ated
communities beyond the fall-line of the rivers. Intercourse was
incredibly difficult even between the commercial ports of New England
and the Middle States. Stage-coaches plied between Boston and New York,
to be sure, and between New York and Philadelphia. By stage, too, a
traveler could reach Baltimore and Washington in the course of time. But
beyond the Potomac public conveyances were few and uncertain in their
routes. The only public stage in the Carolinas and Georgia plied between
Charleston and Savannah. Those whom either public or private business
forced to journey from these remote Southern States to Philadelphia took
passage in coasting vessels. It is difficult to say which were greater,
the perils by land or by sea. Writing from Philadelphia in 1790, William
Smith, of South Carolina, described the misfortunes of his fellow
Congressmen in trying to reach the seat of government, as follows:
"Burke was shipwrecked off the Capes; Jackson and Mathews with great
difficulty landed at Cape May and traveled one hundred and sixty miles
in a wagon to the city. Burke got here in the same way. Gerry and
Partridge were overset in the stage; the first had his head broke and
made his _entree_ with an enormous black patch; the other had his ribs
sadly bruised and was unable to stir for some days. Tucker had a
dreadful passage of sixteen days with perpetual storms. I wish these
little _contretemps_ may not sour their tempers and be inauspicious to
our proceedings."

Even in the North, where distances were not so great and where great
arms of the ocean did not penetrate so far inland, as in North Carolina,
for example, interposing so many barriers to communication, travel was
painfully slow and hazardous. Travelers who made the journey from Boston
to New York by stage-coach accounted themselves lucky if they reached
their destination in six days, for no bridges spanned any of the great
waterways and the crossing by ferryboats was uncertain and often
dangerous. Many travelers preferred to journey by water from port to
port, but coasting vessels, contending with the winds and the tides,
were often nine or ten days in sailing from Boston to New York.

The post traveled with somewhat greater speed; yet a letter sent from
Portland, Maine, could not be delivered in Savannah, Georgia, in less
than twenty days. From Philadelphia a post went to Lexington, Kentucky,
in sixteen days, and to Nashville, Tennessee, in twenty-two days. Th