The History of the Post Office Part 20

These appointments were now taken away, but under circ.u.mstances calculated to leave the least possible soreness among those from whom they were taken. Not only were the salaries of all three raised from 100 to 150 a year, but the son of the surveyor who was postmaster of Gloucester was appointed to Gloucester, and the daughter of the one who was postmaster of Honiton was appointed to Honiton. The postmaster of Portsmouth, who had neither son nor daughter to succeed him, was, in accordance with a practice then very common, a.s.signed the sum of 80 a year out of his successor's salary. This sum he received in addition to his own salary of 150 as surveyor.

In 1805, for the third time within eight years, the Post Office was called upon to make a further contribution to the Exchequer; and again Freeling devoted himself to the congenial task of revising and increasing the postage rates. Unwilling to destroy the symmetry of his own handiwork, he simply suggested that to the rates as prescribed by the Act of 1801 should be added--1d. for a single letter, 2d. for a double letter, 3d. for a treble letter, and 4d. for a letter weighing as much as one ounce. The suggestion was adopted, and after the 12th of March, the date on which the new Act was pa.s.sed, the postage on a single letter was--from London to Brighton, 7d. instead of 6d.; from London to Liverpool, 10d. instead of 9d.; and from London to Edinburgh, 1s. 1d.

instead of 1s.

But this was by no means all. In London, as we have seen, the penny post had, four years before, been converted into a twopenny post; and now the twopenny post, in respect to letters for places beyond the general post limits, was converted into a threepenny one. Thus, Abingdon Street, Westminster, was within the limits of the general post delivery, but Millbank was beyond them. Accordingly, a letter for Millbank, even though posted no farther off than Charing Cross, was to be charged 3d., while the charge on a letter to Abingdon Street remained at 2d. as before.

The Act of 1805 introduced a still further complication. Letters from the country addressed to any part of London that was outside the limits of the general post were to be consigned to the twopenny post, and, in addition to all other postage, to be charged with the sum of 2d. Thus, of two letters of the same weight delivered at the same time and by the same person, one, originating in the country, would have to pay 2d., and the other, originating in London, would have to pay 3d.

To record, therefore, that in 1805 the postage on a single letter--as, for instance, between London and Plymouth--was 10d., although in one sense correct, would give an imperfect idea of the real state of the case. Plymouth was one of the towns which possessed village or convention posts. Suppose a letter from one of the villages to which these posts extended to have been addressed to Knightsbridge or any other part of London situated outside the general post boundary. The postage would have been not 10d. but 10d. + 2d. + whatever might have been agreed upon for the village accommodation.

But more than this. There were certain towns through which, though lying off the direct road, the mail-coaches pa.s.sed for a consideration. Such towns were Hinckley in Leicesters.h.i.+re, Atherstone in Warwicks.h.i.+re, and Tamworth in Staffords.h.i.+re. Here, in consideration of the accommodation afforded by the mail-coach pa.s.sing through, the inhabitants undertook to pay in addition to all other postage 1d. on each letter. A day came when they sought to be relieved from this impost. Vain aspiration! Had they not agreed for a penny a letter? And, for any relief that the Post Office would give, a penny a letter they should pay to the end of time.

It may safely be affirmed that at the present day no increase of postage would produce a corresponding increase of revenue. Such, unhappily, was not the case at the beginning of the century. People did not then write unless they had something to say which could not be left unsaid without loss or inconvenience. Trade, moreover, was rapidly expanding, and, as a consequence of the war, the ports were closed. Thus, correspondence was driven inland; and upon inland correspondence, unlike correspondence with foreign parts, the Government received the whole of the postage.

But be the cause what it might, it must be owned that, in respect to the returns which they brought to the Exchequer, the three increases of postage made in 1797, 1801, and 1805 answered expectation. This, though not a justification, is perhaps their best excuse. In 1796, the year before the first of the three increases was made, the net Post Office revenue was 479,000; in 1806, the year after the last of them, it was 1,066,000. The same result is apparent in the case of what, for distinction's sake, we will still call the London penny post, although the London penny post had become a twopenny and threepenny one. In 1796 the net revenue derived from this source was 8000; in 1806 it was 41,000.

Among those who about this time criticised the doings of the Post Office was William Cobbett. Cobbett was regarded by Freeling as a base calumniator with whom no terms were to be kept; and yet on a dispa.s.sionate retrospect it is impossible to deny that on the whole his criticisms were just, and that such of them as appeared in print[79]

were expressed in not intemperate language. At the present time far stronger language is used every day under far less provocation. Of Cobbett's numerous subjects of complaint we will mention only two--the so-called "early delivery" of letters and the treatment of foreign newspapers; and these have been selected because they serve to ill.u.s.trate, better perhaps than any others, the practice of the Post Office eighty or ninety years ago. The latter of the two subjects serves also to explain much that would otherwise be inexplicable.

[79] _Weekly Political Register_, Nos. 25 and 26, 21st and 28th Dec.

1805.

The "early delivery"--a species of accommodation confined to London--was not what its name would seem to imply, because no letters were even begun to be delivered before nine o'clock in the morning. It was really a preferential delivery, a delivery restricted to those who chose to pay for it. For a fee or, as the Post Office preferred to call it, a subscription of 5s. a quarter or 1 a year, any one residing within certain limits, including the whole of the city and extending westward as far as Hamilton Place, could get his letters in advance of the general delivery. It was managed thus. At nine o'clock or a little after the letter-carriers started from Lombard Street; and those for the remoter districts, in addition to their own letters, took letters for the districts through which they pa.s.sed in proceeding to their own and, without waiting for the postage, dropped them at the houses of subscribers. The postage was collected in the course of the week by the regular letter-carrier of the district.

Against this preferential delivery, a delivery purchased by individuals at the expense of the general public, Cobbett very justly inveighed.

Freeling, on the other hand, defended it as a priceless boon to merchants and traders who desired to receive their letters before the appointed hour. He omitted to explain, however, why a boon which could be bought by some could not be given gratuitously to all. It is a curious fact that this early delivery, essentially unfair as it was, continued to exist for more than thirty years after the period of which we are now writing. As late as 1835 and 1836 it was still in vogue, and not only the merchants and traders of London but the denizens of the squares were largely availing themselves of it. But it was chiefly in the city that the practice flourished. Thus, on the morning of the 9th of May 1828, out of a total of 637 letters for the Lombard Street district no less than 570 were "delivered early."

The second of Cobbett's complaints, or rather the second which we propose to notice, had reference to the treatment of foreign newspapers.

What this treatment was at the beginning of the present century may appear hardly credible to us who live at the end of it. Except at the letter rate of postage, no newspapers could either enter or leave the kingdom unless they were franked;[80] and the power of franking them was restricted to Post Office servants. This power was as old as the Post Office itself; and so was the practice of exercising it for a consideration. What was new was an arrangement or understanding between Freeling and Arthur Stanhope, the head of the foreign department, by virtue of which Stanhope in conjunction with his subordinates franked newspapers for the Continent, and Freeling franked those for America and the British possessions abroad.

[80] What we have here called "franked" newspapers went free in both directions; but of course it was only newspapers outwards that bore a signature on the superscription. On those inwards a signature was immaterial, as they would in any case go, without being charged, direct from the port of arrival to Lombard Street. Abroad, special arrangements for their transit and delivery were made from London. Thus, the London Office by means of its private agency could get an English newspaper delivered in Paris for 2d. By post, the charge between Calais and Paris would have been from 3s. to 4s.

Here was a mine of wealth. Newspapers were rapidly increasing in number and postage was rapidly rising. Of course, so long as the price charged for franking was kept well below the cost of postage, the demand for franks would be brisk. Before the century was sixteen years old Freeling and Stanhope were drawing from this source more than 3000 a year each.

Cobbett had had personal experience of the system. He had paid a visit to America, and having while there been supplied with a newspaper from England, he had on his return been presented with a bill for nine guineas as the price of franking. Not only did he refuse to pay the bill, and persist in his refusal in spite of repeated applications, but he inveighed in his paper against the practice which made such a charge possible. This was in 1802. He now, in December 1805, renewed his attack upon the Post Office; but this time it was in respect to the manner in which newspapers were treated on their arrival in England, a treatment still more extraordinary than that which they received on despatch.

The matter is somewhat complicated, and in order to explain it we must go back a few years. Till the breaking out of the French Revolution and the Continental wars which succeeded it, foreign intelligence had long been uninteresting and was little sought after. The few newspapers that were published in London had confined themselves almost exclusively to domestic matters. Then came a sudden change. Domestic matters fell into the background. The whole country was eager to learn what was taking place on the other side of the Channel. Newspapers multiplied apace.

Where there was one before, there were now half a dozen, all hungering for foreign intelligence. Here was an opportunity for the clerks in the foreign department of the Post Office. These clerks, in conjunction with their comptroller, had the exclusive right of franking newspapers for the Continent, just as newspapers circulating within Great Britain were franked by the clerks of the roads. They had also, by virtue of their position, unequalled facilities for getting newspapers from abroad, and of these facilities they now availed themselves to the utmost.

It would not be correct to state that at this time they established a foreign news-agency, for this they had done long ago; but what had hitherto been an insignificant business now became a large and important one. It may be interesting to trace its progress. At the time of which we are writing--from 1789 onwards--the foreign correspondence was seldom in course of distribution in London till the afternoon, owing to the then established custom of waiting till two o'clock for any mail that might be due. Thus, a foreign mail arriving at three o'clock in the afternoon of one day might not be delivered until the same hour in the afternoon of the following day.

Another curious custom prevailed at this time. It was considered right, as a matter of international courtesy, that no foreign newspapers should be delivered until the foreign ministers had received their correspondence; and this correspondence, though delivered separately from the general correspondence, was seldom delivered earlier. Meanwhile the newspapers were held in reserve by the clerks, ready to be delivered to their customers as soon as delivery was permissible by the rule of the office. This was a state of things which readily lent itself to malpractices. The person whom the comptroller appointed to distribute the foreign newspapers was an old woman of the name of Cooper, and in her custody they remained during the close time, the time during which the foreign ministers' correspondence was preparing for delivery. This woman had a son who a.s.sisted her in the distribution, a young man of some ability and of no principle. He was not slow to take advantage of his position. From the foreign newspapers, while in his mother's custody, he jotted down the points of interest and sold his jottings to the London newspapers. The profits he derived from this source a.s.sumed such proportions that in the course of a few years he was reputed to have ama.s.sed a not inconsiderable fortune. From one newspaper alone, the _Courier_, he received no less than 200 in a single year.

Thus matters went on, save only that owing to the establishment of a second delivery of foreign correspondence the interval during which newspapers lay at the Post Office was shortened, until the year 1796, when Stanhope's appointment as comptroller put an end to one scandal merely to establish another. No sooner had Stanhope taken up his appointment than the clerks, who had long protested in vain against Cooper's conduct, broke out into fresh complaints; and the arrangement was then made which called forth Cobbett's invective. Why, argued Stanhope, should not that which Cooper has been doing clandestinely be done openly and under official sanction? It is true a rule exists that foreign newspapers must not be delivered in advance of the foreign ministers' correspondence; but a carefully-compiled summary of the contents of a newspaper is a very different thing from the newspaper itself. This, surely, might be delivered to the London editors without a breach either of the rule itself or of the considerations on which it was founded.

Such were Stanhope's arguments, and he proceeded to put them into practice. With few if any exceptions, the editors of the London newspapers, both morning and evening, fell into the plan. French and Dutch translators were engaged, and into their hands the foreign newspapers were placed as soon as they arrived at the Post Office. For each summary the charge was one guinea, and as there were generally two summaries a week, the sum which each editor paid was a little over 100 a year. The entire proceeds, after payment of expenses, were divided in certain proportions between Stanhope and his subordinates.

In 1801 and again in 1802 Cobbett had inveighed against a practice which thus amerced the editors of the London newspapers; but he might as well have preached to the winds. The practice was far too remunerative to be abandoned without a struggle. It is true that no one need take a summary unless he liked; but if he omitted to take one, it was at the cost of having only stale news to publish.

At the close of 1805 circ.u.mstances were somewhat altered, and Cobbett renewed his attack. Communication by Dover was closed, and correspondence from the Continent could reach England only by Holland and Gravesend. The best arrangements of which the circ.u.mstances admitted were made for keeping up the supply of foreign newspapers and summaries; but after a while they broke down, and the Post Office was forced to seek the a.s.sistance of the Alien Office. This office had agents at Gravesend, and undertook during the emergency to do what had hitherto been done by the Post Office. Cobbett saw his opportunity, and was not slow to take advantage of it. It had been dinned into his ears that it was through the Post Office alone that foreign newspapers could be legally obtained, and that the department could make what arrangements it pleased for their distribution. But arrangements which in the hands of the Post Office were tolerated only because they had, or were supposed to have, legal sanction had now been transferred to the Alien Office. What, then, asked Cobbett, had become of the law? To this inquiry the Post Office did not find it convenient to vouchsafe a reply.

But a still more formidable antagonist than Cobbett was about to deliver an a.s.sault. This was the _Times_ newspaper. The _Times_, although among what Cobbett called "the guinea-giving papers," seldom made use of the summaries which the guineas purchased, regarding them as meagre and unsatisfactory. Drawing from other and more fertile sources, it contrived in the matter of priority of intelligence to distance all compet.i.tors. On one occasion, indeed--a remarkable feat for those days--it even forestalled the "Court," or, as they were now called, the "State" letters, which, unlike the ordinary letters, were delivered the moment the mail arrived. It was in 1807, when George Canning was Foreign Secretary. Canning had not yet opened his despatches, and was amazed to find in his morning's paper information of which he had received no previous notice, and which, as he afterwards found, the despatches contained. Indignant that his intelligence should have been thus antic.i.p.ated, he instantly wrote to the Post Office demanding an explanation. Angry as Canning was, the reply he received can hardly have failed to evoke a smile. This reply was that the Continental newspapers from which the _Times_ had derived its information had been obtained not from the Post Office but from the Foreign Office, and that they had reached this office in Canning's own bag under a cover addressed to himself.

The _Times_ had long protested against the intolerable delay which foreign newspapers sustained at the Post Office. Especially had it protested against the absurdity of a system which, while withholding the newspapers themselves, yet permitted a summary of their contents to be published. But it had still more personal grounds of complaint. Letters for the _Times_, sealed letters addressed by permission to the Under-Secretaries of State, were excluded from the Foreign Office bag and kept back for the general delivery because, forsooth, the clerks at the Post Office were pleased to feel sure that these letters contained foreign newspapers, and feared that by forwarding them they would damage their own interests.

Such were the amazing liberties taken with correspondence in those days.

No wonder that the _Times_ proceeded to resent the outrage. In its issue of the 9th of May 1807 appeared an article which, after charging the Post Office with extortions and with sacrificing public convenience to the avarice of individuals, proceeded to declare that its administration was a disgrace to the Government. Freeling's indignation knew no bounds.

That the charge was just never seems to have occurred to him. In his view it was nothing less than a libel--a libel of the most malignant character. Never had man been more cruelly wronged than himself. The postmasters-general, Lords Sandwich and Chichester, had been only four days in office, and their chief-officer was as yet unknown to them.

Obviously the intention was to damage this officer's reputation in the eyes of his new masters. But this intention should be frustrated. A criminal information should be filed. No; not a criminal information, for thus the aggressor's mouth would be closed. It should be a civil suit or action at law; and then the aggressor would be at liberty to tell his own tale, and all the world should see how little justification there was for his aspersions.

At this time it was not known to Freeling that letters for the _Times_ sent under cover to the Under-Secretaries of State were being diverted from the ordinary course; and when, a little later on, the fact of diversion became known to him, the terms in which he expressed his sense of the impropriety were such as even the aggrieved newspaper would probably have held to leave nothing to be desired. But to apologise and arrest proceedings--these were things which would appear not to have come within the sphere of contemplation. An action had been begun, and it must proceed to the bitter end. A righteous cause is not necessarily one that can be defended at law. Such would seem to have been the case in the present instance, for when the action came on for trial, the _Times_ failed to appear, and judgment went by default.

Freeling was jubilant over the result. Here was a triumphant vindication of his own and Stanhope's proceedings. A charge had been brought--a charge as serious as any that could be levelled against a public department, and not even an attempt had been made to substantiate it.

This was a happy termination of an unhappy business. So, at least, thought Freeling; but, as a matter of fact, the business was far from being terminated yet.

On the 27th of July, within three weeks of his reporting to the postmasters-general the result of the action at law, appeared a second article headed "Post Office," in which the iniquities of the system were ruthlessly exposed. Strong language, indeed--language such as two months before had brought the _Times_ within the meshes of the law--was carefully avoided, and the article confined itself to a bare narrative of facts. But the case against the Post Office lost nothing on this account. The facts spoke for themselves, and these, stated in their naked simplicity, const.i.tuted an indictment, to the weight of which no words could add. We can well believe that from this period the _Times_ received its foreign newspapers in due course; but in other respects the only effect which the appearance of the second article had upon the Post Office was to spoil the triumph which it was celebrating over the result of the first. As to changing their practice and setting their house in order, this appears not to have occurred to either Freeling or Stanhope.

On the contrary, they regarded themselves as deeply-injured persons, and, by dint of sheer importunity, induced the postmasters-general to consent to a second prosecution. Wiser counsels, however, prevailed. The attorney-general, to whom the official papers were sent, took care not to return them, and to the present day the Post Office is without these interesting records.

It is time we inquired what measure of success had attended the experimental posts--the posts by which, under mutual agreement between the Post Office and the inhabitants, small towns and villages were to be connected with post towns. Village posts, they were sometimes called; but more commonly fifth-clause posts, from the clause of the Act under which they were established. At first they answered well, but in 1807 an authoritative decision to the effect that franked letters and newspapers conveyed by a fifth-clause post were exempt from charge tended materially to disconcert arrangements. Franked letters, though exempt from charge by the general post, were not exempt either by the penny posts in the country or by the twopenny post in London; and it had been taken for granted that they, as well as newspapers, would not be exempt by the fifth-clause posts.

But it had now been decided otherwise, and this made all the difference.

In arranging these posts nothing more had been aimed at than to make them self-supporting, and in adjusting the receipts and expenditure franks and newspapers had been counted as so many letters; but if these were to be eliminated, the balance would be on the wrong side. A service that was not self-supporting was, at the beginning of the century, regarded by the Post Office authorities as an abomination; and saddled as they were with a number of fifth-clause posts which had ceased to pay their own expenses, it became a serious question what was best to be done.

A decision was precipitated by the action of the little town of Olney in Buckinghams.h.i.+re. Olney had at one time received from headquarters in Lombard Street what was called "an allowance in aid of its post"; but when fifth-clause posts were introduced this allowance ceased, and the inhabitants, in consideration of their being supplied with an official messenger from Newport Pagnel, agreed to pay over and above all other postage the sum of 1d. on each letter delivered. This agreement had now existed for several years, and the inhabitants had grown a little tired of it, being of opinion that a private messenger of their own could be procured on easier terms. Accordingly they pet.i.tioned headquarters to reduce the rate they were paying from 1d. to 1/2d. a letter, and, the request being refused, they proceeded to consider whether their agreement should not be terminated.

This having come to Freeling's ears, he stopped the post at once, and the inhabitants were left to get their letters as best they could. Not even notice of his intention had been given. Nor was this all. These capricious and discontented people, he said, should have imposed upon them a penny post. Under a penny post they would still have their pence to pay; and the pence would be payable, not, as under the fifth-clause post, only on the letters delivered, but on those collected as well.

This, while operating as a punitive measure, would have the incidental advantage of adding to the revenue. Freeling was a bold man, and yet, bold as he was, his courage deserted him in this instance. At the last moment, after arrangements had been made for converting the fifth-clause post into a penny post, the order for conversion was revoked. To impose a penny post, he argued, would be no injustice; it would not even be a hards.h.i.+p, and yet these unreasonable people would be sure to represent it as such. They would urge that at one time their town had received an allowance in aid of its post; that then a foot-messenger had been established, and they paid 1d. on each letter delivered; and that now because they proposed to replace this messenger, as the Act of Parliament gave them power to do, by a messenger of their own, who would perform the service at a cheaper rate, an older Act was brought to bear upon them which, while obliging them to pay 1d. on each letter collected as well as delivered, made the employment of their own messenger illegal.

Such were the arguments by which Freeling excused himself to the postmasters-general, as though an excuse were necessary, for not going on with the high-handed proceeding he had originally contemplated. In the result, Olney was given a Post Office of its own, being made in technical language a sub-office under Newport Pagnel, the post town. A rule was at the same time laid down to the effect that fifth-clause posts should no longer be maintained except in the case of small towns.

To connect these with post towns fifth-clause posts might still be continued; but, in the case of villages and hamlets, they were to be replaced by penny posts. From this rule the fifth-clause posts received their death-blow. Such of them as were village posts were promptly converted into penny posts; and such as were town posts, as the small towns acquired Post Offices of their own, became gradually merged in the general posts of the kingdom.

The Post Office, which during the last ten or fifteen years had done much to impair its own utility, was now to receive a check from without; and this in respect to a branch of its service which was perhaps least open to criticism. The mail-coach system had continued to prosper. In 1811 the number of mail-coaches constantly running in Great Britain was about 220, and the extent of road over which they travelled was between 11,000 and 12,000 miles a day. The country gentry and the commercial cla.s.ses vied with each other in demanding an extension of the system.

Towns lying off the main road were glad to pay 1d. a letter in addition to the postage on condition of the mail-coach pa.s.sing through them on its way. The mail-coach, moreover, apart from the facilities it afforded for communication, brought traffic in its train. It gave, in the language of the time, publicity to the roads. Palmer had, more than twenty years before, noticed this result and commented upon it. He found as a matter of experience that wherever a mail-coach was set up other traffic followed, and the post-chaises along the road were furbished up and better conducted.

But popular as the new system was on the whole, there was one cla.s.s of persons with whom it was distinctly the reverse. These were the trustees of the roads. With them the exemption from toll which the mail-coaches enjoyed was a constant source of complaint. Nor was it calculated to abate their discontent that the Post Office, in whose favour the exemption was granted, possessed the power, a power which it constantly exercised, of indicting the roads if they were not kept in proper repair. The state of the trusts was at this time far from flouris.h.i.+ng.

In the neighbourhood of London and other large towns where traffic was considerable the tolls were low and the receipts high; but in the remoter and less populous parts of the kingdom the exact converse held good. There the tolls were high and the receipts low.

To take the kingdom as a whole, the case stood thus: In very few instances indeed had any part of the debt on the turnpike trusts been discharged, and in fewer instances still had a sinking fund been established with a view to extinction of debt by process of time. With these rare exceptions, nothing more had been done than to keep up payment of the interest agreed upon, while in many instances no interest at all was being paid or interest at a reduced rate. In some instances indeed, the receipts from the tolls were not enough to defray even the cost of maintenance and repairs.

It is not to be wondered at if in these circ.u.mstances the trustees of the roads looked with longing eyes to the 50,000 a year which was the estimated value of the tolls that, except for their exemption, the mail-coaches would have had to pay. Of course the postmasters-general were strongly opposed to the surrender of this large amount; and yet there was one consideration which told heavily against them. It was this, that in Ireland the mails were not exempt from toll. Under an Act pa.s.sed by the Irish Legislature in 1798, an Act which still remained in force, an account was kept of all tolls leviable at the turnpike gates through which the mail pa.s.sed, and this account was paid quarterly by the Post Office authorities in Dublin. Why, it was asked, could not a similar system be adopted in Great Britain? It was also urged, and not without force, that in the matter of weight the mail bore to the coach which carried it a very small proportion. The coach with its loading complete weighed from thirty-three to forty cwts., while the mail seldom weighed more than one cwt. For the sake of so small a proportion was it equitable that exemption should extend to the whole?

A strenuous and united effort was now made to force the mail-coaches to pay toll. The question came before Parliament, and a Committee was appointed to inquire and report. The result could hardly have been in doubt. It was by the landed proprietors, the men who had seats in Parliament, that the turnpike roads had been made, and they were generally the creditors on the turnpike funds. The Committee was unanimous in recommending that the exemption from toll which the mail-coaches enjoyed should absolutely cease and determine.

On the Committee's report no action was taken in the session of 1811; but if the Post Office supposed that the matter would be allowed to drop, it was doomed to disappointment. Early in the following year Spencer Perceval forwarded to Lombard Street for any observations the postmasters-general might have to offer upon it a bill having for its object to repeal the exemption. The postmasters-general suggested certain alterations, but upon the subject-matter of the bill, coming as it did from the Prime Minister, and their views being already well known, they confined themselves to once more expressing a doubt whether such a measure could be necessary. In May Perceval was a.s.sa.s.sinated; and now the postmasters-general fondly hoped that the matter was at an end. What then was their dismay at learning a month or two later that the Government was resolved to proceed with the bill. The same letter that conveyed this intelligence contained a suggestion as strange as it was original. This was that, in order to meet complaints, the mail-coaches on certain roads should be withdrawn. The postmasters-general, little supposing that such a suggestion could take practical shape, simply replied that not a whisper had yet reached them to the effect that mail-coaches were considered in excess; that, on the contrary, they were being constantly urged to increase the number.

The bill was finally withdrawn; but heavy was the price which had to be paid. With those who were advocating the measure Vansittart, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, effected a compromise behind the back of the Post Office. There was indeed ample room for a satisfactory adjustment. For the conveyance of the mails the mail-coach proprietors received from the Post Office 30,000 a year; they paid to the Government for stamp duty 40,000 a year; and the exemption which they enjoyed from toll was estimated to represent 50,000 a year. These figures seem almost to suggest a feasible arrangement; yet the compromise actually effected took another form. It was that, in accordance with the suggestion of a few months before, mail-coaches should be withdrawn.

Nor was this mere empty talk; Vansittart had pledged himself to specific performance. And now began a general dis-coaching of the roads. The mail-coaches running between Warwick and Coventry, between Shrewsbury and Aberystwith, between Aberystwith and Ludlow, between Edinburgh and Dalkeith, between Edinburgh and Musselburgh, between Chichester and G.o.dalming, between Dorchester and Stroudwater--all were discontinued at once. Notice to quit was served upon the mail-coaches between Worcester and Hereford, between Hereford and Gloucester, between Hereford and Brecon, between Alton and Gosport, and between Plymouth and Tavistock.

And, what was hardly less important, numerous applications for mail-coaches which, except for Treasury interference, would have been granted, were refused. By Pitt the mail-coach had been regarded as a pioneer of civilisation; in the eyes of Pitt's successors it was a mischievous enc.u.mbrance.

Vansittart, having dealt one deadly blow at the Post Office, now proceeded to deal another. The war with France had exhausted the Exchequer, and, as part of the ways and means, he called upon the Post Office for a further contribution of 200,000 a year. Once more the screw was turned; and, oppressive as the postage rates were already, they were as from the 9th of July 1812 increased as follows:--