But with the Restoration came the establishment of the General Post Office and an instantaneous decline in the efficiency of the post, six days instead of three being taken for the single journey to or from Edinburgh. This roused the towns on the way to indignant protests, and the post was accelerated to “three and a half or four days,” the acceleration being slower than the original time. But however keenly the intermediate towns may have felt this, it could not have mattered much to Edinburgh, whose mail-bag was very scanty. One day in 1745, we are told, the mail brought only one letter, for the British Linen Company; and on another day in the same year only one was despatched to London, for Sir William Pulteney, the banker. In 1750 things were no better, but eight years later an Edinburgh merchant, George Chalmers, procured an improvement. Before 1758 the Great North Mail set out three times a week and took eighty-seven hours in going north, and not fewer than one hundred and thirty-one from Edinburgh to London. This last itinerary was lengthened so greatly in time on account of stoppages made at Berwick and at Newcastle, ranging from three hours at one to twenty-four at the other. These delays Chalmers, in corresponding with the officials, proved to be quite needless. He also induced them to avoid the old and longer route through Thorne and York and to take the alternative road by Boroughbridge, thus shortening the journey by twelve miles. The times were then fixed at eighty-two hours for the northward-bound mail, and eighty-five for the south. For his services the Government made Chalmers a grant of £600. Some years afterwards he induced the Post Office to run the mails six days a week.