The History of the Post Office Part 5

[24] In 1706, Court or State letters, for at this time the terms were used indiscriminately, were defined to be letters directed to "the Queen, His Royal Highness the Prince, the Lord High Treasurer, and the two princ.i.p.al Secretarys of State and their clarks." Sometimes, but more rarely, they were called "Queen's letters."

[25] Here is one among many similar complaints addressed by the postmasters-general to the packet agent at Harwich: "We admire to find the two Bags with the States letters brought over by the Prince and Dispatch which arrived at Harwich June 21st at 7 in the morning should not be dispatcht till 10 the same day; as also at the comeing in of the Mayls, one of which being dispatcht at 12 arrived here at 11 at night, yet the other came not till 7 next morning."

The seamen on board the packets were paid in no case more than 30s. a month and generally less; but the employment carried with it one great advantage. This was exemption from impressment. Even the carpenters hired to do odd jobs when the boats were in harbour were furnished with protection orders.[26] Partly on this ground, and partly, no doubt, on account of the gains to be derived from contraband traffic, admission to the packet service appears to have been eagerly sought. At one time, indeed, it threatened to become a matter of patronage; but the consequences of a first step in that direction effectually prevented another. The _G.o.dolphin_ packet had been taken and carried by the enemy into St. Malo. Her captain, a brave and experienced officer, did not hesitate to attribute the loss of his vessel to sheer cowardice on the part of the crew. One, at the first shot that was fired, had run down to the doctor and declared that he was wounded, whereas no sign of a wound was to be found upon him; another had taken shelter behind the mainmast; a third had been heard to declare that he would not hazard the loss of his little finger to save the packet. This conduct, as unprecedented as it was scandalous, led to a searching investigation, when it transpired that the so-called sailors were, many of them, no sailors at all, but mere landlubbers who had been taken on out of complaisance to the local gentry.

[26] The following is a specimen of the protection order given:--

To all Commanders and Officers of our s.h.i.+pps, Pressmasters and others whome it may concerne.

JAMES R.

You are not to imprest into our service any of the six persons hereunder named belonging to the Jane of Dover, whereof Richard Moone is master, the said vessell being employed in our service as a pacquett boate at Dover. Given at our Court at Whitehall the 6th of October 1688.

By His Majesty's Command.

PEPYS

1. Anth. Deleau.

2. Jasper Moore.

3. David Williams.

4. Pet. Foster.

5. Dennis Matthew.

6. Wm. Ambross.

Each packet boat carried its own surgeon. A surgeon was also provided for the care of the sick on sh.o.r.e. This medical supervision was remunerated by means of a capitation allowance, an allowance of so much per head; but whereas it would now be in respect to all persons under the surgeon's charge, whether well or ill, it was then only in respect to those that were ill--1s. a day for each sick person and 6s. 8d. for each cure--a mode of payment which did not perhaps conduce to a speedy recovery. To provide for casualties, a fund was established, towards the support of which each seaman contributed 10d. a month out of his pay. If he were killed in action, provision was made for his widow, and, if he were wounded, he received a small annuity or, as it was called, Smart and Bounty money, the amount of which was nicely apportioned to the nature of his injury. Thus--

For each arm or leg amputated above the elbow or knee he would receive 8 0 0 a year.

For each arm or leg amputated below the elbow or knee 6 13 4 "

For the loss of the sight of one eye 4 0 0 "

For the loss of the pupil of the eye 5 0 0 "

For the loss of the sight of both eyes 12 0 0 "

For the loss of the pupils of both eyes 14 0 0 "

It is a ghastly bill of fare; and yet the sailors laid great store by it. On one occasion, indeed, until a.s.sured that the transfer of a boat to Dummer's management would not affect their claim to these annuities, they absolutely refused to go to sea.

With few exceptions, no pa.s.senger was allowed on board a packet boat without a pa.s.s from the Secretary of State. The exceptions were s.h.i.+pwrecked seamen, recruits, and officers in charge of recruits.

s.h.i.+pwrecked seamen went free, free from any charge for pa.s.sage-money or for maintenance. Recruits and officers in charge of recruits not being above the rank of lieutenant were charged for maintenance but not for pa.s.sage-money. All others, though furnished with a pa.s.sport, paid or were expected to pay for both.

Of these rules, however, there would seem to have been no public announcement, and this led to constant dispute and bickerings. An interesting event was expected in one of the many English families which at this time flocked to the Court of Portugal, and Dr. Crichton was despatched to Lisbon with a cow. Furnished with a pa.s.s by the Secretary of State he stoutly maintained his right to a free pa.s.sage; and this right the postmaster-general as stoutly disputed. Nor, a.s.suming the right to exist, could they conceal their surprise that under the circ.u.mstances it should have been claimed. To demur to a paltry charge of 4 indeed! Was it not notorious that for his mission to Portugal he was to receive 1000? Lord Charlemont with a number of attendants had crossed from Lisbon to Falmouth. The pa.s.sage-money had been paid, and, pleased with his entertainment, he desired to gratify the captain. The captain's answer was to present a bill shewing what the entertainment had cost, and, on payment being refused, he detained some valuable silks which Lord Charlemont had consigned to his care. Lord Charlemont, on his arrival in London, at once proceeded to Lombard Street and complained of this treatment, when he learned for the first time that the pa.s.sage-money, which he had supposed to cover everything, was simply the Queen's due, and that his entertainment had been provided at the captain's own cost.

Even the packet agents themselves appear to have been insufficiently instructed. On one occasion the Queen's domestic servants on their return from Lisbon, whither they had been despatched in attendance on the Archduke Charles, were allowed to pa.s.s free. On another, pa.s.sage-money was omitted to be collected from some workmen who had been sent to Portugal by the Board of Ordnance. In both cases the act of their subordinate was repudiated by the postmasters-general. Proper as it might be that the Queen's domestic servants should have their pa.s.sage provided--was this to be done at the expense of the Post Office? Forego payment in this instance, and where were they to stop? They must press their demand; and the demand was eventually satisfied. From the Board of Ordnance they did not even attempt to recover, aware probably of the futility of any such step; but the act of their agent in letting the workmen pa.s.s free evoked an earnest remonstrance. Does not the Board of Ordnance, they asked, charge us for the very powder we use; and yet, forsooth, you take upon yourself to give to their workmen a free pa.s.sage. "Every office," they added--and the maxim might still, perhaps, be observed with advantage--"ought to keep its own accompt distinct."

But it was with officers of the army who were continually pa.s.sing to and fro that the most frequent disputes arose. They apparently did not understand, and possibly the Post Office might have had some difficulty in explaining, why lieutenants in charge of recruits should be exempt from payment of fare and not officers of higher rank when employed on similar business; or why indeed officers engaged in fighting their country's battles should not have a free pa.s.sage on board Her Majesty's packets. It had been the custom not to collect the fares until the end of the voyage; but it was found that, the voyage once accomplished, payment of the fares was not uncommonly refused. Accordingly it was determined that they should be collected beforehand, and that no officer not being a recruiting officer and producing a certificate to that effect should be received on board on trust. Recourse was thereupon had to every sort of artifice in order to evade payment. Officers above the rank of lieutenant would represent themselves as being of that rank, and they would even enrol their own servants as recruits to make it appear that they were engaged in recruiting business.

Through Harwich, now that Dover was closed, lay the only route to the Continent; and among the pa.s.sengers frequenting this route were some to whom, for one reason or another, special attention was given. Baron Hompesch and Brigadier-General Cadogan are on their way to Holland. The packet is to be detained "till Thursday noon, at which time they think to reach Harwich." M. Rosenerantz, the Danish envoy, is returning to his own country. No pa.s.sengers are to be admitted on board until he and his suite have been accommodated. A Queen's messenger is coming with "one Castello," who is in custody. This person is to be made over to the captain of the packet that sails next, and on arrival at the Brill is to be set on sh.o.r.e. Dirick Wolters is expected from Holland, if indeed he be not already arrived and secreted in Harwich. No pains are to be spared to discover and apprehend him, and to secure the sealed box he carries "directed to a person of note in London."

Goods, like pa.s.sengers, were not allowed to be carried by the packets without the express permission of the Secretary of State; and this permission was seldom given except in the case of presents to royal personages and of articles for the use of persons of note residing abroad. Hence, such things as the following were being continually consigned to the care of the postmasters-general, with a request that they might be forwarded by the next boat:--

Fifteen couple of dogs for the King of the Romans.

Necessaries for Her Majesty the Queen-Dowager's service at Lisbon.

Three pounds of tea from Lady Arlington for the use of Her Majesty the Queen-Dowager of England.

Two cases of tr.i.m.m.i.n.g for the King of Spain's liveries.

Two bales of stockings for the use of the Portuguese Amba.s.sador.

Three suits of clothes for some n.o.bleman's ladies at the Court of Portugal.

A box of medicines for the use of the Earl of Galway.

As the packets and everything on board of them were exempt from examination by the Customs authorities, there are no means of knowing how far a pa.s.s, where a pa.s.s had been obtained, was confined to its ostensible object. But it is impossible not to entertain suspicions on the subject. On one occasion the Portuguese envoy obtained permission to send by the packet six cases, which he certified to contain arms for the use of his Sovereign. The lightness of the packages when brought to the scale excited suspicion, and on examination they were found to contain not arms but dutiable goods. To a tradesman at Truro, in exception to rule, a pa.s.s had been granted which authorised him to send by the Lisbon packet ten tons of hats. Ten tons weight of hats, or what purported to be hats, had long been exported, and yet more and more hats were being regularly despatched by every packet.

But although without pa.s.ses goods and pa.s.sengers were prohibited on board the packets, it is certain that the prohibition was habitually infringed. The packet agents' instructions were to keep a record of the names and quality of all pa.s.sengers, and to transmit a copy to London.

Even if this were a complete and faithful record, the postmasters-general could not know that each pa.s.senger had produced his pa.s.s. The Secretaries of State, however, appear to have possessed some means of information unknown to the Post Office, and, in the matter of pa.s.sengers, they were continually complaining of the regulations being broken. At one time it is Mr. Joseph Percival, a merchant of Lisbon, who comes over without a pa.s.sport--which, from the tenor of Lord Sunderland's letter, the postmasters-general apprehend to be "an affair of moment." At another it is a Mr. Jackson who, also without a pa.s.sport, crosses from Harwich to Holland. In this case Mr. Secretary Boyle affirms that the packet agent received a bribe of two guineas. To let pa.s.sengers come by the Harwich packets without pa.s.sports, he declares later on, has become a common practice.

In the matter of goods the evidence of irregularity is still stronger.

Captain Culverden of the _Queen_ packet boat brings into Falmouth thirty-six bags and seven baskets of salt, and there lands it clandestinely. Captain Rogers smuggles over twenty bags and one cask of the same material. Captain Urin from the West Indies makes Plymouth instead of Falmouth. Stress of weather is pleaded in excuse; but the postmasters-general feel sure that he might have made Falmouth, had he not "had private instructions otherwise." "We are uneasie," they say, "thus to find the West India boats for the most part driven to Plymouth, or to Liverpool or some port contrary to what is prescribed by our instructions."

But of all the captains there was none who in the audacity of his proceedings equalled Francis Clies. Clies had recently succeeded his father in the command of the _Expedition_ packet boat. On his very first voyage home from Lisbon he was much behind time, having according to his own account been driven upon the coast of Ireland. On his second voyage he was later still. The time of his arrival at Falmouth had long pa.s.sed, and serious apprehensions began to be entertained for his safety. At length a letter came from him dated at Kinsale, explaining that want of provisions had obliged him to put in there. "We have," wrote the postmasters-general, "very impatiently expected the arrival of the _Expedition_, which has been very long wanting, and are much concerned to find the second voyage even more tedious than the first; but are glad to find her at last safe arrived." "We would know," they added, "for how many days provisions had been put on board, and whether the _Expedition_ sails not as well as formerly." Before a reply could be received to this pertinent inquiry, the Commissioners of Customs had lodged at the Post Office a formal complaint, in which Captain Clies was charged with bringing over from Ireland several bales of friezes and other woollen manufactures. The postmasters-general were deeply shocked. Not only was this a breach of the packet boat regulations, but to transport goods from what would now be one part of the United Kingdom to another was at that time prohibited by law under heavy penalties. If this charge be proved, they wrote to their packet agent at Falmouth, "we shall not be much to seek why the captain should be two succeeding voyages forced upon the coast of Ireland, when we have not had above one instance of that kind besides himself during this war." Narrow as was Clies's escape on this occasion, not four months elapsed before the postmasters-general were again condoling with him on another "very tedious voyage."

It may here be mentioned, as an instance of the inconsistency of human nature, that, although the packets were not provided with chaplains, there were two boats on board of which prayers were regularly said every morning and evening, and that of these two boats the _Expedition_ was one.

Outwards as well as inwards the packet boats were, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, carrying goods in defiance of regulation and of law. Sir Paul Methuen, the author of the famous Commercial Treaty which bears his name, was at that time our amba.s.sador to Portugal. His attention had been arrested by the large quant.i.ties of merchandise which the packet boats were continually bringing over from England, and in 1705 he made to the postmasters-general a formal representation on the subject. "In Lisbon," he stated, "there is a public market for English goods as often as the boats come in." Nor was the allegation denied by the persons implicated. They must, they said, live somehow. And this plea, generally the refuge of the idle and worthless, had in it in the present instance more force than might at first be supposed. The crews of the packets were paid only once in six months, and, as a check upon their conduct, six months' pay was always kept in arrear. Thus, before receiving any pay at all they had to work twelve months, and even at the expiration of twelve months there was not always money at hand with which to pay them.

At Harwich, there can be no doubt, the same malpractices were going on as at Falmouth; but, owing to the almost unequalled facilities which the east coast affords for clandestine traffic, detection less speedily followed. In the movements of the packet boats there was much that was mysterious. Their frequent disappearance for long periods together when the wind was blowing from the quarter most favourable to their return, and their occasional punctuality when the wind was contrary and they were least expected, involved a contradiction which the postmasters-general found it hard to reconcile. "In our whole experience," they wrote to the packet agent on the 3rd of October 1704, "the pa.s.sage of the mails was never so unconstant as it has been this last year." "You must be very sensible what reproach we have been brought under" in consequence. The ink was hardly dry on their pen before information reached them that on the 2nd of the month two packet boats had returned to Harwich, of which one had been gone since the 10th and the other since the 19th of September. Meanwhile the winds had been fair, and had carried out the men-of-war and transports from Spithead.

"We have writ you so often," wrote the postmasters-general to the laggard captains, "upon these neglects of yours," and you have paid so little regard to our admonitions, that "you may expect to find when too late that we are not to be trifled with." The effect of this caution, if effect it had, was of short duration. "We are," they wrote only a few months later, "under a perpetual uneasiness and distrust," on account of the irregularity of the Harwich boats. "Our reputation has very much suffered in consequence, and we are looked upon at Court as remiss in our duty." Hitherto we have ever been ready to "take any appearance of reason or probability to excuse the commanders, but do now, having had these frequent provocations so often repeated, resolve to do justice to ourselves, and to have no other regard than the merit of the service."

"Pray make inquiries," they say on another occasion, when no less than three boats are unaccountably behind time. It is of no use writing to Mr. Vanderpoel, "for he always favours the captains' pretences." Mr.

Vanderpoel was packet agent at the Brill. He had stood high in William's favour, and was still drawing an allowance of 100 a year which, as an act of grace, that King had bestowed upon him in addition to his salary.

"When we last waited on the Lord High Treasurer and Secretary of State,"

wrote the postmasters-general again on the 14th of June 1705, "we found them in their former opinion that there must be some secret more than ordinary that the boats should so frequently when least expected make their pa.s.sage, and when the winds have in all appearance been most favourable, the mails then most delayed." A secret no doubt there was; but, profoundly dissatisfied as the postmasters-general were, no suspicion appears to have crossed their minds that the packet boats were engaged in other and more exciting pursuits than the transport of mails.

The captains of the packet boats were strictly forbidden to give chase.

Their instructions were to fight, if fight they must, to avoid fighting wherever possible, and in no case to go in quest of adventure. In the case of the Falmouth boats, carrying as they did a considerable number of men and of guns, there can be little doubt that the prohibition was habitually infringed. Even Cotton and Frankland, with all their credulity, would seem to have entertained suspicions on the point; and yet when notice was given them that a fat prize had been captured, their instincts as Englishmen prevailed, and with a chuckle of satisfaction they would accept the result of their servants' prowess without too minutely inquiring into the circ.u.mstances under which that result had been achieved. "Well done," they would say in effect. "We heartily congratulate you. It has indeed been a tedious voyage; but of course you did not pursue. This, as you are aware, would be contrary to our instructions, which are to do nothing that might r.e.t.a.r.d or endanger Her Majesty's mails. We shall make known your gallantry to the Lord High Treasurer, and move His Royal Highness the Prince to bestow on you some signal mark of favour." The Prince was at this time Lord High Admiral, and the captains of the packet boats having only sailing commissions, were not, like the captains in the Royal Navy and the commanders of letters of marque, ent.i.tled as of right to the prizes they took. These were the perquisites of the Lord High Admiral, and were by him resigned to the Queen.

When a prize was captured, it was seldom taken in tow. This would have r.e.t.a.r.ded the progress of the mails. The practice was for the two captains, the victor and the vanquished, to agree upon the amount of ransom, and to give and receive bills for the amount, one or more hostages being taken as security for payment. The agreement was reduced to writing and made out in duplicate, so that each captain might have a copy, and it set forth where and to whom the money was to be paid. As a rule, the conditions appear to have been honourably observed. Some few exceptions, no doubt, there were. In 1708 the _James_ packet was captured, and, after the amount of ransom had been inserted in the agreement, the French captain fraudulently altered the figures. A still worse case occurred on the English side. The _Prince_ packet boat captured a vessel which was ransomed for 2500 pieces of eight.[27] This vessel, as it afterwards transpired, was plundered both before and after the ransom was agreed upon; and, more than this, the English captain refused or neglected to give her a protection order, the consequence being that, subsequently falling in with some merchant s.h.i.+ps, she was taken and plundered again. But these were exceptions, and it is some satisfaction to know that the last-mentioned captain was soon driven out of the service.[28]

[27] Equal to 562:10s.

[28] This captain had long been noted for his truculent conduct. Here is a letter which the postmasters-general had written to him two or three years before:--

GENERAL POST OFFICE, _May 13, 1704_.

CAPTAIN CHENAL--We received the mail from Portugal brought over by you in the _Mansbridge_ packet boat which arriv'd here on Wednesday last. We yesterday received your letter and journal of the said voyage, with the certificate from the sailors who remained in the service the last voyage. We are concern'd to find such differences among persons imploy'd under us, but do think the best way to compose them is to advise every one to mind their proper business and duty. We do think you may keep all your officers and sailors to strict duty without so rugged a treatment as is complain'd of. As we are desirous of good discipline, so are we of good agreement, to which we would have our agent and yourself to contribute your endeavours.

We herewith send you a specimen of a method to keep an abstract of your journal by which you would save yourself and us much trouble by observing.--We are, your loving friends,