"Stage-coaches ... effeminate his Majesty's Subjects who, having used
themselves to travel in them, have neither attained Skill themselves nor
bred up their Children to good Horsemanship, whereby they are rendered
incapable of serving their Country on Horseback, if Occasion should require
and call for the same; for hereby they become weary and listless when they
ride a few Miles, and unwilling to get on Horseback; not able to endure
Frost, Snow, or Rain, or to lodge in the Fields."
These last-mentioned words, "or to lodge in the fields," are especially
suggestive of what might happen in those days to travellers on horseback.
The writer goes on to say:--
"There is such a lazy Habit of Body upon Men, that they, to indulge
themselves, save their fine clothes, and keep themselves clean and dry,
will ride lolling in one of them, and endure all the Inconveniences of that
Manner of Travelling rather than ride on Horseback."
He grieves over the fact that there were not "near so many coach-horses
either bred or kept in England" as there were saddle-horses formerly, and
he mentions the interesting fact that the York, Chester and Exeter
stage-coaches, with 40 horses a-piece, carried eighteen passengers a week
to each of those three places from London, and brought the same number
back--a total of 1872 for the year. His plea that, but for the coaches,
this number of travellers would have required, with their servants, "at
least 500 horses," instead of the 120 which sufficed for the coaches, no
longer concerns us; but his figures as to the extent of the travel in 1673
between London and cities of such importance--even in those {41}days--as
York, Chester and Exeter, are certainly interesting. One learns from the
pamphlet that there were, in addition, stage coaches then going to "almost
every town within 20 or 25 miles of London."
The writer also sought to discredit coaches on the ground that they
were--bad for trade! "These Coaches and Caravans," he said, "are
destructive to the Trade and Manufactures of the Kingdom, and have
impoverished many Thousands of Families, whose subsistence depended upon
the manufacturing of Wool and Leather, two of the Staple Commodities of the
Kingdom." It was not only that saddlers and others were being cast on the
parish, but tailors and drapers were also suffering because in two or three
journeys on horseback travellers spoiled their clothes and hats--"Which
done, they were forced to have new very often, and that increased the
consumption of the manufactures, and the employment of the Manufacturers,
which travelling in Coaches doth no way do."
All this must have seemed grave enough to the good alarmist; but there was
still worse to come, for he goes on to say that--
"Passage to London being so easy, Gentlemen come to London oftener than
they need, and their Ladies either with them, or, having the Conveniences
of these Coaches, quickly follow them. And when they are there, they must
be in the Mode, buy all their Cloaths there, and go to Plays, Balls, and
Treats, where they get such a Habit of Jollity and a Love to Gayety and
Pleasure, that nothing afterwards in the Country will serve them, if ever
they should fix their minds to live there again; but they must have all
from London, whatever it costs."
Fearing, perhaps, that these various arguments might not suffice to
discredit the coaches, the pamphleteer has much to say about the
discomforts of those conveyances:--
"Travelling in these Coaches can neither prove advantageous to Men's Health
or Business; For what Advantage is it to Men's Health to be called out of
their beds into these Coaches, an Hour before Day in the Morning, to be
hurried in them from Place to Place till one Hour, two or three within
Night; insomuch that, after sitting all Day in the Summertime stifled with
Heat and choaked with Dust; or in the {42}Winter-time starving and freezing
with cold, or choaked with filthy Fogs, they are often brought into their
Inns by Torchlight, when it is too late to sit up to get a Supper; and next
Morning they are forced into the Coach so early, that they can get no
Breakfast....
"Is it for a Man's Health to travel with tired Jades, and to be laid fast
in the foul ways and forced to wade up to the knees in Mire; afterwards sit
in the Cold, till Teams of Horses can be sent to pull the Coach out? Is it
for their Health to travel in rotten Coaches, and to have their Tackle, or
Pearch or Axle-tree broken, and then to wait three or four hours, sometimes
half a day, to have them mended, and then to travel all Night to make good
their Stage?"
And so on, and so on, until we come to the moral of the story, which is
that people should refuse to patronise such innovations as stage-coaches,
keep to the ways of their forefathers, and do their travelling on
horseback. If they could not do that, and needs must ride in a vehicle, let
them be content with the long coaches (i.e. long waggons) which were "More
convenient than running coaches ... for they travel not such long journeys,
go not out so early in the Morning, neither come they in so late at night;
but stay by the Way, and travel easily, without jolting Men's Bodies or
hurrying them along, as the running Coaches do."
But the denunciations, arguments and vigorous pleadings of this "Lover of
his Country," as the author of "The Grand Concern" called himself, were all
of no avail. The march of progress had taken another step forward, and
England found it had now entered definitely on the Coaching Era.
{43}CHAPTER VII