The History of the Post Office Part 8

Thus matters stood when, in October 1708, or a year and a half after the Act of Union had pa.s.sed, an incident occurred which made silence no longer possible. Letters of Privy Seal had been issued granting salaries payable out of the revenue of the Scotch Post Office to certain professors of the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, and warrants for payment of these salaries were sent to Lombard Street to be signed.

The postmasters-general, being in doubt whether their signature would be valid, took the precaution of consulting the law officers. The law officers' opinion, which was not given until the end of December, must have struck dismay into the hearts of those who sought it. It was to the effect that the postmasters-general of England could not act as postmasters-general of Scotland until they had been to Edinburgh and taken the oaths prescribed by the Scotch law. A journey to Edinburgh in those days, especially in the depth of winter, was no light undertaking.

But this was not all. And as soon--the opinion proceeded--as they have taken the oaths and qualified as postmasters-general of Scotland, they will cease to be postmasters-general of England.

The warrants were returned to the Treasury unsigned. And now that silence had once been broken, the postmasters-general offered suggestion after suggestion, each having for its object to remove the difficulty.

Might not a clause be inserted in some bill now before Parliament, a clause under which they should be const.i.tuted postmasters-general of Great Britain, and be given jurisdiction over the Scotch as over the English Post Office? Would not the Scotch bill for drawbacks answer the purpose, or if that were likely to be displeasing to the North British members, some one of the many money-bills that were then pending? Would not the requirements of the law be satisfied if for the management of the Scotch Post Office some one were appointed by letters patent under the Privy Seal of Scotland, and placed under the orders of the postmasters-general of England? Or in view of a recent Act pa.s.sed by the united Parliament, might not the English postmasters-general themselves be so appointed? To these suggestions, of which the first was made in December 1708, and the last in April 1710, the Lord Treasurer returned no reply. It was clear that G.o.dolphin had other intentions.

Meanwhile events had taken place in London which must have gone far to convince the postmasters-general that, impolitic as an increase in the rates of postage might be, the need for fresh legislation was urgent.

Charles Povey had set up a halfpenny post or, as he called it himself, a "half-penny carriage." For the sum of one halfpenny he undertook to do what Dockwra had done, and what the postmasters-general were now doing, for the sum of one penny. There were indeed points of difference. The penny post extended not only over the whole of London proper, but to the remote suburbs; the halfpenny post was confined to the busy parts of the metropolis, to the cities of London and Westminster and to the borough of Southwark. For the halfpenny post, again, letters were collected by the sound of bell. That is to say, Povey's men carried bells, which they rang as they pa.s.sed along the streets, and so gave notice of their approach. This, though no doubt intended merely as an advertis.e.m.e.nt, possessed the merit of convenience. People had only to await the coming of one of these bell-ringers, and letters and parcels which they must otherwise have carried to the post themselves were carried for them.

Povey fancied himself a second Dockwra; but the two men were as unlike as the circ.u.mstances under which their undertakings were launched.

Dockwra was gentle and conciliatory. Povey was violent and aggressive.

Dockwra disclaimed all intention of transgressing the law. It was only necessary that his undertaking should become better known, and His Royal Highness, he felt sure, would withdraw his opposition. Povey expressed the utmost indifference whether his undertaking was legal or illegal, and defied the law to do its worst. Dockwra was a pioneer. When he established his penny post, there was nothing in existence at all resembling it, nothing with which it competed, and by supplying an acknowledged want he conferred an inestimable boon upon the community.

Povey, on the contrary, was a mere adventurer. His halfpenny carriage was in direct opposition to an inst.i.tution already existing and in full activity, an inst.i.tution which supplied every reasonable want, and which it was the sole purpose of his enterprise to supplant for his own advantage.

So impudent an infringement of the rights of the Crown could not, of course, be tolerated, and the postmasters-general called upon Povey to desist from his undertaking. Povey's reply must have extinguished any hope they may have entertained of avoiding an appeal to the Courts. He should certainly not, he said, be so unjust to himself as to lay down his undertaking at their demand. If they were resolved on trying the matter at law, he was quite content. And happily, he added, we live not under such a const.i.tution as Dockwra lived, a const.i.tution made up of an arbitrary government and bribed judges. Thus defied, the postmasters-general had only one course to pursue, and that was to bring an action. As a preliminary step Povey and the keepers of the shops at which he had opened offices were served with notices setting forth the illegality of their proceedings. The shopkeepers closed their offices at once, and Povey was left alone with his bell-ringers.

The man now revealed himself in his true character. When first informed that an information would be filed against him, he published a pamphlet in which, after loading the postmasters-general with ridicule and abuse, he dared them to proceed to trial, declaring that a trial in the Court of Exchequer was the very thing he desired; but as time drew on and he found them to be in earnest, he became alarmed and desired to effect a compromise. With this object he attended at the Post Office and pleaded his cause in person. If only his bell-ringers might continue to collect letters for the general post and "such as pa.s.s between man and man," he would pay to the Crown one-tenth more than had yet been received from the penny post. Or let him take the penny post to farm, and he would pay double what that post had ever produced. Or was it to his bells that exception was taken? If so, and if only proceedings were stayed, his bells should cease to-morrow. But even if at one time such overtures could have been listened to, it was now too late, and the postmasters-general so informed him. At this announcement, and while they were still speaking, Povey bounced from his chair and flung himself out of the room. The case came on for hearing in Easter term 1710, and Povey was fined 100.

It may here be mentioned that the practice of collecting letters by the sound of bell did not cease with the halfpenny carriage. It was adopted by the Post Office, became general throughout the kingdom, and continued down to a time well within the recollection of persons still living.[35]

[35] In London the practice continued until the end of 1846; and in Dublin, which was the last town in the United Kingdom to give it up, until September 1859.

Although the postmasters-general had won their suit, they were not altogether satisfied. What Povey had done might be done by others, and his proceedings, they did not attempt to conceal, had caused them great annoyance. As soon as he found them bent on suppressing his undertaking, he had had recourse to artifice. In order that his bell-ringers might escape molestation, he had changed them about from place to place and made them a.s.sume fict.i.tious names, so that the man who appeared in Holborn to-day under one name might appear in Westminster to-morrow under another. The task of fixing evidence had thus been made extremely difficult, and the postmasters-general had at one time almost given it up in despair. They also bitterly complained of the law's delays. For no less than seven months--from the 4th of October 1709 to the 4th of May 1710--the halfpenny post had been in full activity, to the serious injury of the penny post. Must the inst.i.tution which had been committed to their charge remain, for periods of longer or shorter duration, at the mercy of any unscrupulous person who might choose to follow Povey's example? Or against future a.s.saults of the same kind was it not possible to provide themselves with some less c.u.mbrous weapon than they had now to their hands?

Whether the Act which subsequently pa.s.sed conferred upon the postmasters-general all the powers they desired may be open to question, but there can be no doubt that, after the experience of the past few months, the prospect of fresh legislation, if not actually welcome, had lost half its terrors. For fresh legislation, however, the time had not even yet arrived. It is true that Povey's case, pending the consideration of which nothing of course could be done, had been heard and determined; but now political difficulties arose. G.o.dolphin, the Lord Treasurer, gave way to Harley; and Harley's advent to power was followed by a general election. It was not until the beginning of November, or three weeks before the Houses met, that a decision was at last announced. Subject to the consent of Parliament, the rates of postage were to be increased, and a bill to carry out the object was to be prepared at once.

The office of Secretary to the Treasury was at this time held by William Lowndes, member of Parliament for the borough of Seaford. Lowndes had written a silly book on the currency, a book in which he endeavoured to prove that an Act of Parliament, by calling a sixpence a s.h.i.+lling, can double its purchasing power. He had seriously believed, when the postmasters-general recommended that the course of post to Warwick should be direct instead of by way of Coventry, that the recommendation was due to a bribe. When the postmasters-general were at their wits' end to put a stop to the illicit traffic in letters, he had suggested--and it was the only consolation which he had had to offer them--that in order to defray the expenses of the Civil List every letter pa.s.sing through the post should be charged with an additional rate of 1d. Such was the man to whom was now entrusted the oversight of the Post Office bill. If confidence in the merits of the measure which the bill was designed to promote were any recommendation, a better selection could not have been made. Lowndes had long advocated an increase in the rates of postage. He had, there can be little doubt, brought G.o.dolphin over to his views, and now, under G.o.dolphin's successor, he obtained permission to carry them into effect.

At the Post Office, unfortunately, there was at this time no one to sound a note of alarm. Cotton was no more. Evelyn, Cotton's successor, was new to his duties. Frankland was old and gouty. Between Frankland and Lowndes, moreover, relations we suspect were somewhat strained. At all events, the fact remains that the postmasters-general, who never tired of inculcating as the result of experience that low postage attracts correspondence and high postage repels it, received notice of the intention to raise the rates without even an attempt to avert the mischief.

By the middle of December, or little more than six weeks from the time of the Post Office receiving notice to prepare for fresh legislation, the bill was in Lowndes's hands. Containing as it did some fifty clauses, and dealing with a matter of no little complexity, such despatch might do no discredit even to our own days of high pressure. At the beginning of the eighteenth century it was out of the common. But the explanation is simple. Swift, the solicitor to the Post Office, who was profoundly dissatisfied with the law as it stood, had for years past employed his leisure moments in framing clauses founded upon his conception of what the law ought to be, less probably in the hope of seeing them pa.s.sed than with the view of giving relief to his feelings.

These clauses he now collected, arranged, and added to, producing what he conceived to be a model measure. But while the bill had taken only six weeks to prepare, nearly double that period was occupied in revising it. Whatever may be thought of Lowndes's understanding, there can be no question about his industry. Day after day during the next three months he devoted to the task he had undertaken every moment he could s.n.a.t.c.h from his numerous other engagements. In conjunction with Swift, who now pa.s.sed most of his time at Whitehall, he went through the bill clause by clause, discussing and arguing every point, and not seldom making alterations. Swift, as the representative of the Post Office, knew well what the Post Office wanted; but Lowndes knew, or thought that he knew, better, and in this as in other instances superior authority pa.s.sed current for superior knowledge. It was not, however, to what for distinction's sake may be called the Post Office clauses of the bill that the chief interest attached. To these Lowndes added others, of which one, while dealing with a matter of the most delicate character, revealed an intention of which the Post Office had had no previous notice. The preparation of this clause severely taxed the abilities of its framers.

As the Post Office revenue was at this time vested in the Crown, the Crown would, of course, in the absence of express provision to the contrary, reap the benefit of any increase which additions to the rates of postage might produce. To divert the increase, or part of the increase, from the Crown to the public was the object of the clause on which Lowndes and Swift were now engaged. This clause having at length been settled to their satisfaction, the bill came before Parliament, and was with some modifications pa.s.sed. The new rates as compared with the old were as follows:--

+------------------+--------------------------+------------------------+ 1660. 1711. FROM LONDON. +---------+--------+-------+--------+--------+------+ Single. Double. Ounce. Single. Double. Ounce. +------------------+---------+--------+-------+--------+--------+------+ 80 miles and under 2d. 4d. 8d. 3d. 6d. 12d. Above 80 miles 3d. 6d. 12d. 4d. 8d. 16d. To Edinburgh 5d. 10d. 20d. 6d. 12d. 24d. To Dublin 6d. 12d. 24d. 6d. 12d. 24d. +------------------+---------+--------+-------+--------+--------+------+

+-----------------------------------+--------------------------+ 1711. FROM EDINBURGH, within Scotland. +---------+--------+-------+ Single. Double. Ounce. +-----------------------------------+---------+--------+-------+ 50 miles and under 2d. 4d. 8d. Above 50 and not exceeding 80 miles 3d. 6d. 12d. Above 80 miles 4d. 8d. 16d. FROM DUBLIN, within Ireland. 40 miles and under 2d. 4d. 8d. Above 40 miles 4d. 8d. 16d. +-----------------------------------+---------+--------+-------+

The old rates during the year ending the 29th of September 1710 had produced 111,461, and the new rates were estimated to produce 36,400 more. Of this increase the whole was to be paid into the Exchequer by weekly instalments of 700, so that a fund might be established for the purpose of carrying on the war; and of the surplus, if any, over and above 147,861, one-third was to be reserved to the disposal of Parliament for the use of the public. These provisions were to hold good for thirty-two years, after which the old rates were to be reverted to.

We have already seen how difficult the postmasters-general had found it, even with the lower rates of postage, to prevent the smuggling of letters; and of course, in exact proportion as the rates should be increased, the temptation to smuggle would become greater. This consequence had been foreseen and provided for. After declaring in the preamble that, as a condition of the new rates, provision must be made "for preventing the undue collecting and delivering of letters by private posts, carriers, higglers, watermen, drivers of stage-coaches, and other persons," the bill went on to give to the postmasters-general large powers of search. This clause was regarded as of the highest importance. Without it, indeed, even Lowndes would hardly have ventured to suggest that the rates should be increased. To his dismay, however, and, truth compels us to add, to the dismay also of the Post Office, the House of Commons, while pa.s.sing the rates, rejected the searching clause. Only the declaration in the preamble remained, an enduring monument of a foolish intention.

Another clause must also be regarded as peculiarly Lowndes's own. This clause--which, unlike the foregoing, was not rejected--prohibited the postmasters-general and all persons serving under them from intermeddling in elections. They were forbidden under heavy penalties "to persuade any one to give or to dissuade any one from giving his vote for the choice" of a member of Parliament. Lowndes can hardly have believed it possible thus to padlock men's mouths. It is still more difficult to suppose that the clause can have been aimed at Frankland; and yet a.s.suredly Frankland was the only person whom it affected.

Postmasters and others, it may well be believed, continued to talk and to argue exactly as they had argued and talked before; but Frankland had to give up his seat. At the general election in October he had, there can be little doubt, received a hint of what was coming, for after sitting for his pocket borough of Thirsk for more than twelve years he retired from the representation.

So much of the new Act as originated with the Post Office was mainly directed to clearing up doubts, to supplying omissions, and to making that legal for which the law had not yet provided. Thus, legal sanction was given to the penny post, and compet.i.tion with it was forbidden under severe penalties. Pence upon s.h.i.+p-letters were not only authorised but directed to be paid. The rates of postage to America and to the West Indies were confirmed; and power was given to impose rates upon letters to other places with which communication might be opened. The Act of 1660 had conferred upon the postmasters-general the exclusive right of "receiving, taking up, ordering, despatching, sending post or with speed, and delivering of all letters and packets whatsoever"; but it was silent on the subject of carrying. This omission the Act of 1711 supplied. The later Act also imposed restrictions on the common carrier.

Hitherto it had been left in doubt what letters he might carry. These were now defined to be letters which concerned the goods in his waggon or cart; and they were to be delivered at the same time as the goods and without hire or reward.

It was not enough that the penny post should receive legal sanction. By this post, from its first establishment, a single penny had carried only within London proper. For delivery in the outskirts--as, for instance, at Islington, Lambeth, Newington, and Hackney, all of which were at this time separate towns--the Post Office received one penny more. So long, therefore, as the charge by the general post for a distance not exceeding eighty miles stood at 2d., it was a mere question of convenience whether towns in the neighbourhood of London should be served by that post or by the penny post. In either case the postage on a single letter was the same, namely 2d. But now that the initial charge by the general post was raised from 2d. to 3d., it became necessary to a.s.sign a limit beyond which the penny post should not extend; and this limit was fixed at ten miles, measured from the General Post Office in Lombard Street.

How little the Post Office had at this time entered into the inner life of the people may be judged by the fact that such restriction was possible. In 1711 there were towns distant nearly twenty miles from London--for instance, Walton-on-Thames, Cheshunt in Hertfords.h.i.+re, and Tilbury in Ess.e.x--which had long been served by the penny post; and the penny post carried up to one pound of weight for the same charge for which the general post carried a single letter. Yet these towns were now deprived of the facilities which the penny post afforded without, so far as appears, exciting a murmur.[36]

[36] Even the notice to the public announcing the change was as unapologetic as it well could be:--"These are to give notice that by the Act of Parliament for establis.h.i.+ng a General Post Office all letters and packets directed to and sent from places distant ten miles or above from the said office in London, which before the second of this instant June were received and delivered by the officers of the penny post, are now subjected to the same rates of postage as general post letters; and that for the accommodation of the inhabitants of such places their letters will be conveyed with the same regularity and dispatch as formerly, being first taxed with the rates and stamped with the mark of the General Post Office; and that all parcels will likewise be taxed at the rate of 2s. per ounce, as the said Act directs."

Under the new Act the Post Office retained the monopoly of furnis.h.i.+ng post-horses. It is to be observed, however, that the charge for each horse, although remaining the same as before--namely, 3d. a mile, with 4d. a stage for the guide--was now re-enacted apologetically, as though some compunction had begun to be felt at the interference with the freedom of contract. The explanation is perhaps to be found in the recent introduction of stage-coaches and the low prices at which these vehicles carried pa.s.sengers. "There is of late," writes an author of the period, "an admirable commodiousness, both for men and women of better quality, to travel from London to almost any town of England and to almost all the villages near this great city, and that is by stage-coaches, wherein one may be transported to any place, sheltered from foul weather and foul ways; and this is not only at a low price, as about 1s. for every five miles, but with such speed, as that the posts in some foreign countries make not more miles in a day."[37] If a mode of travelling so luxurious as this appears to have been thought could be secured for less than 2-1/2d. a mile, a charge of 3d. a mile for a horse besides a guerdon to the guide may well have appeared to require justification.

[37] Chamberlayne's _State of England_, 1710.

It may here be noticed that, although the postmasters-general were under obligation to supply horses on demand, and, failing to do so, became liable to a penalty, the control which they exercised over the travelling post appears to have been of the slightest. It is true that they would now and again complain of a postmaster for keeping bad horses; but the badness would always be with reference to the horses'

capacity to carry the mails. Whether they were fit or unfit for the use of travellers appears never to have troubled headquarters. Except, indeed, for some little exertion of authority on rare occasions and in circ.u.mstances out of the common,[38] it would almost seem that the postmasters-general had ceased to regard the travelling post as a matter in which they had any concern. It is not very clear why this should have been so. But perhaps the explanation is that in the case of the travelling post, unlike that of the letter post, a postmaster's interest and duty were identical; if horses were wanted, he was under the strongest inducement to supply them; and the danger to be apprehended was not that travellers would be neglected, but that they might be accommodated at the expense of the mails.

[38] The following letter affords an instance of the exertion of authority referred to in the text:--

To the DEPUTIES between LONDON and TINMOUTH.

GENERAL POST OFFICE, _April 6, 1708_.

GENTLEMEN--The bearer hereof, Mr. John Farra, being directed by order of the Lord High Treasurer to proceed to Tinmouth on the publick affairs of the Government, I am ordered by the postmasters-general to require you to furnish the said gentleman with a single horse [_i.e._ a horse without a guide] if required through your several stages, he being well acquainted with the roads and coming recommended by such authority, which by their order is signified by, Gentlemen, your most humble servant,

B. WATERHOUSE, _Secretary_.

On one point, no doubt because it involved a question of prerogative rather than law, the new Act was silent; and yet it was a point of high importance and, as it afterwards became the subject of legal enactment, this may be a convenient time to mention it. We refer to the privilege conceded to certain persons to send and receive their letters free of postage, or, to use the term by which it was commonly known, the franking system. The persons who enjoyed this privilege were the Chief Officers of State and the members of the two Houses of Parliament. The Chief Officers of State, or ministers as they had now begun to be called, were ent.i.tled to send and receive their letters free at all times and without limit in point of weight. The members of the two Houses were so ent.i.tled only during the session of Parliament and for forty days before and after, and in their case the weight was limited to two ounces.

The privilege had already been greatly abused. Secretaries of State would not scruple to send under their frank the letters of their friends and their friends' friends as well as their own. In 1695 Blaithwaite, who was then Secretary of War, carried the practice to such an extent as to evoke from the postmasters-general a vigorous remonstrance. "We cannot deny," they said, "but this has been too much a practice in all tymes, and we are sure you will not blame us for wis.h.i.+ng itt were amended, being soe very prejudicial to His Majestye's revenue under our management." The practice extended, and in 1705 a warrant under the sign-manual, after enumerating afresh the Officers of State who were ent.i.tled to frank, expressly charged them not "to cover any man's letters whatsoever other than their own," and, as regards any letters which might come addressed to their care for private persons, to send them to the Post Office to be taxed and delivered.

The abuses identified with the letters of members of Parliament were of wider scope. Lavishly as members might use their names as a means of franking, the use was not confined to themselves and their friends. On the part of the London booksellers and other persons who might hesitate to incur the risk of imitating another man's signature it had become a common practice to a.s.sume the name of some member of Parliament, and under that name to have their letters addressed to them at particular coffee-houses; and as their correspondents in the country adopted a similar device, the letters pa.s.sing to and fro escaped postage. Cotton and Frankland had not been long at the Post Office before this practice arrested their attention, and in 1698 the warrant which granted to the members of the new Parliament the usual exemption from postage was expressly designed to check the abuse. "To prevent abuses," thus the warrant ran, "that were formerly practised[39] to the prejudice of our revenue by divers persons who, though they were not members, yet presumed to indorse the names of members of Parliament on their letters and direct their letters to members of Parliament which really did not belong to them," our will and pleasure is that members "will constantly with their owne hands indorse their names upon their owne letters, and not suffer any other letters to pa.s.s under their ffrank, cover, or direction but such as shall concerne themselves." Successive warrants issued between 1698 and 1711 were expressed in the same or nearly the same terms, what little variations there were only serving to shew that the practice against which the warrants were directed had become more general.

[39] In doc.u.ments intended for the public eye it was the practice of the postmasters-general--and it was by them that these warrants were prepared--to speak of an existing abuse as an abuse that was past. This was, of course, to avoid giving offence.

But now the postmasters-general could no longer conceal from themselves that, unwarrantable as might be the liberties taken with members' names, the members themselves were by no means blameless. That they were scattering their franks with boundless profusion was beyond doubt; and the question which the postmasters-general set themselves to solve was, How was this profusion to be checked? As the best expedient they could devise, they prepared for the Queen's signature a fresh warrant which, as a hint to members for the regulation of their own conduct, referred to Her Majesty's condescension in allocating a portion of the Post Office revenue towards defraying the expenses of the war. Of previous warrants copies had been posted up in the lobby of the House and in the Speaker's chamber. Of the present warrant copies were to be distributed with the votes so as to secure that every member should have a copy.

The immediate effect of the Act of 1711 was, as might have been foreseen, enormously to stimulate clandestine traffic. The Post Office could do little to check it. In London officers were appointed whose duty it was to frequent the roads leading into the capital and keep a watch on all higglers and drivers of coaches who were notoriously carrying letters in defiance of the law. In the country the postmasters-general could get nothing done. In vain they urged upon the Treasury the paramount importance of appointing officers who should travel about the country and be authorised to open the mail bags at odd times and unexpectedly. By no other means, they declared, was it possible to keep any check upon either the London or the country letters. The London letters might not be charged correctly by the clerks of the roads; and of the country letters, it was perfectly well known, only a very small proportion was charged at all. But all to no purpose.

The officers whom the postmasters-general proposed to appoint were to receive for remuneration and travelling expenses together 1 a day, and the Treasury declined to sanction the expense.

This, even for the Treasury, has always appeared to us a masterpiece of perversity. That large sums were being diverted into the pockets of the postmasters had been admitted in the Act itself;[40] nor could it be denied that the tendency of the Act was to make these sums larger. And yet the abuse was to be allowed to go on unchecked because its correction would involve a small outlay. For four years this penny-wise and pound-foolish policy continued, and it was not until 1715, as the consequence of a strong representation from Frankland and Evelyn's successors, that the officers whose appointment these two postmasters-general had consistently advocated were added to the establishment under the t.i.tle of surveyors. To surprise the mail bags in course of transit and to check their contents--such was the humble function originally a.s.signed to officers who have since become as indispensable to the Post Office as the mainspring is to a watch or the driving wheel to a steam engine.

[40] "And whereas divers deputy postmasters do collect great quant.i.ties of post letters called by or way letters and, by clandestine and private agreements amongst themselves, do convey the same post in their respective mails, or by bags, according to their several directions, without accounting for the same or endorsing the same on their bills, to the great detriment of Her Majesty's revenues."--9 Anne, cap. x. sec.

18.

It may here be noticed that the decisions which the postmasters-general received were not all of them conceived in the same spirit. So different indeed was the treatment of questions relating to home communications and communications with foreign parts as almost to suggest that they had been referred to different tribunals. Was the packet service which had come to an end through Dummer's misfortunes to be re-established or not?

The cost was far, very far, in excess of the receipts; and yet the direction to the Post Office was to consult the West India merchants, and to be guided by their wishes. The two packets between Falmouth and the Groyne, which had been left running at the close of the war, were after a time discontinued. They cost 1600 a year to maintain, and the annual receipts from the letters and pa.s.sengers they carried were less than 450. Yet upon a representation from the merchants trading with Spain pointing out the inconvenience which the stoppage had caused them, the boats were restored at once. But all such questions were decided by the Lord Treasurer himself, and his decisions were communicated under his own signature, or else under the sign-manual.

Very different was it with questions affecting intercourse within the kingdom. These, urgently as the postmasters-general might press them, received little or no attention. They would seem indeed to have been relegated to subordinates, who having been instructed to keep down expense proceeded to obey their orders without discrimination. Whether the packet agent at Dover had in his cups refused to drink to the health of the ministers, or whether the postmaster of Chester had said that Queen Anne, had she pursued the same course as was pursued by Charles the First, would have met with the same fate--these were questions of vital importance which must be investigated with all convenient speed; but when the question was merely one of improving the internal posts of the country, it was treated at leisure, and no considerations of public convenience, or even of prospective gain, were allowed to weigh against the bugbear of present expense. In 1710, for instance, the Lord Provost and magistrates of Glasgow had pet.i.tioned that the foot-post to Edinburgh might be converted into a horse-post. The mail would thus arrive sooner and leave later, and, as the pet.i.tioners pointed out, letters would fall into it which had heretofore been sent by private hand. Between a horse-post and a foot-post the difference in point of cost was 20 a year; and for the sake of this small sum the Treasury had refused the request, just as they now refused to sanction the appointment of surveyors, although the postmasters-general clearly demonstrated that by no other means could the misappropriation of postage be checked, and that within a few months the cost would be covered many times over.

But the addition to the establishment of a few appointments more or less was not the most serious charge which the Act of 1711 entailed. The Post Offices over a great part of England were then in farm. How, within the area over which these Post Offices extended, was the State to derive any benefit from the higher postage? The postage, whatever it might be, was under their leases secured to the farmers; and the farmers were under no obligation to pay any higher rent than that for which they had stipulated. This difficulty, which had without doubt been overlooked, took a most unexpected turn. The farmers had had only a short experience of the new rates before they found that these rates, far from bringing them a golden harvest, were fast contributing to their ruin; that they were in effect prohibitive rates; that the letters pa.s.sing to and fro were getting fewer and fewer; and that the increase of charge by no means made up for the decrease in number. In short, the Crown or those who represented the Crown had taken for granted that under the new rates the returns would be relatively higher than under the old, whereas the farmers found to their cost that the returns were actually lower.

Never, perhaps, has there been a more striking demonstration of the unwisdom of high rates of postage. In this dilemma the postmasters-general had recourse to an expedient which appears to have been considered satisfactory on both sides. They cancelled all the leases, nine in number,[41] and under the t.i.tle of managers, appointed the farmers to superintend the Post Offices embraced within the area over which their farms extended. The managers who had heretofore been at the cost of the postmasters' salaries were to be relieved from this and all other payments; and as remuneration for their services they were to receive one-tenth part of the net produce derived from the postage.