This is exactly what happened. When the British government decided to give the scheme a trial, it reminded the provinces concerned that there were several months in every year when the mails must be carried between Halifax and Quebec overland, and that this could be done successfully only if the roads in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Quebec, over which the mails must pass, were put in a condition to permit of fast travel by carriage, night as well as day. At the time--1840--the steamships began to run to Halifax, the situation as regards the land routes was as follows: the distance from Halifax to Quebec--seven hundred miles--was rarely covered by the mail couriers in less than ten days. In the depth of winter, when the sleighing was good, and advantage could be taken of the ice road on the St. John river between Fredericton and the mouth of the Madawaska river, the journey was made in some hours less than six days. But it was seldom that conditions combined to make so fast a journey possible, and it was not considered prudent to reckon on an average of less than ten days. In the spring and autumn this length of time was often greatly exceeded. Stayner, who went over the route in the autumn of 1838, after calculating the effect of all practicable ameliorations, did not believe that the time could be reduced to less than seven days. As against this possible time, there was the fact that the journey from New York to Quebec occupied only six and a half days in winter. The farther west the point of comparison was carried, moreover, the greater the disadvantage at which Halifax stood. The shortest time to be anticipated in conveying the mails from Halifax to Montreal, after all improvements had been made, was nine days. The courier from New York, who had but half the distance to travel, delivered his mails in Montreal in five days. Toronto, the capital of Upper Canada, and the entrepot for the thriving and rapidly-spreading settlements in the west, was still more easily reached from New York than from Halifax. The journey from Halifax to Toronto covered a distance of one thousand two hundred and twelve miles, and occupied more than two weeks. New York was only five hundred and forty miles from Toronto, and the mails were carried between the two places in seven days in winter. Halifax is five hundred and fifty miles nearer Liverpool than is New York, and consequently gained two days on the ocean voyage. But, in point of time, the odds were hopelessly against Halifax, as the landing port for the Canadian mails. The obvious political reasons, however, for maintaining Halifax as the port of exchange between the North American provinces, as a whole, and the mother country, provoked a determined effort to remove, as far as possible, the natural obstacles which seemed to prevent the achievement of that end.