Palmer had, while yet at school, been distinguished for a love of enterprise, an indomitable perseverance, and an activity of body which knew no fatigue and set distance at defiance. He had, through sheer persistency, obtained a patent for his theatre at Bath, which thus became the first Theatre-Royal out of the metropolis. At a time when the mail leaving London on Monday night did not arrive at Bath until Wednesday afternoon, he had been in the habit of accomplishing the distance between the two cities in a single day. He had made journeys equally long and equally rapid in other directions; and, as the result of observation, he had come to the conclusion that of the horses kept at the post-houses it was always the worst that were set aside to carry the mail, and that the post was the slowest mode of conveyance in the kingdom. He had also observed that, where security or despatch was required, his neighbours at Bath who might desire to correspond with London would make a letter up into a parcel and send it by stage-coach,[59] although the cost by stage-coach was, porterage included, 2s. and by post 4d. Not seldom, indeed, the difference would be more than 1s. 8d., for to prevent delay on the part of the porters in London one of these clandestine letters would as often as not have written on the back, "An extra sum will be given the porter if he delivers this letter immediately." [59] Thus, Mrs. Thrale to Doctor Johnson. Writing from Bath on the 4th of July 1784, she says: "I write by the coach the more speedily and effectually to prevent your coming hither."--Hayward's _Autobiography of Mrs. Piozzi_, vol. i. p. 241.