"Posting, placed on a totally different footing from that service in the rest of Europe, is not the object of an exclusive privilege. By means of a licence, which cannot be refused, relays of post-horses are established according to the caprice or will of those who possess them. The rivalry arising from this practice does not lower the price of posting, which, London excepted, is nearly the same on all roads, and differs but little from the price of relays in France. The number of horses is always fixed at two or four, without regard to the number of travellers, or to the form or weight of the carriages. When you desire a post-chaise, the innkeeper is obliged to furnish it, without your paying an additional price. These chaises, in the shape of our coupés, are well hung, and very clean and commodious.
"England has not, as we find in France, a breed of horses specially appropriated to posting. The greater part of the post-horses in England are hunters or carriage-horses, which, having become unfit for either of these purposes, wear out the remnant of their strength in post-chaises, before they are transferred to hackney coaches and waggons. Their speed answers in a great degree to what one would expect from their breed. You travel at the rate of eight or nine miles an hour (about three and a half leagues), which includes the time of changing horses.
"The height of the postillions (always chosen among the smallest men), and their dress, consisting of a jacket, short breeches, and half boots, are calculated with a view to reduce to the smallest possible compass the burden of the horses. There is no difference between the town harness and that which is kept for posting. They are both in excellent condition.
"The mail coaches destined for the transport of letters are carriages with four inside and six outside places. Behind the coach the guard is seated, with a blunderbuss and a pair of pistols before him. These coaches travel at the rate of ten miles, or four leagues an hour; but their small size (for the English, in general tall and thick, appear to have little regard to their personal proportions in the size of their carriages), and the short time they stop to refresh, render them very unpleasant modes of conveyance.
"Stage coaches are very elegant carriages, built to carry fifteen or eighteen travellers, and a considerable weight in packets, but on admirable roads. This is an indispensable condition. Without it, the height of the carriages, the arrangement of the whole of the luggage on the imperial, and the lightness of the body and the axletree, would give rise to frequent accidents.
"The inside of the coach contains only four places. The seat of the coachman, and another seat placed immediately behind it, admit of six persons, and two seats facing each other, at the hind wheels, afford places for six or eight more. These seats are fixed over boots or boxes for stowing away the luggage. Such parcels as these cannot contain are placed on the imperial.
"The desire to breathe the fresh air, rather than economical considerations, induce even the richest English to give a preference to outside places. They only go inside when compelled by bad weather. The place most in request—one knows not wherefore—is to the left of the coachman; it is considered as the place of honour, and is reserved for fashionables, and even for lords, who do not disdain to travel thus. The sole advantages, which such a station appeared to me to present, were the being placed near a well-dressed coachman, and the escaping the chance of travelling by the side of a butcher, a shoemaker, or some other individual of that class. Each time the coachman descends from his box, his neighbour has the advantage of being made the forced depositary of his reins and whip. These are placed in your hands, as they are taken out of them again, without the least ceremony.
"The appointments of an English coach are no less elegant than its form. A portly looking coachman seated on a very high coach-box, well dressed, wearing white gloves, a nosegay in his button-hole, and his chin enveloped in an enormous cravat, drives four horses perfectly matched and harnessed, and as carefully groomed as when they excited admiration in the carriages of Grosvenor and Berkeley Squares. Such is the manner in which English horses are managed, such, also, is their docility, the effect either of temperament or training, that you do not remark the least restiveness in them. Four-horse coaches are to be seen rapidly traversing the most populous streets of London, without occasioning the least accident, without being at all inconvenienced in the midst of the numerous carriages, which hardly leave the necessary space to pass. The swearing of ostlers is never heard at the relays, any more than the neighing of horses; nor are you interrupted on the road by the voice of the coachman, or the sound of his whip, which differs only from a cabriolet whip in the length of the thong, and serves as a sort of appendage, rather than a means of correction in the hand which carries it. In England, where everything is so well arranged, where each person knows so well how to confine himself to the exigencies of his proper position, the horses do better what they have to do than the horses of other countries, and that, too, without the need of a brutal correction. One may travel from one end of England to the other without hearing the sound of a whip, or the hallooing of conductors, which in France fall so disagreeably on the ears of travellers.
"Among the wonders of English civilization, the inns should be mentioned. In many of the larger towns they are magnificent, and they are good and well supplied in the smallest. In the greater part of them the servants are in livery, and in all their attendance is prompt and respectful. On their arrival, travellers are received by the master of the house, whose decent dress indicates a respectful feeling towards strangers. Introduced into a well-heated, well-furnished room, they have never to wait for a meal, the simplicity of which, in the way of cookery, is atoned for by the elegance, often the richness, of the plate and ware, and the superior quality of the meat. A sleeping-room, as comfortable as this kind of apartment (so neglected in England) can be, completes the agrément of your sojourn. Your discontent does not commence till the exorbitant bill proves that such attentions, far from being disinterested, are, on the contrary, dearly charged for. Seldom do you separate from your host with a reciprocation of politeness. Yet, notwithstanding the coldness with which his attentions are received, the landlord does not cease to remain by the side of the traveller till his carriage is in motion."
With regard to the London hotels, travellers by the coaches generally stopped where they stopped, and were very fairly treated. Of course, there was none of the palatial magnificence of the modern hotel, but there was an amount of homely comfort to which the people of those days were accustomed. The West End hotels, save those for awful swells, were about Covent Garden, and Morley's Hotel at Charing Cross was one of the best. The first monster hotel in London was the Great Western, and its financial success led the way to the palaces that now adorn our West End thoroughfare.