Attention was especially turned to the improvement of the longer routes, and to perfecting the connection of London with the chief town's of Scotland and Ireland. Telford was early called upon to advise as to the repairs of the road between Carlisle and Glasgow, which had been allowed to fall into a wretched state; as well as the formation of a new line from Carlisle, across the counties of Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, and Wigton, to Port Patrick, for the purpose of ensuring a more rapid communication with Belfast and the northern parts of Ireland. Although Glasgow had become a place of considerable wealth and importance, the roads to it, north of Carlisle, continued in a very unsatisfactory state. It was only in July, 1788, that the first mail-coach from London had driven into Glasgow by that route, when it was welcomed by a procession of the citizens on horseback, who went out several miles to meet it. But the road had been shockingly made, and before long had become almost impassable. Robert Owen states that, in 1795, it took him two days and three nights' incessant travelling to get from Manchester to Glasgow, and he mentions that the coach had to cross a well-known dangerous mountain at midnight, called Erickstane Brae, which was then always passed with fear and trembling.*[1] As late as the year 1814 we find a Parliamentary Committee declaring the road between Carlisle and Glasgow to be in so ruinous a state as often seriously to delay the mail and endanger the lives of travellers. The bridge over Evan Water was so much decayed, that one day the coach and horses fell through it into the river, when "one passenger was killed, the coachman survived only a few days, and several other persons were dreadfully maimed; two of the horses being also killed."*[2] The remaining part of the bridge continued for some time unrepaired, just space enough being left for a single carriage to pass. The road trustees seemed to be helpless, and did nothing; a local subscription was tried and failed, the district passed through being very poor; but as the road was absolutely required for more than merely local purposes, it was eventually determined to undertake its reconstruction as a work of national importance, and 50,000L. was granted by Parliament with this object, under the provisions of the Act passed in 1816. The works were placed under Mr. Telford's charge; and an admirable road was very shortly under construction between Carlisle and Glasgow. That part of it between Hamilton and Glasgow, eleven miles in length, was however left in the hands of local trustees, as was the diversion of thirteen miles at the boundary of the counties of Lanark and Dumfries, for which a previous Act had been obtained. The length of new line constructed by Mr. Telford was sixty-nine miles, and it was probably the finest piece of road which up to that time had been made.