The extension of the turnpike system, however, encountered violent opposition from the people, being regarded as a grievous tax upon their freedom of movement from place to place. Armed bodies of men assembled to destroy the turnpikes; and they burnt down the toll-houses and blew up the posts with gunpowder. The resistance was the greatest in Yorkshire, along the line of the Great North Road towards Scotland, though riots also took place in Somersetshire and Gloucestershire, and even in the immediate neighbourhood of London. One fine May morning, at Selby, in Yorkshire, the public bellman summoned the inhabitants to assemble with their hatchets and axes that night at midnight, and cut down the turnpikes erected by Act of Parliament; nor were they slow to act upon his summons. Soldiers were then sent into the district to protect the toll-bars and the toll-takers; but this was a difficult matter, for the toll-gates were numerous, and wherever a "pike" was left unprotected at night, it was found destroyed in the morning. The Yeadon and Otley mobs, near Leeds, were especially violent. On the 18th of June, 1753, they made quite a raid upon the turnpikes, burning or destroying about a dozen in one week. A score of the rioters were apprehended, and while on their way to York Castle a rescue was attempted, when the soldiers were under the necessity of firing, and many persons were killed and wounded. The prejudices entertained against the turnpikes were so strong, that in some places the country people would not even use the improved roads after they were made.*[11] For instance, the driver of the Marlborough coach obstinately refused to use the New Bath road, but stuck to the old waggon-track, called "Ramsbury." He was an old man, he said: his grandfather and father had driven the aforesaid way before him, and he would continue in the old track till death.*[12] Petitions were also presented to Parliament against the extension of turnpikes; but the opposition represented by the petitioners was of a much less honest character than that of the misguided and prejudiced country folks, who burnt down the toll-houses. It was principally got up by the agriculturists in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, who, having secured the advantages which the turnpike-roads first constructed had conferred upon them, desired to retain a monopoly of the improved means of communication. They alleged that if turnpike-roads were extended into the remoter counties, the greater cheapness of labour there would enable the distant farmers to sell their grass and corn cheaper in the London market than themselves, and that thus they would be ruined.*[13]