A treasure of such value demanded special precautions for its safe keeping. It was stored in a chamber cut in the solid rock which forms the hillside on which the town of Falmouth lies. This chamber was lined with sheet iron, and its doors were of oak strongly bound with iron bars. Here the treasure lay in absolute safety until arrangements could be made for conveying it to London. It travelled by vehicles which are yet well remembered in Cornwall, and which, in their day, constituted one of the chief modes of communication between London and the West of England. Russell’s wagons were indeed travelling upon the Great West Road before the first mail coach bowled out of London; and as the passenger fares by the “Highflyer” or the “Rocket” were beyond the means of poor people, there were always some, even until the days of railways, who preferred to journey with the wagons, sleeping by night beneath the tilt, and trudging all day beside the wagoner’s pony. There was no difficulty in keeping pace; for the rate did not exceed two, or at most three, miles an hour. The horses never trotted; the progress was a sort of stroll. Inside the wagon rode a man armed with pistol and blunderbuss. The drivers were provided with horse pistols, and, when treasure was in the wagons, a guard of soldiers marched up to London with them, one on either side, two in the rear, to guard against surprise. The roads were unsafe enough in old days, but there is no memory of any attack upon Russell’s wagons; though a tradition lingers that such a venture was once planned, but frustrated by a dream which revealed the robbers’ plot. Hardly fifty years have passed since these old wagons might still have been met, toiling at their leisurely pace along the western road. But the new railway was fast devouring the country; the busy inns were closing one by one; that great silence was falling over the country roads which has lasted until now. The passengers went by train; the specie no longer came to Falmouth. The old wagons had had a long day, but it was past; and they went the way of other anachronisms. The illustration which faces this page shows perhaps more clearly than any description, the picturesqueness of this phase of by-gone life. It was not with the wagons that the change in progress either began or ended. The construction of railways was changing the face of England, robbing certain districts of their old importance, and raising others to a consequence which they had never before enjoyed. The picturesque and busy life of Falmouth was doomed. The same silence was fast stealing over the port and town as had settled on the country roads. The townsmen fought hard and long to retain their ancient Service, but the spirit of the age was too strong for them. Bit by bit the Packets were removed to other ports, and an old and memorable chapter of our history was brought to a close. CHAPTER II. LAX ADMINISTRATION.