Six horses seem to have been the number used in private coaches during the first half of the eighteenth century, if we may judge by the frequency with which Swift refers to “to coach and six.”