William and Mary had established a postal system for America, placing Thomas Neale, Esquire, at its head. The service hardly became a system till 1738. In ordinary weather a post-rider would receive the Philadelphia mail at the Susquehannah River on Saturday evening, be at Annapolis on Monday, reach the Potomac Tuesday night, on Wednesday arrive at New Post, near Fredericksburg, and by Saturday evening at Williamsburg, whence, once a month, the mail went still farther south, to Edenton, N. C. Thus a letter was just a week in transit between Philadelphia and the capital of Virginia. In New England, from here to New York, and between New York and Philadelphia, despatch was much better. [Illustration: King William.] [Illustration: Queen Mary.] The learned professions also were best patronized and had the ablest personnel in New England, where all three, but particularly the clergy, were strong and honored. Outside of New England, till 1750, lawyers and physicians, especially in the country parts, were poorly educated and little respected. Each formidable disease had the people at its mercy. Diphtheria, then known as the throat disease, swept through the land once in about thirty years. Smallpox was another frequent scourge. In 1721 it attacked nearly six thousand persons in Boston, about half the population, killing some nine hundred. The clergy, almost to a man, decried vaccination when first vented, proclaiming it an effort to thwart God's will. Clergymen, except perhaps in Carolina and Virginia, were somewhat better educated, yet those in New England led all others in this respect. Colonial America boasted many great intellectual lights. President Edwards won European reputation as a thinker, and so did Franklin as a statesman and as a scientist. Linnaeus named our Bartram, a Quaker farmer of Pennsylvania, the greatest natural botanist then living. Increase Mather read and wrote both Greek and Hebrew, and spoke Latin. He and his son Cotton were veritable wonders in literary attainment. The one was the author of ninety-two books, the other of three hundred and eighty-three. The younger Winthrop was a member of the Royal Society. Copley, Stuart, and West became distinguished painters. Except for mails, there were in the colonies no public conveyances by land till just before the Revolution. After stage lines were introduced, to go from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh required seven days; from Philadelphia to New York, at first three, later two. The earliest coach to attain the last-named speed was advertised as "the flying machine," From Boston one would be four days travelling to New York, two to Portsmouth. Packet-boats between the main points on the coast were as regular and speedy as wind allowed. Stage-drivers, inn-keepers, and ship-captains were the honored and accredited purveyors of news.