The first mail-coaches were merely ordinary light post coaches or diligences pressed into the service; but, unlike those of other and unofficial coaches, whose stages ranged from ten to fifteen miles or more, the horses were changed at stages varying from six to eight miles. In this way it was possible to attain a running speed of eight miles an hour, to destroy the old reproach that the mail was the slowest service in the kingdom, and to set the pace to everything else on the road. Thus once again the Post Office commanded the utmost expedition, and to the mail-coaches those travellers flocked who desired the quickest, the most dignified, and the safest method of progression in that age. The first results of the mail-coach system were of a very mixed nature. The course of post was, it is true, greatly accelerated, but the rates of postage were immediately raised, and although the added convenience was well worth the extra charge--which, after all, was much less than the surreptitious sending of letters by stage-coach had been--people grumbled. By the ordinary postboys the charge for a single letter had been a penny for one stage, twopence for two stages, and threepence for any higher distance up to eighty miles. Over that distance the charge was fourpence. The postboys’ stages ranged from ten to as many as fourteen miles. Under the new dispensation the postage was raised at once to twopence the first stage, and the stages themselves were rarely more than seven or eight miles, and often shorter. Correspondence going longer distances enjoyed, it is true, a reduction; for two stages cost threepence and distances exceeding two stages and not more than eighty miles were rated at fourpence.