Besides London, Bath alone—favoured by its two distinguished citizens, Ralph Allen and John Palmer—had, before 1792, more than one letter-carrier; and many important centres of population, such as Norwich, York, Derby, Newcastle-on-Tyne, and Plymouth, had none at all—the postmaster, and in some instances a single assistant, constituting the entire staff, no sort of duty outside the official walls being undertaken. The Channel Islands were treated as though they had been in another planet. Before 1794 they had no postal communication with the rest of the United Kingdom, though for some years local enterprise had provided them with an inter-insular service. When Palmer appeared on the scene, the number of towns in the British Isles which received mails increased rapidly, while those already served two or three times a week began to receive a post daily. In no respect, perhaps, has greater progress been made than in the matter of mail conveyance, both as regards acceleration and safety, and in other ways. In Witherings' time about two months were required for a letter and its answer to pass between London and Scotland or London and Ireland. Exchange of correspondence between the three kingdoms was, strange to say, far less expeditiously carried on than that between London and Madrid. But when it is remembered how direful was the condition of our thoroughfares in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the impossibility of anything like swift progress becomes evident. Ruts there were, says Arthur Young, which measured 3 feet in depth, and in wet weather were filled to the brim with water; while in “Guy Mannering” Scott speaks of districts “only accessible through a succession of tremendous morasses.” In “Waverley” (_temp._ 1745) is described the “Northern Diligence, a huge, old-fashioned tub drawn by three horses, which completed the journey from Edinburgh to London ('God willing,' as the advertisement expressed it) in three weeks.” Twenty years later, even, the coaches spent from twelve to fourteen days upon the journey, and went once a month only. In some places the roads were so bad that it was necessary to erect beacons alongside them to keep the travelling public after dark from falling into the ponds and bogs which lined the highways and sometimes encroached upon them. Elsewhere, the ponderous “machines” groaned or clattered over rocky and precipitous ways, rolling and pitching like a vessel on an angry sea. Not even by the more lightly-freighted men on foot and boys mounted on the wretched steeds provided for the Post Office service could swifter progress be made. No wonder that letter and answer should travel but slowly.