period, commerce so generally increased, and in consequence thereof wheel-carriages and packhorses were extremely multiplied, the first turnpike road was established by law (the 16 Charles II. cap. 1. anno 1653), for taking toll of all but foot passengers on the northern road through Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire; which road was then become very bad, by means of the great loads of barley and malt, &c. brought weekly to Ware in waggons and carts, and from thence conveyed by water to London. "These roads," says the act, "were become so ruinous and almost impassable, that the ordinary course appointed by all former laws and statutes of this realm is not sufficient for the effectual repairing of the same, neither are the inhabitants, through which the said roads lie, of sufficient ability to repair the same," &c. &c. Wherefore three tollgates were erected, one for each of these three counties, viz. at Wadesmill, Caxton, and Stilton.*

It was not, however, till after the peace of 1748 that any thing like a great exertion was made to change the public highways from the wretched state in which they had always been.

The following description of the roads is taken from Mr. M'Culloch's Dictionary of Commerce :"It is not easy for those accustomed to travel along the smooth and level roads by which every part of the country is now intersected to form an

* Anderson's Commerce, vol. v. p. 44.

C

accurate idea of the difficulties the traveller had to encounter a century ago.

"Roads were then hardly formed, and in summer not unfrequently consisted of the bottoms of rivulets. Down to the middle of the last century most of the goods conveyed from place to place in Scotland, at least where the distances were not very great, were carried, not by carts or waggons, but on horseback. Oatmeal, coals, turf, and even straw and hay, were conveyed in this way. At this period, and for long previous, there were a set of single-horse traffickers (cadgers) that regularly plied between different places, supplying the inhabitants with such articles as were then most in demand, as salt, fish, poultry, eggs, earthenware, &c.; these were usually conveyed in sacks or baskets, suspended one on each side the horse. But in carrying goods between distant places it was necessary to employ a cart, as all that a horse could carry on his back was not sufficient to defray the cost of a long journey. The time that the carriers (for such was the name given to those that used carts) usually required to perform their journeys seems now almost incredible. The common carrier from Selkirk to Edinburgh, thirty-eight miles distant, required a fortnight for his journey between the two places, going and returning! The road was originally among the most perilous in the whole country: a considerable extent of it lay in the bottom of that district called the Gala Water, from the name of the principal stream, the

channel of the water being, when not flooded, the track chosen as the most level and easiest to travel in. Even between the largest cities the means of travelling were but little superior. In 1678 an agreement was made to run a coach between Edinburgh and Glasgow, a distance of forty-one miles, which was to be drawn by six horses, and to perform the journey from Edinburgh to Glasgow and back again in six days. Even so late as the middle of the last century, it took a day and a half for the stage coach to travel from Edinburgh to Glasgow, a journey which is now accomplished in four and a half or five hours.

"So late as 1763 there was but one stage coach from Edinburgh to London, and it set out only once a month, taking from twelve to fourteen days to perform this journey! At present, notwithstanding the immense intercourse between the two cities, by means of steam packets, smacks, &c., six or seven coaches set out each day from the one or the other, performing the journey in from forty-five to forty-eight hours."*

Mr. Arthur Young, in his Six Months' Tour, published in 1770, gives the following account of some of the roads in the north of England:"To Wigan. Turnpike. I know not in the whole range of language terms sufficiently expressive to describe this infernal road. Let me most seriously caution all travellers who may acci

M'Culloch's Dictionary of Commerce, art. Roads.

dentally propose to travel this terrible country to avoid it as they would the devil, for a thousand to one they break their necks or their limbs, by overthrows or breakings down. They will here meet with ruts, which I actually measured four feet deep, and floating with mud only from a wet summer; what therefore must it be after a winter? The only mending it receives is tumbling in some loose stones, which serve no other purpose than jolting a carriage in the most intolerable manner. These are not merely opinions, but facts; for I actually passed three carts, broken down, in these eighteen miles of execrable memory. To Warrington. Turnpike.-This is a paved road, most infamously bad; any person would imagine the people of the country had made it with a view to immediate destruction! for the breadth is only sufficient for one carriage, consequently it is cut at once into ruts; and you may easily conceive what a break down, dislocating road ruts, cut through a pavement, must be.

"From Dunholm to Knutsford. Turnpike. It is impossible to describe these infernal roads in terms adequate to their deserts. To Newcastle. Turnpike. - A more dreadful road cannot be imagined. I was obliged to hire two men at one place to support my chaise from overturning. Let me persuade all travellers to avoid this terrible country, which must either dislocate their bones with broken pavements, or bury them in muddy sand.

"It is only bad management that can occasion such very miserable roads, in a country so abounding with towns, trade, and manufactures."*

Mr. Chambers says, in his estimate, "Turnpikes which we saw first introduced soon after the Restoration were erected slowly, in opposition to the prejudices of the people. The act which for a time made it felony at the beginning of the reign of George the Second to pull down a tollgate was continued as a perpetual law before the conclusion of it. Yet the great roads of England remained almost in their ancient condition, even as late as 1752 or 1754, when the traveller seldom saw a turnpike for 200 miles after leaving the vicinity of London."+

After 1760 the general spirit of improvement led to that of the roads; and in the fourteen years from that period, to 1774, no less than 452 Turnpike Acts were passed. Since that year a number of Turnpike Acts have continued to be passed, as will appear from the following table + :

In eight years, from

1785 to 1792

1792 to 1800

1800 to 1809

302

341

419

In every year since 1809 turnpike roads have been progressively established, till they have extended to nearly 23,000 miles.

* Vol. iv. pp. 430. 434.

+ P. 124.

Encyclopædia Brit. art. England, vol. iv. p. 112. Second Supplement.