Mr Thomas Pennant, the celebrated antiquarian, writing in 1782, says, “that in March 1739, he travelled to London in a Chester stage, then no despicable vehicle for country gentlemen. The first day, with much labour, we got from Chester to Whitechurch, twenty miles; the second day, to the Welsh Harp; the third, to Coventry; the fourth, to Northampton; the fifth, to Dunstable; and, as a wondrous effort, on the last, to London before the commencement of night. The strain and labour of six good horses, sometimes eight, drew us through the sloughs of Mireden, and many other places. We were constantly out two hours before day, and late at night; and in the depth of winter proportionably later.” “Families who travelled in their own carriages contracted with Benson & Co., and were dragged up in the same number of days, by three sets of able horses.” “The single gentlemen, then a hardy race, equipped in jack-boots and trowsers up to their middle, rode post through thick and thin, and, guarded against the mire, defied the frequent stumble and fall; arose and pursued their journey with alacrity; while in these days their enervated posterity sleep away their rapid journies in easy chaises, fitted for the conveyance of the soft inhabitants of Sybaris.” In 1799 His Majesty’s mails were paraded in procession past St James’s Palace to the General Post-Office, and it is said that the custom was kept up for thirty-six years on the king’s birthday. Each coach was new, or turned out to look like new, and was painted red with the Royal arms on the door panel, and on the smaller panel above the name of the town to which the coach went, on the boot the number of the mail, and on each upper quarter one of the stars of the four orders of the knighthood of the United Kingdom, the Garter, the Bath, the Thistle, and St. Patrick. The coaches were built just big enough to contain four inside and three or four outside, and coachman and guard. The body was hung upon a perch carriage and eight telegraph springs, the underworks being both solid and simple in construction. At first the number was about eighty, but more were added as time went on, until there were at length seven hundred mail coaches in the year 1835. Only a small quantity, however, left London, the rest were dispersed all over Great Britain and Ireland. These mail coaches were at first built and kept in repair by contract in London. The experience gained by watching these vehicles was very advantageous to the coach trade; anything faulty in timber or iron, steel or paint, was soon discovered by the vigilant contractors and remedied, and their plans and devices spread through the trade to the benefit of masters and workmen.