eral,
carriages were taken to pieces at Conway, and borne, on the shoulders of
stout Welsh peasants, to the Menai Straits. [139] In some parts of Kent
and Sussex, none but the strongest horses could, in winter, get through
the bog, in which, at every step, they sank deep. The markets were often
inaccessible during several months. It is said that the fruits of the
earth were sometimes suffered to rot in one place, while in another
place, distant only a few miles, the supply fell far short of the
demand. The wheeled carriages were, in this district, generally pulled
by oxen. [140] When Prince George of Denmark visited the stately mansion
of Petworth in wet weather, he was six hours in going nine miles; and it
was necessary that a body of sturdy hinds should be on each side of his
coach, in order to prop it. Of the carriages which conveyed his retinue
several were upset and injured. A letter from one of the party has been
preserved, in which the unfortunate courtier complains that, during
fourteen hours, he never once alighted, except when his coach was
overturned or stuck fast in the mud. [141]

One chief cause of the badness of the roads seems to have been the
defective state of the law. Every parish was bound to repair the
highways which passed through it. The peasantry were forced to
give their gratuitous labour six days in the year. If this was not
sufficient, hired labour was employed, and the expense was met by a
parochial rate. That a route connecting two great towns, which have a
large and thriving trade with each other, should be maintained at the
cost of the rural population scattered between them is obviously unjust;
and this injustice was peculiarly glaring in the case of the great North
road, which traversed very poor and thinly inhabited districts, and
joined very rich and populous districts. Indeed it was not in the
power of the parishes of Huntingdonshire to mend a high-way worn by the
constant traffic between the West Riding of Yorkshire and London. Soon
after the Restoration this grievance attracted the notice of Parliament;
and an act, the first of our many turnpike acts, was passed imposing
a small toll on travellers and goods, for the purpose of keeping some
parts of this important line of communication in good repair. [142] This
innovation, however, excited many murmurs; and the other great avenues
to the capital were long left under the old system. A change was at
length effected, but not without mu