But there is no subject upon which it is more rash to generalise than that of coaching history. One road might be thirty or forty years in advance of another, and Diligences and Post Coaches mean things very different in one part of the country from conveyances similarly named, but of different construction and capacity, running in other districts. In 1782, for example, there was a self-styled “Post Coach” running between London, Maidenhead, and Marlow, which certainly did not fully answer the description given above; although, from the evidence of the very curious old painting, it still retained a certain elegance, in spite of carrying outsides, and owning that vulgar appendage, a “basket,” behind. This Post Coach, which in the contemporary painting bears its name, starting-point, and place of destination plainly to be seen, is first heard of in 1773, running daily from the “King’s Head,” Old Change, at noon. What the fare was to Marlow we have not been able to discover, but to Maidenhead, distant from the City 31 miles, it was 5s. “Accommodation” coaches abounded all over the country from about 1800. They were generally slow coaches, with ample room, travelling along the roads in leisurely fashion, and stopping anywhere and everywhere, to pick up passengers and luggage. The nearest parallel to them nowadays is the slow, stopping, long-distance train, which halts at every little wayside station and sees the express flash by at sixty miles an hour. Thus far we have recorded chiefly the titles by which types of coaches were known. We now come to coaches individually named. Early among these is the “Rockingham,” London and Leeds stage, established in 1781, and continued until the railway came to Leeds, in 1841. Rockingham was, indeed, a name to conjure with in Yorkshire, and there were at least two other coaches with that name running on branch roads from Leeds. The “True Blue” was the name of the old Leeds, Malton and Scarborough coach, originating in the same year as the “Rockingham,” and lasting three years longer. Three others ran between Leeds and Wakefield, Knaresborough and Selby, and Leeds and Bradford. “True Britons,” too, were plentiful in the broad-acred county of Yorkshire, where politics and patriotism kept parties at fever heat and divided even travellers into parties to such an extent that an ardent supporter of the “Buffs” would almost rather walk or post than journey by a “Blue” coach; while a True Blue Tory innkeeper would deny accommodation to a Buff Whig (supposing in the first instance that the Whig had so far forgotten what was due to his faction as to seek shelter there) and think nothing of the custom lost. In 1784 the “Expedition” coach is first mentioned as running between London and Norwich, by way of Newmarket and Thetford. The “expedition” consisted in going 108 miles in 17½ hours, including stops, or a net running speed of about seven miles an hour.