The roads of England are the marvel of the world. The improvements which
have been effected during a century would be almost miraculous, did we
not consider that they had been produced by the spirit and intelligence
of the people, and were in no degree dependant upon the apathy or
caprice of the ruling power. The first turnpike-road was established by
an act of the 3rd Charles II. The mob pulled down the gates; and the new
principle was supported at the point of the bayonet. But long after that
period travelling was difficult and dangerous. In December, 1703,
Charles III. king of Spain, slept at Petworth on his way from Portsmouth
to Windsor, and Prince George of Denmark went to meet him there by
desire of the queen. In the relation of the journey given by one of the
prince's attendants, he states, "We set out at six in the morning, by
torchlight, to go to Petworth, and did not get out of the coaches (save
only when we were overturned or stuck fast in the mire) till we arrived
at our journey's end. 'Twas a hard service for the prince to sit
fourteen hours in the coach that day without eating any thing, and
passing through the worst ways I ever saw in my life. We were thrown but
once indeed in going, but our coach, which was the leading one, and his
highnesses body coach, would have suffered very much, if the nimble
boors of Sussex had not frequently poised it, or it with their
shoulders, from Godalming almost to Petworth; and the nearer we
approached the duke's house, the more inaccessible it seemed to be. The
last nine miles of the way cost us six hours' time to conquer them; and,
indeed, we had never done it, if our good master had not several times
lent us a pair of horses out of his own coach, whereby we were enabled
to trace out the way for him." Afterwards, writing of his departure on
the following day from Petworth to Guildford, and thence to Windsor, he
says, "I saw him (the prince) no more, till I found him at supper at
Windsor; for there we were overturned, (as we had been once before the
same morning,) and broke our coach; my Lord Delaware had the same fate,
and so had several others."--Vide Annals of Queen Anne, vol. ii.
Appendix, No. 3.
In the time of Charles, (surnamed the Proud,) Duke of Somerset, who died
in 1748, the roads in Sussex were in so bad a state, that, in order to
arrive at Guildford from Petworth, travellers were obliged to make from
the nearest point of the great road leading from Portsmouth to London.
This was a work of so much difficulty, as to occupy the whole day; and
the duke had a house at Guildford which was regularly used as a
resting-place for the night by any of his family travelling to London. A
manuscript letter from a servant of the duke, dated from London, and
addressed to another at Petworth, acquaints the latter that his grace
intended to go from London thither on a certain day, and directs that
"the keepers and persons who knew the holes and the sloughs must come to
meet his grace with lanterns and long poles to help him on his way."
The late Marquess of Buckingham built an inn at Missenden, about forty
miles from London, as the state of the roads compelled him to sleep
there on the way to Stow--a journey which is at present performed
between breakfast and dinner.
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