e tenders would occupy time, and after that mail coaches would have
to be built sufficient in number to supply the whole of England and
Scotland. A period of five or six months was obviously not enough for
the purpose, and overtures were made to Vidler to continue his contract
for half a year longer. Vidler, incensed at the treatment he had
received, flatly refused. Not a day, not an hour, beyond the stipulated
time would he extend his contract, and on the 5th of January, 1836, all
the mail coaches in Great Britain would be withdrawn from the roads.
Freeling, now an old man, with this difficulty to overcome, had his old
energy revived, and when the 5th of January arrived there was not a road
in the kingdom, from Wick to Penzance, on which a new coach was not
running. It was then that the mail coaches reached their prime.

Amongst the deaths announced in the _Felix Farley's Journal_ under date
of January 14th, 1804, is that of "the lady of Francis Freeling, Esq.,
of the General Post Office," and another part of the paper contains the
following paragraph:--

"The untimely death of Mrs. Freeling is lamented far beyond the circle
of her own family, extensive as it is. The amiableness of her manner and
the rational accomplishments of her mind had conciliated a general
esteem for such worth, through numerous classes of respectable friends,
who naturally participate in its loss."

Freeling's obituary notice, which appeared in the same _Journal_ on July
16, 1836, ran as follows:

"Saturday last, died at his residence in Bryanston Square, London, in
the 73rd year of his age, Sir Francis Freeling, Bart., upwards of 30
years Secretary to the General Post Office. Sir Francis was a native of
Bristol--he was born in Redcliffe Parish--and first became initiated in
the laborious and multifarious duties attendant upon the important
branch of the public service in which he was engaged in the Post Office
of this city of Bristol, from whence he was removed to the Metropolitan
Office in Lombard Street, on the recommendation of Mr. Palmer, the
former M.P. and Father of George Palmer, the present member for Bath,
who had observed during the period he was employed in first establishing
the mail-coach department the quickness of apprehension, the aptitude
for business, and the steadiness of conduct of his youthful protege. Sir
Francis rapidly rose to notice and preferment in his new situation; and
after his succession to the office of Chief