Instead of exposing letters to these and other risks, Palmer proposed that a service of mail-coaches should be established on every great road.
It was a bold scheme, and seemed to most of those to whom it was unfolded rash and unworkable. To quite understand this attitude of mind on the part of Palmer’s contemporaries, both inside and outside the Post Office, it is essential to project ourselves mentally into those closing years of the eighteenth century, when no one travelled save under direful compulsion, when correspondence between sundered friends and relatives was fitful and infrequent, and when even business relations between the newly-risen industries of the great towns and the rural districts were carried on in what we now consider to have been a most leisurely and somnolent manner. The world went very well then for the indolent, and they resented any quickening of the pace; and that the average acute business men of that age considered the course of post reasonable seems evident when we consider that it was not from their ranks that this reforming project came, and that they are not found supporting it until the first mails had been put on the road and proved successful. Then that imagination which had been altogether lacking or dormant in business minds was aroused, and the great towns and cities not at first provided with these new facilities eagerly petitioned the Post Office authorities for mail-coaches.
Palmer contended that mail-coaches could be established at no greater expense than that of the postboys and horses, who cost threepence a mile. At a time, he continued, when stage-coaches cost their proprietors about twopence a mile, it was quite certain that adventurers could be found to establish mail-coaches if the Government would consent to pay them at the same rate as the postboys, to exempt them from the heavy tolls to which ordinary traffic was liable, and to permit passengers to be carried to enable these speculative persons to earn a profit on their enterprise. The proposed exemption from toll was very reasonable when we consider how onerous were the turnpike charges on the Bath Road, typical as it was of others. The charges for a carriage and four horses between London and Bath were not less than 18s., or about twopence a mile.
These mail-coaches, he considered, should travel at about eight or nine miles an hour. They should carry no outside passengers, but were to be provided with a guard, who, for the better protection of the mails, should be armed with two short guns or blunderbusses. The coachman, too, should be armed, but his equipment was to be two pistols, for with his reins to hold with one hand he could not, like the guard, bring his weapon to the shoulder. The journey, for example, between London and Bath, it was thought, could be performed in sixteen hours, including stoppages; and this unusual expedition, together with the assured safety, would result in the projected coaches being well patronised by the public.
This plan was matured in 1782, and Palmer lost no time in securing the good offices of an influential friend to bring it to the notice of the “Heaven-born Minister,” Pitt, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. The time, however, was not propitious, for the ministry soon went out of office, and it was not until 1784, when he was again in power, that Palmer’s plan obtained a trial. Pitt was heartily in favour of it, and carried it into effect against the unanimously adverse opinions of the Post Office surveyors, who resented one outside their own sanctified and anointed caste daring to suggest that the methods of the department were capable of improvement. One was, or affected to be, unable to see why the post should be the swiftest conveyance in the kingdom; and to another it appeared that for guards and coachmen to carry arms would be to encourage the highwaymen—who assuredly would continue to attack the mail—to a greater use than before of pistols, so that murder would be added to robbery and the country run with blood. In conclusion, they were all amazed that any dissatisfaction or desire for change should exist, and from that amazement proceeded to argue that they really did not exist. If (they said) the mails were not frequent enough or swift enough, there were always the expresses ready to be specially hired. Now, as at that time a letter going a hundred miles by mail would cost fourpence, and the cost of an express—at threepence a mile and a two-and-sixpenny fee—would for the same distance be 27s. 6d., this surprise was not altogether unlike that of Marie Antoinette, who, hearing that the people were starving for lack of bread, wondered why they did not eat cakes instead.
These official objections having been brushed aside at a Treasury conference held on June 21st, arrangements were made for a coach to run on the road from Bristol, through Bath, to London, pursuant to an order issued on July 24th, which stated that “His Majesty’s Postmasters-General, being inclined to make an experiment for the more expeditious conveyance of mails of letters by stage-coaches, machines, etc., have been pleased to order that a trial shall be made upon the road between London and Bristol, to commence at each place on Monday the 2nd August next.”
On July 31st, 1784, five innholders—one in London, one at Thatcham, one at Marlborough, and two in Bath—entered into an agreement to horse the coach down that ancient turnpike. They received threepence a mile for their services.
A conflict of testimony as to whether the first mail-coach started on August 2nd, 1784, or on August 8th, seems to be disposed of by the advertisement in Bonner & Middleton’s Bristol Journal of July 31st in that year, although there is nothing in succeeding issues of that journal to show whether the service actually did or did not begin on the date announced:—
Mail Diligence.
To commence Monday, August 2nd.
The Proprietors of the above Carriage having agreed to convey the Mail to and from London and Bristol in Sixteen Hours, with a Guard for its Protection, respectfully inform the Public, that it is constructed so as to accommodate Four Inside Passengers in the most convenient Manner;—that it well (sic) set off every Night at Eight o’Clock, from the Swan with Two Necks, Lad-Lane, London, and arrive at the Three Tuns Inn, Bath, before Ten the next Morning, and at the Rummer-Tavern, near the Exchange, Bristol, at Twelve, ... Will set off from the said Tavern at Bristol at Four o’Clock every Afternoon, and arrive at London at Eight o’Clock the next Morning.
The Price to and from Bristol, Bath, and London, 28s. for each Passenger ... No Outside allowed.
Both the Guards and Coachmen (who will be likewise armed) have given ample Security for their Conduct to the Proprietors, so that those Ladies and Gentlemen who may please to honour them with their Encouragement, may depend on every Respect and Attention.
Parcels will be forwarded agreeable to the Directions immediately on their Arrival at London, etc. etc., and the Price of the Porterage as well as the Carriage, on the most reasonable Terms, will be charged on the Outside to prevent Imposition.
Any person having reason to complain of the Porter’s Delay, will oblige the Proprietors by sending a Letter of the Times of Delivery of their Parcels to any of the different Inns the Diligence puts up at.
Performed by
Wilson & Co., London.
Williams & Co., Bath.N.B. The London, Bath, and Bristol Coaches from the above Inns as usual.
Immediately beneath this advertisement it is amusing to see a counterblast, in the form of an announcement by Pickwick, Weeks, and other “Proprietors of the Coaches from Bristol, Bath, and London,” who “respectfully beg leave to inform the Public that they continue to run their Coaches from the Bush Tavern in Corn Street, Bristol,” and from other inns in that city and at Bath, “with equal Expedition to any Coaches that travel the Road.” Stage-coach proprietors in general were, not unnaturally, alarmed and angered by the inauguration of a swift service of subsidised mail-coaches, not only claiming to perform their journeys in a specified time, but actually doing so under contracts providing for penalties when the official time-table was not kept. They were under no such obligations, and continually claimed to do things impossible to be performed, secure from penalties. “What time do you get to London?” asked a passenger of a stage-coachman. “Six o’clock, sir, is the proper time, but I have been every hour of the four-and-twenty after it,” was the reply.