The Rebellion of 1745, while disarranging the posts,brought into vogue the system of expresses; and this system once established was not long in extending itself. An express cost 3d. a mile, and, no doubt, travelled faster than at the beginning of the century. The roads had since been improved; and it may well be believed that the postmasters, as their custom increased, kept better horses. It was probably the speed of the express as compared with the tardiness of the post which induced the wealthy, about the middle of the last century, largely to employ this mode of conveyance for their letters. It had indeed one drawback, a drawback such as in our own time has attended the use of telegrams. It was apt to excite alarm. "Let me," writes the good-natured Charles Townshend to his sister-in-law, Lady Ferrers, under date September 1759—"Let me now desire you to conclude whenever you receive an express that it brings you good news, for otherwise I shall be obliged to defer one day sending you any such account if it should not come to me on a post day, least the express should alarm you. I should not chuse to detain you one minute from the news I know your heart beats for, and yet I should not chuse to frighten you by the sudden manner of its arrival, for which reason I desire you will remember to receive whatsoever express I send with confidence and as a friend."
But the purpose for which an express might be employed was jealously restricted. A man might employ an express to carry a letter; but woe betide him if he employed the same agency for the purpose of disseminating news. The licensed carriers at Cambridge had recently been prosecuted and the postmasters on the Great West Road taken severely to task for doing this very thing. What are we to think of the intolerable state of bondage in which men were content to live when even the gentle Allen could give the following instruction? "At every stage," he writes to one of his surveyors, "you must forbid the deputies to send any express except to the General Post Office in London, unless it be for His Majesty's immediate service; and all other intelligence must be conveyed either by the common post or particular messenger."
In the middle of the last century, and for about thirty years before and after, the mails were being continually stopped and robbed by highwaymen. The reward which the Post Office offered on these occasions for the apprehension of the robber was invariably £200, this being in addition to the reward of £40 prescribed by Act of Parliament; and if the robbery took place within five miles of London, there was a third reward of £100 by proclamation. Numerous and diverse as the robberies[52]were, there is only one of which we propose to speak; and in this case an exception may well be made on account of the important decision which it was the means of evoking from the Courts. A highwayman had stopped the Worcester mail at Shepherd's Bush and rifled it of its contents. Finding himself in possession of a large number of Bank of England notes he adopted a novel expedient for disposing of them. He hired a chaise and four and proceeded along the Great North Road as far as Caxton, passing the notes as he went; and in order to give himself a wider field of operations he took the precaution of going one way and returning another. To Caxton he went through Barnet, Hatfield, Stevenage, and Bugden, and he returned by way of Royston, Ware,and Enfield. Except at Barnet, which was probably thought to be dangerously near to London, there was hardly a postmaster along the whole line of road who had not one or more of the notes passed upon him. The question now arose who was to bear the loss,—the person by whom the notes had been sent by post or the postmasters who had changed them into cash. At the present time the law on the subject is so well ascertained that no doubt could exist as to the answer; but such was not then the case. In order to try the point, it was arranged that the notes should be stopped, and that the sender of them should bring an action against the Bank of England to recover their value. The trial came on before the King's Bench in 1758, and, after learned pleadings on both sides, the Lord Chief Justice pronounced the decision of the Court. This was that any person paying a valuable consideration for a bank note to bearer in a fair course of business is unquestionably entitled to recover the money from the Bank.
An important legal decision, with which the Post Office had only the remotest concern, an improved system of expresses following as a natural consequence from circumstances over which the Post Office had no control, a simple contrivance to facilitate the posting of letters, and an acceleration of the mail between London and Edinburgh—this as the record of forty or fifty years' progress is assuredly meagre enough; and yet we are not aware of any omission. The plain truth is that during these years, except in the matter of bye and cross-post letters, the Post Office had retrograded rather than advanced. The rates of postage were higher now than at the beginning of the century. More, probably, than one-half of the public Acts of Parliament which passed during the reigns of the first two Georges were Acts for repairing and widening the roads. The roads had kept steadily improving; and the posts had failed to keep pace with them. While travellers travelled faster than in the reign of Queen Anne, letters were still being conveyed at a speed not exceeding five miles an hour. The friendly relations which had existed between the postmasters-generaland the merchants existed no longer. These had been replaced by feelings of estrangement and animosity. Under Cotton and Frankland and under Frankland and Evelyn the Post Office enjoyed a reputation for personal integrity; but even this claim to distinction had now disappeared. Barbutt, the secretary, had recently retired under a cloud. Bell, the comptroller of the inland office, had been arrested on a charge of fraud.[53]Denzil Onslow, the receiver-general, had been declared a defaulter to the amount of £10,000; and Stone, Onslow's successor, after two or three years' tenure of the appointment, had died in debt to the Crown. The Post Office, when George the Third ascended the throne, was thoroughly discredited, and, despite Allen's exertions, men were beginning to ask themselves, Why cumbereth it the ground?
Allen died in 1764, leaving behind him a name which is still venerated, and justly venerated, in the city of Bath. For many years before his death he is reputed to have made out of his contract with the Post Office not less than £12,000 a year; and the greater part of this noble fortune he spent in acts of benevolence. As early as 1735 riches must have come pouring in upon him, for in that year he built for himself the stately house of Prior Park, not indeed for ostentation's sake, but in order to prove that the stone dug from his quarries on Combe Down was not the sorry stuff which interested persons in London had represented it to be. That house still stands; but, as was said at the time—and the statement holds good to this day—"his charity is seen further than his house, though it stands on a hill, aye, and brings him more honour too." In 1742Allen served as Mayor of Bath; and in 1745, the year of the Rebellion, he raised a company of volunteers, which he clothed at his own cost. At Prior Park he dispensed a more than decent hospitality, numbering among his guests Pitt, Pope, and Fielding, Charles Yorke, and Warburton. Fielding has immortalised Allen's character but not his name in the person of Squire Allworthy; and Pope has immortalised both his name and his character in the lines—
Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame,Do good by stealth and blush to find it fame.
Among Post Office reformers Allen stands absolutely alone in one particular. His connection with the Post Office, long as it endured, was not abruptly terminated. This we attribute partly to a natural sweetness of disposition, which provoked no enemies, and still more to that which on the part of reformers is the rarest of virtues, an entire abnegation of self. So long as a thing which he thought desirable was done, he cared not that others received the credit.[54]
Brighter days were in store for the Post Office, but not yet. Meanwhile the clouds grew darker and darker. During the twenty years that followed Allen's death, partly as the result of ill-considered legislation and still more through the incompetence and helplessness of its rulers, the Post Office sank to a depth which, in England, probably no other public institution, or at all events none that still exists, has ever reached.
In 1764 and 1765 two Acts of Parliament were passed, one having for its object to prevent the abuses of franking, and the other to improve the posts. It would be hardly too much to say that both of these Acts had an exactly opposite effect to that which was intended. The first, far from preventing the abuses of franking, largely extended them; and the second imposed a deplorable restriction, a restriction for which any little advantages conferred at the same time afforded very inadequate compensation.
Under the Act of 1765, to take the later one first, the postage rates were reduced for short distances. Since 1711 the charge for carrying a single letter had been 3d. for eighty miles or under. Now it was to be 1d. for one stage and 2d. for two stages. For longer distances the charge was to remain unaltered. The speed of the post was raised from five to six miles an hour. Power was given to the postmasters-general to erect penny Post Officesin country towns; and—a provision which we have pronounced deplorable—the weight to be carried by the penny post was restricted to four ounces. Compensation for losses by the penny post had long ceased to be given.[55]
Such was the end of Dockwra's post as Dockwra had established it. With that eminent man it had been an object of the first importance that the penny post should carry up to one pound in weight; and now the weight was to be reduced to four ounces. And why? Because the penny post was little used for packets and parcels above four ounces? Exactly the contrary. It was because packets and parcels above four ounces were being largely sent by the penny post that the limit of weight was to be reduced.[56]These missives had been found a little inconvenient to manipulate and it was resolved, therefore, to exclude them. Such was the wretched policy of the time. Even in matters vitally affecting their own interests the public had as yet no voice and their wishes were not considered. On account of some trifling inconvenience, which a very little amount of ingenuity would have sufficed to overcome, the inhabitants of London and its suburbs were now deprived of accommodation which they had enjoyed uninterruptedly for eighty-five years.
In 1764 franking became for the first time the subject of Parliamentary enactment. To send and receive letters free of postage had been a privilege enjoyed by members of the two Houses of Parliament from the first establishment of the Post Office; but whereas it had hitherto been a concession granted by the Crown, it was now to be a right conferred by statute. The reason will be obvious. The revenue of the Post Office had recently been surrendered to the public during the life of the Sovereign, in exchange for a Civil List charged upon the Consolidated, or, as it was then called, the Aggregate Fund; and the Crown, having dispossessed itself of all property in the Post Office, was no longer competent to remit postage without the authority of Parliament. The Act which was now passed was designed to correct the abuses which experience had shewn to exist. The limits of weight and of time remained as before; that is to say, only letters not exceeding the weight of two ounces were to be franked, and these only during the session of Parliament and for forty days before and after. In other respects the conditions were slightly altered. Hitherto it had been enough, in the case of letters sent by a member, that he should sign his name on the outside; for the future not only was the outside to bear his signature, but the whole of the address was to be in his own handwriting. In the case of letters addressed to a member, none were to be exempt from postage unless directed to the place of hisusual residence or to the place where he was actually residing, or, of course, to the House of Parliament. It had been hoped that these alterations of practice would check the abuses of franking. Vain expectation! No sooner had the concession been converted into a right than what little scruples existed before appear to have vanished, and franks were scattered broadcast over the country. Before eight years were over, the number of franks passing through the London office alone had nearly doubled, the postage from which they carried exemption being in 1765, the first year after the change, £34,734, and in 1772, £65,053; and this, be it observed, was no mere estimate, but the actual result as ascertained by the careful examination of each letter.
Another effect of the change of practice was to embroil the Post Office. The Post Office, in its efforts to protect itself against imposition, would charge letters when addressed to a member at a place where he was supposed not to be; and hence constant disputes and altercations. Members, again, who were bankers or were engaged in trade insisted that letters addressed to them at their counting-houses, even though they did not reside there, should pass free. On these the Post Office claimed postage, and the members refused to pay it.
But it was in Ireland that the rage for franking broke out into the wildest excesses. In 1773 an inspector of franks was sent to several towns on the cross and bye roads, in order that he might ascertain and report to the postmasters-general the extent to which the abuse had grown. This officer visited nine towns altogether, and was absent from Dublin for sixty-three days, being at the rate of seven days at each town. At Waterford, during his stay there, 588 letters passed through the local Post Office purporting to be franked. The franks on only 354 of these were genuine; the rest were counterfeit. At Kilkenny there were 425 counterfeit franks to 510 that were genuine. At Clonmel, 526 counterfeit and 509 genuine. At Gowran, 212 counterfeit and 195 genuine;and so with the remaining towns. Altogether the number of letters with counterfeit franks was nearly as large as the number with genuine franks, and far exceeded all the other letters combined. However clear might be the evidence of fraud, and however conclusively it might be brought home to particular persons, it was of no use attempting to prosecute. Hear what Mr. Lees says on this point. Mr. Lees was Secretary to the Post Office in Ireland, and he had, under direction from Lord North, received instructions to take proceedings against a firm of solicitors in Londonderry who had been sending letters under forged franks. "A prosecution," wrote Mr. Lees, "will not be of the slightest avail. It has been tried over and over again, and, in the face of the clearest evidence, without success." "There is scarcely a magistrate to be found in Ireland who will take examinations on the Post Office laws; and certainly in no instance has this office prevailed in getting the bills of indictment found by a Grand Jury. This being so universally known, counterfeiting franks is drawn into such general practice that I believe there are very few merchants or attorneys' clerks throughout the kingdom who do not counterfeit in the name of one member or other. Nay, if I classed with them almost every little pretty Miss capable of joining her letters, I should not exaggerate the abuse." "As I have observed," he wrote further on in the same letter, "in every town of consequence throughout the kingdom the members resident, under their address, cover the correspondence of the principal merchants.... The postage arising on counterfeit covers alone amounts to more than a third of the revenue of this office."
Under the terms of the Franking Act newspapers were to go free which should bear a member's signature on the outside or which should be directed to a member at any place of which he had given notice in writing to the postmasters-general. This provision seriously affected the Post Office, though in a different way from the liberties which were being taken with letters. From the first establishment of the Post Office the six clerks of theroads had enjoyed the privilege of franking newspapers, and the emoluments derived from this source, originally insignificant, had been continually increasing. In 1764 they were certainly not less than £8000 a year, and may have been more. The Franking Act sapped this source of emolument. No sooner had that Act passed than the members served the Post Office with notice of the places to which they wished newspapers to be directed. These places did not in the first instance extend beyond the member's own residence and the residences of his constituents and friends; but after a while no such moderation was observed. The booksellers and printers, or news-agents as they would now be called, soon recognised the advantage it would be to them if they could get their customers' addresses put on the Post Office Register, and they experienced little difficulty in finding members who were ready to do them this service. There were four who were noted for their complaisance. These were Sir Robert Bernard, member for Westminster; Brass Crosby, member for Honiton and alderman for the City of London; Richard Whitworth, member for Stafford; and Richard Hiver.[57]These four members in little more than eighteen months served upon the Post Office no less than 744 separate notices. Altogether, at the close of the year 1772, there were 2024 such notices registered in Lombard Street, of which 765 were on behalf of constituents and friends, and 1259 on behalf of printers and booksellers.
As the natural result the clerks of the roads found their emoluments rapidly dwindling. Heretofore they had been, virtually, the great news-agents of the kingdom. Enjoying, in common with a few clerks at Whitehall, the exclusive privilege of sending newspapers through the post free, they had been exposed to little, if any, competition; but now that in the matter of postage the terms were equal, the advantage was allon the side of the private dealer. The private dealer procured his newspapers in the open market, whereas the clerks of the roads were required to procure them from a particular officer designated by the postmasters-general; and this officer was authorised not only to charge for the newspapers he supplied 1-1/2d. a dozen more than he gave for them, but to retain as his own perquisite one out of every twenty-five copies.
It may seem of little moment that, as the result of legislation, six persons more or less should find themselves in reduced circumstances. Such an event, unhappily, is not so rare as to call for special remark. But there was a good deal more than this in the present case. The profits which the clerks of the roads derived from the sale of newspapers had never been devoted to the exclusive use of the recipients. On the contrary, they were to a large extent common property. Out of these profits pensions were provided for Post Office servants who were past work; and from the same source inadequate salaries were raised to something like a decent maintenance. In additional salaries to brother officers and in pensions to officers who had retired, the clerks of the roads had in 1764 contributed as much as £6600; and even now, reduced as their profits were, they were contributing a little over £2000. They were, in effect, the mainstay of the establishment, and the falling off of their emoluments was being watched by the postmasters-general, hardly less than by those who were more immediately interested, with the gravest concern.
Nor was it calculated to reconcile the Post Office servants to the deprivations which they were already beginning to suffer that the members of other public offices, who had lost from the same cause as the clerks of the roads, but to a much less extent, had received compensation in full. The clerks in the offices of the Principal Secretaries of State, like the clerks of the roads, had been privileged to frank both letters and newspapers. By the Act of 1764 the privilege had, as regards letters, been taken away in bothcases; and in both cases, as regards newspapers, it remained. Yet to the clerks in the offices of the Principal Secretaries of State was secured, by special Act of Parliament, compensation to the amount of £1500 a year, while the clerks of the roads received nothing; and, as though to add to the aggravation, this sum of £1500 a year was to be paid by the Post Office.
In Dublin the same difficulties were being experienced as in London and from the same cause. Emoluments were falling off and obligations could not be met. Among these obligations, however, there was one which was peculiar to Dublin. Before 1764 the clerks at the castle, like the clerks of the roads, had enjoyed the privilege of franking newspapers, and the exercise of this privilege by the two bodies simultaneously had been attended with so much friction that advantage had been taken of the passing of the Franking Act to effect a compromise. In consideration of the sum of £350 a year to be paid by the clerks of the roads the clerks at the castle undertook to abandon their privilege absolutely. A deed to this effect was prepared, and, in order that nothing might be wanting to give it formality, it was signed by the Earl of Northumberland, the Lord Lieutenant, on behalf of the castle, and by Lord Clermont, the Deputy Postmaster-General of Ireland, on behalf of the Post Office. Whence was the sum of £350 to come when the emoluments should be gone? Was a price to continue to be paid for the surrender of a privilege which had ceased to be of value? The Attorney-General for Ireland advised that the clerks of the roads were still liable to the last farthing of their salaries; and the clerks at the castle refused to abate one jot of their claim.
But we are anticipating. In 1767 the statute-book received an addition which, though differing widely both in intention and effect from the Franking Act and the Postage Act, cannot be allowed to pass unnoticed. This was an Act for the better paving, lighting, and regulating the streets of London, a first step in fact towards converting the Londonof Hogarth into the London of to-day. The mere preamble[58]of the Act brings home to us, hardly less vividly than Hogarth's pencil, the intolerable inconveniences under which our forefathers were content to live; but what concerns us at the present moment is that one section provided not only that the names of the streets should be put up but that the houses should be numbered. This numbering of houses quickly spread, and, although unnoticed by the Post Office at the time, was destined very materially to assist its future operations. As a consequence, too, and at no long interval, arose a new industry, namely the compilation of Directories—a thing that was impossible before—and hence the Post Office derived still further assistance.
About this time considerable improvements took place both in the Scotch and Irish posts. Between London and Edinburgh communication had been only thrice a week. In 1765 it was increased in frequency to five days a week, and posts on six days a week were at the same time established between Edinburgh and the chief towns of Scotland. The result was an immediate increase of revenue which much more than covered the increase of expense. Two or three years later the course of post between London and Dublin came under review. By virtue of an arrangement, which the fact of the communication being only thrice a week goes but a short way to explain, letters from England to Ireland were kept lying two whole days in the London Office and, similarly, letters from Ireland to England were kept lying two whole days in the Dublin Office. The packet which was due in Dublin on Saturday night rarely arrived before Sunday, and, unless it did so, the letters from England for the interior of Ireland did not leave Dublinuntil Wednesday morning. Nor was this all. The number of packets was extremely limited, and, owing to their constant employment by Government as express boats, it frequently happened that two and sometimes three and even four mails were sent by the same packet. In 1767 this was altered. Additional packet boats were placed on the station, and the post between London and Dublin and between Dublin and Belfast in one direction and Cork in another was increased in frequency from three to six days a week.
Between London and the chief provincial towns in England Allen had, as we have seen, established posts six days a week instead of three; but it was not until 1769, or nearly five years after Allen's death, that within the metropolis arrangements were made to correspond. Meanwhile the offices for the receipt of general post letters were kept open and the bellmen went about ringing their bells on only three nights of the week, namely Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and on the other three nights, except at the General Post Office, letters could not be posted gratuitously. On the nights of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday a receiver if called upon to take in letters was entitled to charge a fee of 1d. apiece, and this fee he retained as his own perquisite. Beginning with 1769 the receiving offices were kept open and the bellmen rang their bells on every night of the week, Sundays excepted.
An event or rather a series of events now took place, the result of which was largely to alter the character of the Post Office and to extend its usefulness. Recent legislation had done little for the public convenience. It had indeed provided that Penny Post Offices might be established out of London, and advantage had been taken of the provision in one single instance. In Dublin a Penny Post Office had been opened on the 10th of October 1773, or seventy years after the Countess of Thanet desired to open one and was refused permission at the last moment. But in other respects legislation had accomplished little beyond promoting the very abuses it was designed to prevent, and impairingthe utility of Dockwra's post. Litigation was now to have its turn; and it is interesting to note the result.
The machinery for the dispersion of letters remained much as it had been since the first establishment of the Post Office. In London, in Edinburgh, and in Dublin there was, as there is now, a body of men whose duty it was to deliver from house to house; but with these three exceptions there was not, 120 years ago, a single town in the kingdom which could boast of its own letter-carrier. The postmaster was the sole Post Office agent in the place; it was he who delivered the letters if they were delivered at all; and for this service he was left to charge pretty much as he pleased. The public had grown tired of this state of things and strenuous efforts were now made to alter it.
The crusade began in the little town of Sandwich in Kent. It had been the practice of the postmaster there, at some former time, to deliver free the letters arriving by the bye and cross posts, and on the delivery of the London letters to charge a fee as his own perquisite. In 1772 a fee was being charged on the delivery of all letters. This charge the inhabitants now determined to contest. The case came on for trial in the Court of King's Bench and was decided against the postmaster, the Court being of opinion that wherever the usage had been to deliver free, there the usage should be adhered to. The postmasters-general were very uneasy. Out of the 440 post towns of the kingdom there were known to be not less than seventy-six which were in the same case as Sandwich and to which the decision of the Court must apply, towns where letters had at one time been delivered free and where they were so no longer; and not a day passed without bringing fresh and unexpected additions to the list. At Birmingham and at Ipswich, for instance, where a charge was now being made for delivery, old inhabitants could remember how forty or fifty years before letters had been delivered free. Was the Crown to be at the expense of letter-carriers at all of these towns, or werethe postmasters, who were already complaining of the inadequacy of their remuneration, to forego their perquisites and make a house-to-house delivery as part of their duty?
The question was still under consideration when the town of Ipswich commenced an action. The point raised in this case was whether on the delivery of letters addressed to the inhabitants of the town the postmaster could legally demand any sum over and above the postage, and, if so, whether in the event of the demand being refused he could oblige the inhabitants to fetch their letters. Again the decision, this time by the Court of Common Pleas, was in favour of the public and against the Post Office. The postmasters-general were more than uneasy now. No sooner had the decision in the Ipswich case become known than town after town where letters had never yet been delivered free demanded a free delivery and threatened the postmasters-general with actions in the event of their demand being refused. Bath and Gloucester did more than threaten. They, like Ipswich, proceeded to trial; and again, for the third and fourth time, the decision was against the Post Office.
Thurlow was at this time Attorney-General. He held a strong opinion that in order to comply with the statute it was enough to deliver letters at the Post Office of the town to which they were addressed, and that there was no obligation to deliver them at the houses of the inhabitants. Still clinging to the belief that the decisions of the Courts must have proceeded more or less on the usage of delivery, he now determined to try the question in the case of a town where the usage had been for no delivery to be made without payment. The town of Hungerford in Berkshire was selected for the purpose. There, it could be proved, ever since the beginning of the century, letters had not been delivered except on payment of a fee of 1d. apiece.
The case came on before the Court of King's Bench in Michaelmas term 1774. Lord Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice, was the first to deliver judgment. He was surprised, he said, the several Acts being so ambiguous and the usage so contradictory, that the Post Office had notapplied to Parliament to explain the matter. That was the view of the Court when, in the other cases, it avoided the general question. He never liked to avoid general questions, for to decide them tended to prevent further litigation; but an important question of this kind, arising out of Acts that had "not yet spoke," and, whichever way it might be decided, involving more or less inconvenience, was essentially one for Parliament. And in the Bath case there were grounds on which the general question could, without impropriety, be avoided. There the postmaster when delivering a letter had demanded a certain sum as a duty. Now, a duty it certainly was not. If on the delivery of a letter Parliament had intended to impose a duty, it would have fixed the amount and made it part of the Post Office revenue; and not have left every postmaster free to fix what amount he pleased or might prevail upon people to give. And what a monstrous inconvenience it would be if every one had to go to the Post Office to fetch his own letters! How could the Court have laid down such a proposition as that? The thing was impossible. And it must be remembered that there could be no middlemen—men between the inhabitants and the postmaster—who for gain could set up an office to distribute the letters, because by law the postmaster could not deliver them except to the persons to whom they were addressed. These were the considerations which in the Bath ease induced him to avoid the general question, and he had been glad to feel able to do so, never doubting that the postmasters-general would apply to Parliament for a determination; but this, unfortunately, they had not done. Then there was the Gloucester case. He remembered it well. There the question was not whether there should be a free delivery, for at Gloucester letters had always been delivered free, but whether certain houses should fall within the limits of that delivery. All that the Court then decided was that in the case of these houses, forming as they unquestionably did a part of what was known as the town of Gloucester, the Post Office could not depart from its own practice. But the present casewas different. Here the contention was that in the town of Hungerford there was not a single house at which the Post Office was required to deliver letters without being paid for it. Practically, no doubt, it was the Bath case over again; but the Court could not well avoid the general question a second time. The Post Office, in effect, sought to impose a duty; and this, he said it emphatically, the Post Office had not the power to do without the authority of Parliament, which authority had not been given. His mind was perfectly clear that within the limits of a post-town the Post Office was bound to deliver free; but how far these limits should extend was a question upon which he did not feel called upon to express an opinion.
The other judges were equally emphatic. The Post Office had urged in support of its contention that it sometimes happened—as, for instance, at Hartford Bridge—-that the stage or post-house was a single house with no other houses near. There, at all events, as soon as it had deposited the letters at the post house, the Post Office had discharged its duty. And if there, it was asked, why not elsewhere? If, said Mr. Justice Aston, the post house was a single house with no other houses near, the question did not arise; but, in the case, of towns, surely it would not be contended that each individual inhabitant was to resort to the post house every day in order to inquire whether there was a letter for him or not. To demand this penny within the limits of a post town, said Mr. Justice Willes, was contrary to the whole tenor and spirit of the Acts of Parliament; and where the post town was a small one like Hungerford, the demand was far more unreasonable than it would be in the case of London and Westminster. Yet in London and Westminster letters were delivered free. He should pay more regard to the usage of the city of London than to that of fifty such towns as Hungerford. Mr. Justice Ashurst was of opinion that even to usage too much importance might be attached. If it were really the case that at Hungerford, ever since the passing of the Act of Anne, a man living next door to the Post Office had had to pay overand above the postage 1d. for every letter he received, this in his opinion was a bad usage, an usage for which the Act afforded no justification, and the sooner it was laid aside the better.
The decision of the Court burst upon the postmasters-general like a thunderbolt. They had been assured that it would certainly be in the opposite direction; and now, to their dismay, they found themselves face to face with the prospect of, what they called, an universal delivery. What was to be done? The Post Office would be ruined. Of course the Attorney-General would advise an appeal to the House of Lords. As a matter of fact the Attorney-General advised nothing of the sort. Thurlow's private opinion continued to be what it had always been, that the Post Office was not bound to deliver letters beyond the stage or post house. He even went so far as to admit that, if once the Act were construed to require more than that, he knew of no manner of construction that would entitle the postmasters-general to refuse to carry letters into every hole and corner of the kingdom. Still, as two Courts had decided against the Post Office, he regarded it as useless to appeal to the House of Lords, where, no doubt, the opinion of the same judges would be taken and acted on. Then, inquired the postmasters-general, might not a writ of error be brought with a view to hang up the judgment of the Court of King's Bench until the matter should be settled by Parliament. "No," replied Thurlow, "I do not approve a writ of error being brought by an office of revenue avowedly to suspend a question."
Thus ended a controversy which in one form or another had extended over a period of more than two years. The postmasters-general urged indeed that Parliament should be asked to avert what they regarded as little short of a catastrophe; but the recommendation was not adopted, and the decision of the Court was left to take effect.
We have dwelt upon this matter at some length, because it was, in effect, a turning-point in the history of the Post Office. The enterprising spirit of the small towns, theindependence of the judges, and the conspicuous fairness of the Attorney-General, make up no doubt a combination which it is pleasing to contemplate; and yet, if this were all, a shorter notice would have sufficed. It is because the Post Office was now to assume a new character, the character in which it is known to us at the present time, that we have thought it best not to omit any important particular. And how great the change was to be a moment's consideration will shew. Cotton and Frankland had, early in the century, done what little they could to make the Post Office popular. They had lost no opportunity of advocating cheap postage; they had lived among the merchants, and, as far as duty would allow, had consulted their wishes; and within the limits assigned to them had spared no efforts to promote the public convenience. But since then a different spirit had prevailed. By Cotton and Frankland's successors much had been done in restraint of correspondence and nothing, or next to nothing, in promotion of it. The Post Office had become, insensibly perhaps, but none the less surely, a mere tax-gatherer, and, like other tax-gatherers, its policy had been to exact as much and to give as little as possible. All this was now to be altered. An appeal had been made to the Courts; and the Courts in the most deliberate and solemn manner had affirmed this principle—a principle now so universally recognised and acted on as to excite our wonder that it should ever have been otherwise—that the Post Office was to wait upon the people, and not the people upon the Post Office.
It might be supposed that the decision of the Courts would have been immediately followed by the appointment of letter-carriers throughout the country, or else by additions to the salaries of the postmasters in consideration of their undertaking to make a house-to-house delivery gratuitously. Such, however, was not the case. At the towns which had taken a foremost part in the fray—at Hungerford and Sandwich, at Bath, Ipswich, and Birmingham—as well indeed as at other towns which were spirited enough to assert their rights, letter-carriers were no doubt appointed;but there was no sudden and general alteration of practice. On the contrary, the obedience which the Post Office yielded to the law as laid down by the Courts was a tardy and grudging obedience. As much as ten or eleven years later we find the postmasters-general acknowledging indeed the obligation under which they lay to appoint letter-carriers at any towns that might demand it, and yet taking credit to themselves that, as a matter of fact, no such appointments had been made except where the inhabitants had refused to continue the accustomed recompense for delivery.
The Courts of Law were at this time the best friends of the people. No sooner had they decided that every town which possessed a Post Office of its own was entitled to a gratuitous delivery at the door than a somewhat similar question came before them in connection with the penny post. For every letter delivered by the penny post the inhabitants of Old Street, St. Luke's, of St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, of Bethnal Green, and Spitalfields were required to pay an additional penny, that is a penny over and above the one which had been paid on posting; and this they had long regarded as an imposition. According to Dockwra's plan the second or delivery penny was to be confined to Islington, Hackney, Newington Butts, and South Lambeth, which in his day formed separate towns; but in course of time, as buildings extended, the Post Office appears to have exacted the same charge at intermediate places. Jones, a wealthy distiller of Old Street, now determined to try the question. Again the decision of the Courts was against the Post Office, and not only in Old Street, but in Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, and Spitalfields the additional penny had to be abandoned.
While these proceedings were taking place before the Courts, the Post Office had forced upon it a step which, even in those days of indifference, cannot have been taken without a pang. This was the dismissal of its most distinguished servant or rather of its only servant with any claim to distinction, and that of the highest. We refer to Benjamin Franklin. This eminent man had been appointedpostmaster of Philadelphia in 1737, and after being employed in several positions of trust, had been promoted to be one of the joint postmasters-general of America in 1753. He had recently been sent to England with the object of averting war between the mother country and her transatlantic colonies, and, his mission having failed, he was now dismissed. The letter in which the decision was announced was as follows:—
ToDoctor Franklin.
General Post Office,Jan. 31, 1774.Sir—I have received the commands of His Majesty's postmasters-general to signify to you that they find it necessary to dismiss you from being any longer their deputy for America. You will therefore cause your accounts to be made up as soon as you can conveniently.—I am, sir, your most humble servant,Anthony Todd,Secretary.
General Post Office,Jan. 31, 1774.
Sir—I have received the commands of His Majesty's postmasters-general to signify to you that they find it necessary to dismiss you from being any longer their deputy for America. You will therefore cause your accounts to be made up as soon as you can conveniently.—I am, sir, your most humble servant,
Anthony Todd,
Secretary.
Curt as this communication was, it was perhaps the best of which the circumstances admitted. Indeed, we are by no means sure that the terms of it were not arranged with Franklin himself. He was in London at the time. His relations with the Post Office had always been of the most cordial character. He did not, after receiving the letter, cease to visit Lombard Street; and before his return to America he wrote to the Post Office intimating that he would cheerfully become security for his colleague, who, as a consequence of his own dismissal, had to enter into fresh bond. At all events, whether Franklin had any hand in the preparation of the letter or not, the less said the better would seem to have been the opinion of the writer; just as a desire to let bygones be bygones is plainly shewn in the first letter which passed after correspondence was resumed. This letter is a curiosity in its way. It is dated the 25th of June 1783, and, ignoring all that had happened during the preceding seven years, begins as follows:
—
ToDoctor FranklinatParis.General Post Office,June 25, 1783.Dear Sir—I must confess I have taken a long time to acknowledge the last letter you were pleased to write me the 24th of March 1776 from New York. I am happy, however, to learn from my nephew, Mr. George Maddison, that you enjoy good health, and that as the French were about to establish five packet boats at L'Orient, Port Louis, for the purpose of a monthly correspondence between that port and New York, you were desirous of knowing the intentions of England on that subject....—I am, dear sir, with the greatest truth and respect, your most obedient and most humble servant,Anthony Todd.
ToDoctor FranklinatParis.
General Post Office,June 25, 1783.
Dear Sir—I must confess I have taken a long time to acknowledge the last letter you were pleased to write me the 24th of March 1776 from New York. I am happy, however, to learn from my nephew, Mr. George Maddison, that you enjoy good health, and that as the French were about to establish five packet boats at L'Orient, Port Louis, for the purpose of a monthly correspondence between that port and New York, you were desirous of knowing the intentions of England on that subject....—I am, dear sir, with the greatest truth and respect, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Anthony Todd.
In 1780, as part of a Licensing Act, the monopoly of letting post-horses which the Post Office had enjoyed uninterruptedly since 1603 was taken away. It is curious to note that a measure which 177 years before had been deemed essential to the maintenance of the posts was now withdrawn without, so far as we are aware, exciting a murmur; and, by a strange coincidence, at the very time the measure was being withdrawn in the United Kingdom, the deputy postmaster-general of Canada, who had recently arrived in London, was urging upon the Government a similar expedient as an indispensable condition without which the "maîtres de poste" between Quebec and Montreal would be constrained to throw up their appointments. Such is the difference between a new institution and an institution that is well established.
It should here be remarked that with the extinction of this monopoly passed away one of the original functions of the postmasters-general. Hitherto, lightly as the responsibility had rested upon them for the last hundred years or more, they had been masters of the travelling-post as well as the letter-post. For the future they were to be masters of the letter-post alone.
Little remains to be told of the eighteen years of which this chapter treats. In 1782, in consequence of a hint dropped by the Lord Chief Justice in the course of a trial, the Post Office did an eminently useful thing. It issuedan advertisement counselling the public when sending bank notes by post to cut them into two parts and to send one part by one post and another by another. The counsel was adopted, and in an incredibly short space of time the practice became general. In the same year the Post Office servants were disfranchised. By an Act passed in the reign of Queen Anne they were forbidden either to persuade or to dissuade others in the matter of voting; and now they were forbidden to vote themselves. The only point of interest connected with the two Acts is perhaps their termination. While the later Act was repealed in 1868, the earlier one was not repealed until 1874; and meanwhile the postmaster-general sat in the House of Commons and offered himself for election. Little, probably, did he think that for every vote he solicited he rendered himself not only liable to a penalty of £100 but "incapable of ever bearing or executing any office or place of trust whatsoever under Her Majesty, her heirs, or successors."
The internal condition of the Post Office during the last few years of Lord North's administration was simply deplorable. The profits from the sale of newspapers kept growing less and less. The clerks of the roads, after paying the salaries and pensions which formed the first charge on their receipts, had left for themselves the merest pittance. These men, to whom an appeal for help had never been made in vain, were now in sore need of help themselves. The prospect was alarming, for if the clerks of the roads should fail to meet their engagements they would drag down with them a not inconsiderable part of the establishment. It was in 1778, when apprehension was highest, that the Commissioners of Land Tax for the city of London made a new assessment, and suddenly, without a note of warning, every Post Office servant in the metropolis found himself assessed to the land tax to the amount of 4s. in the pound. Not even the letter-carriers or maid-servants were excepted. At this time and during the two or three following years a general bankruptcy was imminent. Eventually the abatements were remitted and the salaries and pensions whichhad been charged to the clerks of the roads were in part transferred to the State; but not before many of the Post Office servants had compounded with their creditors and all had endured the severest privations.
Meanwhile the postmasters from America, ejected from their offices, had been flocking to this country and pleading for pensions on the English establishment. The packets were meeting with a series of disasters so far beyond the experience of former wars as to excite the most hostile comment. During the seven years ending August 1782 no less than thirty-seven were captured by the enemy. Of these four belonged to the Post Office, and sums for that time prodigious were expended to replace them. The others were owned by the captains who commanded them, and the owners received as compensation for their loss the sum of £85,000. Even the fabric of the buildings partook of the general decay. In Edinburgh the Post Office had had to be abandoned at a moment's notice, the arch which supported the main part of the structure having given way. In Dublin the roof had fallen in. In both Dublin and Edinburgh new Post Offices were being erected at heavy expense; while in London search was being made for new premises on the plea that those in Lombard Street were insufficient for present requirements.
To crown all, ugly rumours were afloat, rumours imputing corruption in the highest quarters. The postmasters-general were indeed to be pitied. The Post Office in more senses than one was falling about their ears.
The apathy of the Post Office about this time is incomprehensible. More than twenty years before, the General Convention of the Royal Boroughs of Scotland had called the attention of the postmasters-general to the intolerable slowness of the post on the Great North Road. "Every common traveller," they wrote, "passes the King's mail on the first road in the kingdom." At the present time the clerks of the roads were giving as one of the reasons why they were undersold in the matter of newspapers that, whereas they sent their wares by post, the booksellers and printers availed themselves of the more expeditious conveyance by stage-coach. Yet it seems never to have occurred to the postmasters-general that what was being done by others they might do themselves. The lesson that was lost upon the postmasters-general was to be learnt and applied by John Palmer, proprietor of the theatre at Bath.
Palmer had, while yet at school, been distinguished for a love of enterprise, an indomitable perseverance, and an activity of body which knew no fatigue and set distance at defiance. He had, through sheer persistency, obtained a patent for his theatre at Bath, which thus became the first Theatre-Royal out of the metropolis. At a time when the mail leaving London on Monday night did not arrive at Bath until Wednesday afternoon, he had been in the habit of accomplishing the distance between the two cities in asingle day. He had made journeys equally long and equally rapid in other directions; and, as the result of observation, he had come to the conclusion that of the horses kept at the post-houses it was always the worst that were set aside to carry the mail, and that the post was the slowest mode of conveyance in the kingdom. He had also observed that, where security or despatch was required, his neighbours at Bath who might desire to correspond with London would make a letter up into a parcel and send it by stage-coach,[59]although the cost by stage-coach was, porterage included, 2s. and by post 4d. Not seldom, indeed, the difference would be more than 1s. 8d., for to prevent delay on the part of the porters in London one of these clandestine letters would as often as not have written on the back, "An extra sum will be given the porter if he delivers this letter immediately."
Starting from these premises Palmer, with characteristic energy, set himself to devise a plan for the reform of the Post Office. This plan was simply that the mails—which, to use his own words, had heretofore been trusted to some idle boy without character, mounted on a worn-out hack, who, so far from being able to defend himself against a robber, was more likely to be in league with one—should for the future be carried by coach. The coach should be guarded, and should carry no outside passenger. For guard no one could be better than a soldier, who would be skilled in the use of firearms. He should carry two short guns or blunderbusses, and sit on the top of the coach with the mail behind him. From this position he could command the road and observe suspicious persons. The coachman also should carry arms; but in his case they should be pistols. A speed should be maintained of eight or nine miles an hour. Thus, the distance between London and Bath would, stoppages included, be accomplished insixteen hours instead of thirty-eight; and these stoppages should, in point of time, be largely reduced. As the coach arrived at the end of each stage there would be little more for the postmaster to do than to put into the mail bag the outgoing letters and to take out of the bag the letters that were coming in. Surely a quarter of an hour would be ample for the purpose. He must indeed be an inexpert postmaster who could not change his letters as soon as the ostler changes his horses. Strict punctuality should be observed. Each postmaster should be on the spot and to the moment to receive the mail when it arrived; and if it did not arrive to time, a man on horseback should be despatched to ascertain the cause of delay. This, in the event of the coach having been stopped by highwaymen, would secure immediate pursuit.
And how little would be the cost of the proposed reform. It was doubtful indeed whether there would be any additional cost at all. The mails were now being conveyed at a charge for boy and horse of 3d. a mile. It was certain that men might be found who for this rate of payment would be glad to convey them by coach. Especially would this be the case if the coaches which carried the mails were exempt, as they ought to be, from toll. Between London and Bath, for instance, the toll was, for a carriage and pair, 9s., and for a carriage and four, 18s. Exemption from this impost would of itself be no inconsiderable boon to the contractors. Besides, the speed and security of a mail coach would attract passengers. At all events something, it was clear, must be done. As matters stood it was an intolerable hardship that persons sending letters by coach should be subject to penalties. A coach might go at a time when there was no post; and a letter might require immediate despatch. Yet, rather than make use of the coach and pay half a crown, one was obliged to hire an express, which was less expeditious, at a cost of two or three guineas. Surely, if no other change were made, this at least should be conceded—that any one taking a letter to the Post Officeand paying the proper amount of postage upon it according to its address should, after the letter had been impressed with the postmark and signed by the postmaster, be at liberty to send it by what channel he pleased.
Such were the main features of Palmer's plan. As a subsidiary, though by no means a necessary, part of it he made two suggestions which it may be well to mention, if only because they were afterwards adopted. These were—1st, that the mails, which from the first establishment of the Post Office had not left London until between midnight and three o'clock in the morning, should start at eight in the evening; and 2nd, that they should not be kept waiting for the Government letters when these happened to be late. This keeping the mails waiting for the Government letters had, at the beginning of the century, been a constant source of complaint. "We take this occasion of representing to your Lordship," wrote the postmasters-general to Lord Dartmouth on the 16th of March 1710, "the great inconvenience which happened to the business of this office on Tuesday's night's post by the inland mails having all been detained here till the receipt of the Court letters, which were not brought by the messenger from Whitehall before half-past six on Wednesday morning." A similar letter of remonstrance was at the same time addressed to Mr. Secretary St. John. But, of late years, so profound had been the supineness which reigned at the Post Office that it may, probably enough, have been considered of little consequence whether the mails were delayed or not. Palmer was unable to take this view. To him it appeared in the highest degree improper that, for the sake of a few letters which after all might be of no great importance, the Post Office business of the whole country should be thrown out of gear. Far better, he urged, that the mail should leave at the proper hour, and that these letters, if behind time, should be sent after it by express. A third suggestion he made, a suggestion admirable in itself, and yet one that at that time was little likely to be adopted. This was that the Post Office should take the public into its confidence,and invite them to make known their wants and suggest how best these wants might be supplied.
In October 1782, through the intervention of his friend John Pratt, afterwards Lord Camden, Palmer's plan was brought under the notice of Pitt; and Pitt, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer in the administration of Lord Shelburne, at once discerned its merits. Nothing, however, could be done until the Post Office had had an opportunity of offering its opinion on the matter, and when this opinion was given—which was not until July 1783—Pitt was out of office; and, although he returned to power as minister in the following December, the struggle in which he then became engaged with an unruly Parliament, and afterwards a general election, effectually precluded him from giving attention to the posts until the summer of 1784.
Meanwhile Palmer devoted himself to the perfection of his plan. He traversed the whole of the kingdom by stage-coaches, noting down the time they occupied in accomplishing their journeys, the time they unnecessarily lost, and how they might be better regulated and made serviceable for the transport of the mails. He took the same opportunity of acquainting himself with the course of the post and carefully observed its defects and delays. Nor did he trust to his own exertions alone. In order to test the extent of clandestine traffic, he employed persons to watch the Bath and Bristol coaches as they started for London, and to count the number of parcels which appeared to contain letters. These persons assured him that the number was never less than several hundreds in the week, and in some weeks was as high as 1000.
The office of postmaster-general was at this time held by Lords Carteret and Tankerville. Carteret had only recently been raised to the peerage. Appointed thirteen years before as Henry Frederick Thynne in conjunction with Lord le Despencer, he had, amid the conflict of parties and the fall of successive ministries, contrived to retain his post. Tankerville, on the contrary, had comein and gone out with a change of Government. Called upon to preside over the Post Office in 1782, he had left it in 1783 and had returned in January of the following year. The part which these two peers took in connection with Palmer's plan appears to have been not injudicious. Without expressing any opinion of their own as to its feasibility or otherwise, they contented themselves with collecting and forwarding to Pitt the opinions of such of their subordinates as were presumably qualified to judge. These were the district surveyors, and their verdict was unanimously against the plan. Of the reasons for this judgment a specimen or two will suffice. By one it was objected that there could be no need for the post to be the swiftest conveyance in the kingdom; by another, that to employ firearms for the protection of the mail would encourage their use on the other side, and thus murder might be added to robbery; by a third, that not only did the posts as they stood afford all reasonable accommodation, but it was beyond the power of human ingenuity to devise a better system.
Of these and other objections Pitt made short work. He summoned a conference at the Treasury, at which were present the postmasters-general, Palmer, and the objectors; and having patiently listened to all that could be urged against the plan, he desired that it should be tried on what was commonly called the Bath road, the road between Bristol and London. This conference was held on the 21st of June 1784. On Saturday the 31st of July an agreement was signed under which, in consideration of a payment of 3d. a mile, five innholders—one belonging to London, one to Thatcham, one to Marlborough, and two to Bath—undertook to provide the horses; and on Monday the 2nd of August the first mail-coach began to run.
It is unfortunate that of the early performances of this coach no record remains. We only know that on the first journey it started from Bristol and not from London, and that Palmer was present to see it off; that, ordinarily, thedistance was accomplished in seventeen hours, being at the rate of about seven miles an hour; and that, as a result, the expresses to Bristol, which before 1784 had been as many as 200 in the year, ceased altogether. Ten or twelve years later, indeed, the expresses for the whole of the kingdom were not one-fifth of what, before 1784, was the number for the city of Bristol alone.
Palmer's plan, once introduced, made rapid progress. Mail-coaches began to run through Norfolk and Suffolk in March 1785; and on the cross-road between Bristol and Portsmouth in the following May. On the 25th of July the plan was extended to Leeds, Manchester, and Liverpool, and during the next two months to Gloucester and Swansea; to Hereford, Carmarthen, and Milford Haven; to Worcester and Ludlow; to Birmingham and Shrewsbury; to Chester and Holyhead; to Exeter; to Portsmouth; to Dover and other places. The Great North Road was reserved to the last, and here the plan was carried into effect in the summer of 1786.
It may be convenient here to say a few words on the subject of nomenclature. Post-coach, a term in vogue about this time,[60]might not unnaturally be supposed to denote a coach in use by the Post Office. Such, however, was not the case. The term post-coach, like the kindred term post-chaise, was introduced probably early in the last century, and, so far as we are aware, was never employed in the sense of mail-coach. It should further be noticed that the term mail-coach, although we have employed it to make our meaning clear, did not come into use untilafter 1784. In that year, and for some little time afterwards, coaches which carried the mails were called diligences or machines, and the coachmen were called machine-drivers.
The plan of carrying letters by mail-coach was, on its introduction, sadly marred by a simultaneous or almost simultaneous increase in the rates of postage. Pitt had brought forward his budget on the 30th of June; and among the measures he proposed with a view to replenish an exhausted Exchequer was a tax upon coals. The proposal was not well received by the House, and it was afterwards withdrawn in favour of an increase of postage. Palmer took credit to himself that he had proposed the substitution. If, as would appear to be the case, the claim is well founded, one can only regret that he should thus wantonly have handicapped his own proceedings. It is true, no doubt, that he was about to make the post both quicker and more secure; that he would have a better article to dispose of, an article that would fetch a higher price. It is also true that his plan, weighted as it was, proved an unqualified success. And yet it is impossible to deny that his reputation as a Post Office reformer, high as it stands, would have stood still higher if his counsel had been on the side of reduction.
The rates prescribed by the Act of 1784, as compared with those of 1765, were as follows:—