Clive, during his first trip, was a year and a half en route
from England to India; were he alive to-day he could journey to
Calcutta in twenty-two days. After reading De Quincey's hyperbolical
description of the English mail-coach, one cannot down the desire to
place that remarkable man on the pilot of the White Mail or of the
Twentieth Century.
But this tremendous change in the means of locomotion meant far more
than the mere rapid transit of men from place to place. Until then,
though its influence and worth cannot be overestimated, commerce had
eked out a precarious and costly existence. The fortuitous played
too large a part in the trade of men. The mischances by land and
sea, the mistakes and delays, were adverse elements of no mean
proportions. But improved locomotion meant improved carrying, and
commerce received an impetus as remarkable as it was unexpected. In
his fondest fancies James Watt could not have foreseen even the
approximate result of his invention, the Hercules which was to spring
from the puny child of his brain and hands.
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