During the twelve years which had elapsed since Palmer's plan was established there had not been one single instance in which a mail-coach had been molested by highwaymen. Far otherwise was it with the horse and cross-post mails. In 1796 the distance over which these mails travelled was, in England, about 3800 miles, and hardly a week passed without intelligence reaching headquarters that in some part or other of their course they had been stopped and robbed. Some roads enjoyed an unenviable notoriety in this respect, as, for instance, the road between Barton Mills and Lynn in Norfolk, the road between Bristol and Portsmouth, and, above all, the road between Chester and Warrington. Between these two places, indeed, the mail had only recently been robbed on four different occasions. Manchester and other towns now took the matter up, and urged that mail-coaches might be established on the roads where the robberies took place, not because coaches were necessary to carry the letters, but on account of the security which they afforded. Freeling proposed as an alternative that the horse and cross-post mails should be guarded. To supply the existing post-boys, or riders, as they were then termed, with firearms would have been worse than useless. They were mere boys--many of them not yet fourteen years of age--and with firearms in their possession they would have been more likely to shoot themselves than their assailants. Accordingly, Freeling proposed that no riders should be employed who, besides being of approved character, were not between the ages of eighteen and forty-five; that they should each be furnished with a brace of pistols, a cutlass, and a strong cap for the defence of the head; and that, in consideration of an increased allowance to be made by the Post Office, the postmasters whose servants the riders were should be required to provide them with better horses than those hitherto in use. Of all the plans which, through a long course of years, were submitted to Pitt for the improvement of the posts this was the only one to which he demurred. He did not, indeed, deny its efficacy; but it would involve a cost of at least £6000 a year, and, pressed as he was for money, he declined to say more than that the plan might be carried out if the persons interested were willing to bear the additional expense, but not otherwise. For us with our present knowledge it is easy enough to see that the surest and most popular way of transferring the expense to the public would have been to cheapen the postage. In 1796 no other way appeared feasible than to make the postage dearer. To this object the postmasters-general now devoted themselves, and before many months were over they had prepared a bill which, with some modifications, was adopted by the Government and passed into law.