"From my house at Croydon this 22d July 1566, at 4 of the clock afternoon.—Your honour's alway,
Matth. Cant.
"To the Rt. Honble. Sir W. Cecil."
Endorsed by successive postmasters:—
"Received at Waltham Cross, the 23d of July, about 9 at night."
"Received at Ware, the 23d July, at 12 o'clock at night."
"Received at Croxton, the 24th of July, between 7 and 8 of the clock in the morning."
"So that his Grace's letter, leaving Croydon at 4 in the afternoon of July 22d, reached Waltham Cross, a distance of nearly 26 miles, by 9 at night of the 23d, whence, in 3 hours, it seems to have advanced 8 miles to Ware; and within 8 hours more to have reached Croxton, a further distance of 29 miles, having taken nearly 40 hours to travel about 63 miles."
In 1635 a public post between London and Edinburgh was established, the journey being limited to three days. This mail set out as a rule but twice a-week, and sometimes only once a-week. An express messenger conveying news of the death of Charles II., who died on the 6th February 1685, was received in Edinburgh at one o'clock on the morning of the 10th February; and it may also be mentioned here—though the matter hardly reflects upon the speed of postboys, who travel by land and not by water—that in 1688 it required three months to convey the tidings of the abdication of James II. of England and VII. of Scotland to the Orkney Islands.
Down to this period the mails from London to Scotland were carried on horseback with something like tolerable speed, taking previous performances into account, for in 1689 it is noted that parliamentary proceedings of Saturday were in the hands of the Edinburgh public on the ensuing Thursday. This rate of travelling does not appear to have been kept up, for in 1715 the post from London to Edinburgh took six days to perform the journey. When it is considered that nearly a century before, the same distance could be covered in three days, this relapse seems to bespeak a sad want of vitality in the Post-office management of the age. The cause of the slow travelling, which appears to have continued for over forty years, comes out in a memorial of traders to the Convention of Burghs in 1758, wherein dissatisfaction was expressed with the existing arrangements of the post,—the mail for London on reaching Newcastle being there delayed about a day, again detained some time at York, and probably further delayed in the south; so that the double journey to and from London occupied eleven days instead of seven or eight, as the memorial deemed sufficient. To the Post-office mind of the present age, this dilatory method of performing the service of forwarding mails is incomprehensible, and the circumstance reflects discreditably both on the Post-office officials who were cognisant of it, and on the public who submitted to it. It is fair to mention, however, that at this period the mail from London to Edinburgh covered the ground in eighty-seven hours, or in fully three and a half days; and that as a result of the memorial, the time was reduced to eighty-two hours, and the journey from Edinburgh to London reduced to eighty-five hours. In 1763, the London to Edinburgh mail commenced to be despatched five times a-week, instead of only three times; and at this time, during the winter season, the mail leaving London on Tuesday night was generally not in the hands of the people of Edinburgh until the afternoon of Sunday. We are informed, in Lang's 'Historical Summary of the Post-office in Scotland,' that in 1715 there was not a single horse-post in that country. There must, however, have been some earlier attempts to establish horse-posts in the northern kingdom, for Chambers, in his 'Domestic Annals of Scotland,' under the year 1660, refers to the fact of a warrant being granted against interlopers who were carrying letters by foot on the same line on which Mr Mean had set up a horse-post. A traveller in 1688 relates, also, that besides the horse-post from Edinburgh to Berwick, there was a similar post from Edinburgh to Portpatrick in connection with the Irish packet service. Again, Chambers tells us that in 1667 the good people of Aberdeen having had "long experience of the prejudice sustained, not only by the said burgh of Aberdeen, but by the nobility, gentry, and others in the north country, by the miscarrying of missive letters, and by the not timeous delivery and receiving returns of the samen," bestirred themselves to establish a better state of things. It was considered proper that "every man might have their letters delivered and answers returned at certain diets and times;" and it was accordingly arranged, under Post-office sanction, that Lieutenant John Wales should provide a regular horse-service to carry letters to Edinburgh every Wednesday and Friday, returning every Tuesday and Thursday in the afternoon.