unto at Dover." This man Ranger was still foot post for Dover down to 1649; but in that year he was superseded in his place in consequence of certain irregularities. In the Council of State's proceedings of the 17th December of that year, the Mayor and Jurats of Dover were to be advised that the Council approved of another appointment being made, "as it would not have been safe for the State to suffer him (Ranger) to continue in that employment." The king's posts at this period (1633) were not remarkable for their great speed. On the 27th June, Secretary Coke and the king received letters at Edinburgh which had taken five days in coming from Greenwich. On 9th July, Sir Francis Windebank writes to Secretary Coke, that "your several letters of the 2nd and 3rd of this present, written from Lithco (Linlithgow) and Stirling, and sent by Davis, came to my hands upon Sunday the 7th, late in the evening. I send these by Davis again because of the slowness of the posts, some of your letters being ten days upon the way, and never any packet yet dated at the stages as they ought to be." A Captain Plumleigh, writing from Kinsale, apparently to the Lord Deputy, complains that "your lordship's letters unto me seldom come to my hands under fourteen days' time. I beg that the despatch of this of mine may come on towards Kinsale day and night, for otherwise we shall haply lose the opportunity of a fair wind," etc. The condition of the roads in these times was an important factor in causing the posts to travel slowly; and the through couriers, after riding during the day, would necessarily rest during the night. The following letter, dated 20th December 1633, from Sir Gervase Clifton to Sir John Coke the younger, at Selston, Nottinghamshire, describes a journey by road:--"I will be bold to trouble you with a discourse of my perambulation. I came on Tuesday to Dunstable, somewhat, albeit not much, within night. On Wednesday to Northampton, almost three hours after daylight, yet with perpetual fear of overturning or losing our way, which without guides hired, and lights holding in, I had undoubtedly done. On Thursday to Leicester, a great deal later, and so much more dangerously, as the way (you know) was worse at the end of the journey. On Friday we were the most of all troubled with waters, which so much covered the causeways, and almost bridges, over which we were to pass, as made me nearer retiring than coming forward; which, nevertheless, at length I ventured to do, and am (God be thanked), with my wife, safely got to Clifton (near Loughborough), where I remain yet, the worse of the two, by reason of a great cold I have taken." Even a good many years later the roads were in a bad way. In 1678, Lady Russell writes to her husband from Tunbridge Wells: "I do really think, if I could have imagined the illness of the journey, it would have discouraged me: it is not to be expressed how bad the way is from Seven