The proposal was made against the backdrop of increasing mail-coach robberies in Dublin: "Why could not our mail carts be so contrived, as conveniently to carry a man armed with a blunderbuss?

Besides which the post boy could also have pistols in a belt about his waist."

The writer also proposed what must be the forerunner to the armoured car when he said that "the mail should be confined in the cart, within a strong iron kind of cage, the key of which to be kept only by the respective post-masters on the road."