Dean Swift, writing to Pope on August 22, 1726, refers to the “closeness and confinement of the uneasy coach.” At this period there was still considerable prejudice against the use of carriages by men who were physically able to ride, as appears from a letter written by Swift to his friend Mr. Gay, on September 10, 1731:—
“If your ramble was on horseback I am glad of it on account of your health; but I know your arts of patching up a journey between stage coaches and your friends’ coaches; for you are as arrant a cockney as any hosier in Cheapside ... you love twelve-penny coaches too well, considering that the interest of a whole thousand pounds brings you but half-a-crown a day ... a coach and six horses is all the exercise you can bear.”
The reference to Mr. Gay’s income indicates that the saddle was a much cheaper means of travelling than the coach. Six horses seem to have been the number used in private coaches during the first half of the eighteenth century, if we may judge by the frequency with which Swift refers to “to coach and six.”
An agreement made in 1718 between a Mr. Vanden Bampde and Charles Hodges, a job-master, is worth noticing. Under this contract Hodges undertook to maintain for Mr. Bampde “a coach, chariot, and harness neat and clean, and in all manner of repair at his own charge, not including the wheels.” If the coachman should break the glass when the carriage was empty, Hodges was to make good the damage. He was to supply at a charge of 5s. 6d. a day, a pair of “good, strong, serviceable, handsome well-matched horses of value between £50 and £60”; also a “good, sober, honest, creditable coachman,” who, with the horses, should attend as Mr. Bampde or his lady might require in London or Westminster. If Mr. Bampde went into the country Hodges was to find him one or more pairs of horses at half-a-crown per pair per day extra.
DEAN SWIFT ON COACHES AND DRIVERS.
The hackney coachmen appear to have been quite as independent and offensive a class in Swift’s time as they were in Pepys’. Writing from Dublin on July 8, 1733, he compares the advantages of residence in that city with residence in London, and gives prominence to the following items:—
“I am one of the governors of all the hackney coaches, carts and carriages round this town; who dare not insult me like your rascally waggoners or coachmen, but give me the way.”
It may be observed here that there was still plenty of work for the wherrymen on the Thames in the middle of the eighteenth century. Swift writes on April 16, 1760, praying Mr. Warburton to leave London and pay him a visit at Twickenham, and by way of inducement he adds: “If the press be to take up any part of your time, the sheets may be brought you hourly thither by my waterman.”
The Dean’s Humorous Advice to Servants contains some sarcastic observations addressed to the coachman, which shed light upon what we must suppose was the usual character of that servant. He is advised that “you are strictly bound to nothing but to step into the box and carry your lord and lady;” and he is enjoined to take every opportunity of drinking. The following passage shows how wheels of carriages suffered from the battering on the roads:—