But it was not exclusively or even mainly to the packet establishment that Walsingham's attention was directed.There was no part of the Post Office with which he did not make himself thoroughly acquainted; and in the course of his investigations nothing struck him more than the pitiable condition of the clerks of the roads. The case of these men had been gradually getting worse and worse. It is true that ten years before a part of the salaries and pensions for which they were responsible had been transferred to the State; but the relief thus afforded had been neutralised and more than neutralised by the decrease which had since taken place in their emoluments from the franking of newspapers. Of these emoluments, indeed, little now remained. In the seventeen years from 1772 to 1789 the notices served upon the Post Office by members of Parliament to send newspapers into the country free had risen from a little more than 2000 to 7000, and the number of newspapers which these 7000 notices covered amounted to no less than 65,760 a week. In the face of such competition the special privilege enjoyed by the clerks of the roads was practically valueless, and Walsingham and Carteret clearly discerned that to compensate them for the loss of their emoluments by an increase of salary was an act dictated no less by justice than policy.
The case indeed was urgent if a catastrophe were to be averted; and Carteret, whose experience led him to believe that the salaries would not be increased with the consent of the Treasury, proposed to increase them without. Walsingham was shocked at the audacity of the proposal, and read his colleague a homily on the constitutional proprieties. "I know," replied Carteret, "we shall have the power of increasing salaries with the consent of the Treasury, but many may starve before that consent comes." Even Walsingham admitted the gravity of the occasion; and with the full knowledge that at this time no representation from the Post Office reached the Treasury which did not come under Pitt's own observation, the two peers, after recommending a substantial measure of relief, concluded their letter thus: "We shall find ourselves compelled, if the present weight of Parliamentary andofficial duties shall make it impossible for your Lordships to give us the authority we request in the course of a week, to take it upon ourselves to issue the money at our own risk, or the persons who are the object of this relief will be unable to attend their duty, and the business of the office will be literally at a stand." Whatever Pitt may have thought of the somewhat unusual terms of this address, he allowed no sign of dissatisfaction to escape him, and the authority sought was given.
As long as Walsingham confined his attention to the packets and the clerks of the roads, there was no danger of a collision with Palmer. Palmer, on the contrary, offered his congratulations to Walsingham on the improvement which he had been instrumental in making in these officers' condition. It was when Walsingham gave an instruction which even indirectly affected the inland posts that Palmer's jealousy was aroused. This he regarded as his own peculiar domain, a domain upon which even the postmasters-general themselves were trespassers; and a trespass or what he considered as such he never lost an opportunity of resenting. The earliest and not the least curious illustration of these pretensions appears in the case of the King's coach. In the summer of 1788 the King repaired to Cheltenham for the purpose of drinking the waters, and Walsingham, who was above all things a courtier, had arranged that during the royal visit a mail-coach should be stationed at that town for the exclusive use of His Majesty. The coach was to be a new one, sent down from London for the occasion, and the leading contractor on the Cheltenham road, one Wilson by name, was to provide the horses. The royal visit at an end, the contractor's bill was sent in, and Palmer, in forwarding it to Walsingham, professed to be extremely dissatisfied with the magnitude of the charge. On the sale of the horses and harness alone, after only a month's use, there had been a loss of £550. "Nothing," he said, "could have been more absurdly or extravagantly conducted." But the thing was done. It would be useless to dispute the payment. Besides, it would "soil the compliment"designed to His Majesty. "We must," he added, "take more care next time, for, had it been properly settled, the loss at most could not have exceeded £300."
The actual arrangement for the coach had been made not through Palmer but through Bonnor, Palmer's lieutenant; and to him Walsingham now applied for further information. Bonnor's reply was a strange compound of candour and insolence. It was indeed not to be wondered at, he said, that his Lordship's indignation should be roused by the magnitude of the bill. Had the matter been left as originally settled under Mr. Palmer's orders, Wilson could never have made so monstrous a claim. By those orders he had been given to understand that, the coach being designed as a mere compliment to the King, not more than 1d. a mile would be allowed at the outside. And "so the undertaking stood 'till your Lordship ordered the circular letter to the horse-keepers respecting Sir George Baker's[63]being accommodated with the mail horses if he had occasion. Your Lordship will recollect that I remonstrated against it, and urged the impossibility of Wilson ever allowing his mail horses to be taken out of his stables for posting, and the regularity of the work destroyed, and the cattle drove along by people he knew nothing of; to which your Lordship was pleased to say that Wilson had no business to trouble his head about that; that, whatever his expenses were, he should be paid; and that no feelings of his about his horses or anything else should prevent the thing being done in the best possible style."... "Thinking as little in the delivery of the message as your Lordship did in sending it that such an advantage would be taken, I of course obeyed the directions, and it seems that this is the ground upon which the charge is made out as it is."
Walsingham was not satisfied, and resolved to contest the bill. Palmer now took alarm, and urged every consideration he could think of to dissuade Walsingham from his purpose. To have recourse to a Court of Law might seriously damage his infant undertaking. A legal disputehad been avoided hitherto, and, with a cunning and refractory set of persons such as the contractors were, might have the effect of raising the present terms of conveyance. These terms were low, lower than the Post Office was likely to obtain again; and the mail-coaches were running smoothly. It would be a thousand pities to introduce an element of disturbance. Besides, how unpleasant it would be to his Lordship to be subpœnaed as a witness; and, in the hands of an expert counsel, how supremely ridiculous the whole business might be made to appear! The King's jaunt with a mail-coach in attendance! For his own part, when he had been unfortunate enough to be imposed upon, he generally found it best to put up with the imposition and to take more care another time. Nor should it be forgotten that the matter might have been much worse. When first he had heard of the arrangement, he had rebuked Bonnor for his extravagance; and Bonnor had produced two letters from his Lordship in justification. These letters shewed not only that no expense was to be spared, but that it had originally been in contemplation to have two coaches, and that it was only owing to Bonnor's earnest expostulation that the idea of a second coach had been given up. Surely it was cause for congratulation that the bill was no higher. Had two coaches been established instead of one, Wilson might have clapped on another £1000. As the bill stood, it was a gross imposition, an imposition which must condemn him in the eyes of all honest men; and yet it would be pure madness to go to law. These arguments prevailed, and Walsingham abandoned his intention of contesting the bill. He did not at this time see, what he saw clearly enough some years later, that in retaliation upon himself for presuming to interfere Wilson had been cajoled or coerced into making an exorbitant demand, and that of the several persons who were concerned in the transaction Wilson himself was the least to blame.
This may be a convenient place to notice a point in which the practice of 1788 differed from that of the presenttime. It was only a few months after his return from Cheltenham that the King was taken with the serious illness which so nearly proved fatal. On the 9th of November the accounts from Windsor were such as to leave little room for hope. On the 10th intelligence reached the Post Office at three o'clock in the afternoon that, contrary to all expectation, the King was still living; and on the 14th a form of prayer was issued, to be used in all churches, for His Majesty's recovery. At the present time a circular of this kind would reach the Post Office already addressed to the persons for whom it was intended, and the Post Office would do nothing more than carry and deliver it like an ordinary letter. But such was not the case in 1788. The form of prayer, as it was issued by the printer, was sent to the Post Office in bulk, and the Post Office despatched fifty copies to the postmaster of each town with instructions to distribute them "with all possible expedition to the rectors, vicars, or resident ministers of your town and all places in your delivery." The point is hardly deserving of mention, for, of course, it would make little difference to the postmaster whether the copies were sent in bulk or as single letters. He would be bound to deliver them in either case. It is more worthy of note that, as the number of Post Offices in England was at this time only 608, and the area subordinate to each of correspondingly wide extent, to go over the whole of his delivery at one time as these instructions obliged the postmaster to do was no slight undertaking, and one which, owing to the paucity of letters, he had probably not been required to perform on any previous occasion. In this instance, however, we may feel sure that a sense of loyalty alone precluded all disposition to murmur. With far other feelings, it may well be believed, was an order regarded which had been issued rather more than thirty years before. The year 1756 was a year of scarcity; and, under direction from Whitehall, postmasters were to frequent the local markets and to ascertain and report the price of corn. This is the first instance on record of postmasters havingbeen employed outside their own proper duties as such. It may be added that two years later the Duke of Newcastle sent down in hot haste to Lombard Street to inquire the latest prices, when it was explained to His Grace that, despite the course which had been adopted in 1756, the Post Office was not an office for the collection of agricultural returns.
It is a common practice to laugh at public offices for their rigid adherence to routine. This, we think, is not quite reasonable. No doubt it is calculated to excite ridicule, and indeed to irritate beyond all endurance when a course obviously proper in itself is condemned because, forsooth, there is no precedent for it; and we are by no means sure that some public servants would not be all the better for taking to heart the maxim—Wise men make precedents, only fools require them. But, without the order and regularity which a strict adherence to routine can alone produce, the business of a Government department must inevitably drift into a state of hopeless confusion. This is a truth which persons outside the public service have always found it hard to accept; as well indeed as persons inside who have entered late in life or after their habits are formed. Palmer was of the latter class; and a striking instance now occurred of his inability to adapt himself to the requirements of his new situation. Walsingham had asked whether the surveyors were keeping their journals regularly. These officers, besides a small salary, were now receiving an allowance of one guinea a day when travelling; and not only was a journal indispensable in order to shew whether they had been travelling or not, but the keeping of one had been made an express condition of the allowance being given. No subordinate cared to pass on the inquiry to Palmer, implying, as this might seem to do, a doubt. Walsingham had no such scruple and wrote to Palmer asking that the journals might be sent to him for examination. Palmer's reply will explain how it is that the records which now exist respecting himself and his achievements are so surprisingly few. There were nojournals, he said. The surveyors' own letters, with their bills of expenses attached, were sufficient evidence of the journeys they had made. And these bills and letters, he added, as soon as the charges which they represent have been paid, "are and must be useless paper, for if I did not constantly clear my office both of their as well as my own and the other officers' rubbish, I should be buried under it." The auditors of the imprests had recently made good progress, but, fortunately for the Post Office, they were still many years in arrear.[64]
Among Walsingham's correspondents was George Chalmers, a merchant of Edinburgh. Chalmers was no mere maker of crude and impracticable suggestions. He had thirty years before been instrumental in shortening the course of post between Edinburgh and London. Before 1758 the Great North Mail, as it was called, went three days a week and occupied eighty-seven hours in going from London to Edinburgh, and 131 hours in going from Edinburgh to London. Thus, a mail leaving Edinburgh at twelve at night on Saturday did not reach London until eleven o'clock on Friday morning. Chalmers, in a paper of singular ability, dwelt upon the absurdity of the various detentions, ranging from three hours at Berwick to twenty-four hours at Newcastle, which made the course of post longer by nearly two days in one direction than in the other, and shewed how, by avoiding these unnecessary delays and getting rid of a diversion of twelve miles to York, the distance might be accomplished between London and Edinburgh in eighty-two hours, and between Edinburgh and London in eighty-five. The plan was adopted, and some years later, in recognition of its merits, Chalmers received from the Government a gratuity of £600. More recently he had prevailed upon the Post Office to increase from three to six days a week the service between London and Edinburgh, and from Edinburgh to the principal townsin Scotland; and in London, at his suggestion, the letter-carriers who collected letters by the sound of bell, or bellmen as they had begun to be called, were being employed after nine o'clock at night.
It was not, therefore, as a novice in Post Office matters that Chalmers now entered into correspondence with Walsingham. His present representation was in the nature partly of a suggestion and partly of a complaint. He had been staying some time in London, and was surprised to find that at the capital of the first commercial nation in the world the Post Office closed as early as seven o'clock in the evening. He contended that it ought not to close before ten. But it was in respect to his own native city of Edinburgh that he felt and expressed himself most warmly. Edinburgh was without a penny post. He was himself an old man or he would undertake to farm one, although, in his judgment, the farming of such an institution, until at least it was well established, was not for the public interests. But surely, whether farmed or not, a penny post should be opened without delay, and on his return to Edinburgh he would let Walsingham know how this could best be done. Nor was the want of such a convenience by any means the chief thing of which the inhabitants of Edinburgh had to complain. Since 1758 their post had not gone out until eight o'clock at night. Now, to suit Palmer's arrangements, it went out at half-past three in the afternoon; and, more than this, the diversion to York, which it had cost such pains to get rid of some thirty years before, had been revived. Thus, between Edinburgh and London the course of post was actually longer now than before the introduction of mail-coaches by as much as five hours. Were a little more consideration to be given to the correspondence of the country and a little less to the convenience of passengers, more than these five hours might be saved. At all events the mails might start from Edinburgh at eight o'clock as before, and from London at ten, and yet arrive at their destination no later than now. For himself, he thought it hardly decent that passengersshould be allowed to travel by the same coaches as the mails, and predicted that a time would come when the mails would have coaches to themselves. Much of this, Chalmers added, he had pointed out to Palmer some time before, and the only result was an angry letter which had terminated a friendship of years. Even as he now wrote, another letter had come to hand in which Palmer told him, almost in so many words, to mind his own business.
Walsingham was at this time at Old Windsor. Hither it was his habit to repair whenever he had anything of more than ordinary interest to engage his attention; and such was the case at the present moment. He had recently had lent to him, under a pledge of the strictest secrecy, a copy of the Report of the Royal Commission which had sat upon the Post Office in the preceding year; and this Report he was now having copied under his own eye with a view to the preparation of an elaborate criticism upon it. But though absent from London he relaxed not his hold upon the Post Office for a single moment. Each morning's post brought to Lombard Street its own budget of drafts, to be written out fair, of questions to be answered, of scoldings to be given, and of instructions to heads of departments in the minutest details of their duty. Walsingham absent was a far more important personage than Carteret present; and a mandate from Old Windsor superseded any that might be given on the spot. It was while Walsingham was thus engaged that he received one morning from Palmer a few hurried lines, of which the last were as follows: "You ought not, meaning as well as you do, to be unpopular anywhere. Nor must you. You fret me now and then, tho' you don't intend it, and I am angry with myself for it." A visit from Palmer on the following morning, especially as that morning was Sunday, was little calculated to lessen the surprise with which Walsingham must have read this letter. The truth is that Palmer had repaired to Windsor with the intention of resigning his appointment; but the courteous reception he met withfrom Walsingham disconcerted his plan, and he returned to London as he had come, with the letter of resignation in his pocket.
The reasons which Palmer afterwards gave for his conduct on this occasion throw a flood of light upon his character. These reasons were: 1st, That Walsingham was ready to listen to proposals for improving the Post Office, come from what quarter they might, thus leaving it to be inferred, as Palmer put it, either that he was himself incompetent to effect improvements or else that there was a sinister design to detract from his reputation. 2nd, That from himself, though vitally interested in its contents, a report was being kept which clerks from his own office had been sent down to Windsor to copy. 3rd, That the same feeling of distrust was evidenced in the constant pressure which was being put upon him to require the surveyors to keep journals. How hollow these reasons were, a very little consideration will shew. In the course of the correspondence with Chalmers, on which the first of Palmer's reasons was obviously founded, Walsingham had been careful to state that, while ready to consider proposals for establishing a penny post in Edinburgh, he must decline to interfere with any of Palmer's arrangements. The second reason, though more plausible, was the merest pretext. Not a month before, with the full knowledge of what was going on at Windsor, Palmer had offered to send down, if required, the whole of his office to assist. And more than this. Although Walsingham could not in honour disclose a document which had been lent to him under a pledge of secrecy, Palmer must have been perfectly well acquainted with so much of the Report of the Royal Commission as dealt with his own undertaking, for it is beyond all question that this part of the Report had been written by himself. There was no other man living who was capable of writing it; and even if there had been, the opinions, the recommendations, the mode of expression, the disparagement of Ralph Allen, all of which are common to the Report and Palmer's private writings, unmistakably betray the author. Thethird reason requires little remark. Walsingham would have neglected his obvious duty if he had not taken steps to establish some check upon the travelling expenses claimed by the surveyors; and the experience of the hundred years which have since elapsed has failed to devise any better check than the journal. The keeping of the journal, moreover, had been an express condition imposed by the Treasury when the allowance of a guinea a day was authorised.
Walsingham treated Palmer on this occasion with great kindness. Rightly judging that jealousy was at the root of the whole matter, he followed up the conversation which had taken place at Windsor by a letter, in which he exhorted Palmer to speak out, to declare his sentiments freely, and to dismiss idle apprehensions. Then came a full statement from Palmer, written, as he expressly declared, "not as a justification but as an apology for my suspicions," and explaining the object and the motives of his visit on the preceding Sunday. "Your habits are not my habits," he concluded; "I would give a great deal for but a part of your correctness and inveterate attention to business and accounts." Walsingham's reply, which came by return of post, was an invitation to dinner. Palmer accepted it, and the courteous and hearty welcome he received called forth his warmest acknowledgments.
The duty of the mail guards, as their title implies, was to guard and protect the mails. This body of men, as it existed during the first forty or fifty years of the present century, was one of which the Post Office might well be proud. The very nature of their employment engendered in them a habit of self-reliance and an independence of character which invested them with a peculiar interest. But it was not always so. When mail-coaches were first established, Palmer had it in contemplation to employ retired soldiers as mail guards, on the ground that soldiers would be accustomed to firearms; but constitutional objections prevailed and the contractors who furnished the mail-coaches with horses were required also to furnish firearmsarms and the men to use them. The result was not satisfactory. For economy's sake men were employed of little or no character, and the weapons with which they were supplied were of the most worthless description. More than worthless, they were dangerous. "Cheap things;" they were declared to be, "that burst and often did mischief." Accordingly, at Palmer's suggestion, the Post Office undertook to appoint its own mail guards. Honest and faithful as these men always were, it was only by degrees that they grew into the fine body they afterwards became. At first the novelty of their position led them into little excesses such as were never heard of in later years. Thus, a statute passed in 1790 imposed a penalty of 20s. on any mail guard who should fire off the arms with which he was entrusted for any other cause than the protection of the mail; and even this enactment appears to have been insufficient to correct the abuse against which it was directed. "These guards," writes Pennant two years later, "shoot at dogs, hogs, sheep, and poultry as they pass the road; and even in towns, to the great terror and danger of the inhabitants."[65]
It must not be supposed, because Palmer's name is associated with the establishment of mail-coaches, that to these his attention was exclusively confined. In virtue of his appointment as comptroller-general he exercised control, subject of course to the postmasters-general, over the whole of the Post Office, the offices of account excepted; and he now took advantage of this position to create a newspaper office. Newspapers had long been a source of trouble. By the clerks of the roads they were not only posted in good time but were tied up in bundles, covered with strong brown paper, and addressed to the postmasters of the respective towns, who took out the contents and had them delivered. So long as the newspapers were thus dealt with, no inconvenience resulted from their being mixed up with letters; but from the moment that the distributionpassed into the hands of the printers and dealers the case was different. The newspapers were now posted at the last moment, and, being clumsily folded and still wet from the printing press, they damaged and defaced the addresses of the letters with which they came in contact in the mail bags. The inconvenience had been tolerated for years. As early as 1782 the postmasters-general had contemplated the creation of a newspaper office, an office in which newspapers might be dealt with separately from letters, but nothing had been done. Palmer now took the matter in hand and carried it through with his usual vigour. Having satisfied himself that a separate office was necessary, he forthwith established one, appointed to it eighteen sub-sorters and fixed their wages; and not even the postmasters-general were aware of what he was doing until it was done.[66]
Such an instance of energy, worthy as we may think it of imitation, would be impossible on the part of any one who had been brought up in the public service, because he would have learnt that no wages can be fixed or new offices created without the consent of the Treasury. In the Post Office, too, the postmasters-general alone were legally competent to make appointments. But to Palmer these were the merest trifles, if indeed he gave them a thought. To create a newspaper office was a right thing to do, and he had done it; and to haggle about the circumstances of the doing appeared to him sheer pedantry. Not so thought Walsingham. It ill accorded with his sense of propriety that a number of new places should have been created without the requisite authority which the Treasury alone could give; but that to these places, whether authorised or not, a subordinate should have presumed to make appointments—a power which by the postmaster-generals' patent was vested in themselves alone—struck him as little short of an outrage.
Unfortunately for Palmer, another irregularity on his part came to light at the same time. The mail guards' wages had been fixed at 13s. a week; but of this sum Palmer paid only 10s., retaining the balance for the purpose of providing uniforms, pensions, and an allowance during sickness. Again, the plan was excellent; but it was unauthorised, and had the effect of leaving in Palmer's hands, without any means of checking it, a sum of liberated money amounting to about £900 a year.
Walsingham now called upon Palmer to give the details of his plan, with a view to its being properly authorised, and to submit the names of those whom he had appointed to the newspaper office, so that their appointments might be confirmed. Palmer would do neither the one nor the other. Walsingham persisted in his demand, and Palmer persisted in his refusal. No course remained but to submit the matter for Pitt's decision; and Pitt decided in Walsingham's favour. Palmer, said the minister, had the power of suspending Post Office servants but not of appointing them, although the postmasters-general, it might well be believed, would consent as a matter of favour to accept his nominations. Pitt also agreed that the mode of dealing with the mail guards' wages was highly irregular. The decision of the minister was communicated to Palmer, but it had not the slightest effect upon his conduct. The mail guards' wages continued to be dealt with as before; and the appointments to the newspaper office remained unconfirmed.
Pitt's decision was not given until the autumn of 1789; and meanwhile other matters had occurred to strain the relations between Walsingham and Palmer. Chief among these was Walsingham's inveterate habit of scribbling. Both men were endowed with an amount of energy which nothing could repress; but while Palmer expended himself by rushing from one part of the country to another as fast as horses could carry him, Walsingham's sphere of activity was restricted to writing. And well he exemplified thelaw that force asserts itself in proportion to the limits within which it is confined. His notes and questions were literally endless. At one time all the ingenuity of Lombard Street, with the assistance of erasers and acids, is being exercised to remove remarks he has written upon a document which, not being the property of the Post Office, had to be returned. At another, he has sent for a blank form of contract, of which only a single copy remains in the Office. "I implore your Lordship," writes the sender, "to let me have it back, and that the margin may not be written on." Palmer, to whom pens, ink, and paper were an abomination, would think nothing of posting a hundred miles and more to avoid the necessity of writing a letter; and by Bonnor, Palmer's lieutenant, who always aped his master as far as he dared, answers to the questions put to him would be withheld altogether or reserved for the next Board meeting. "I can perceive," wrote Todd to Walsingham about this time, "you are hurt that neither Mr. Palmer nor Mr. Bonnor pay a proper regard to your many observations."
Another matter occurred at this time which, while only indirectly affecting Palmer, was not calculated to promote harmonious relations. Bonnor, who had sent some accounts to Windsor for Walsingham's signature, wrote two or three days later, urging that they might be signed and returned at once, and giving as a reason the importunity of the letter-carriers. "What these poor oppressed creatures will do," he said, "I know not. They all came in a body this morning and gave a most affecting description of the distresses with which their wives and families laboured, their credit exhausted, not a shilling to buy bread, and each having between £30 and £40 of hard-earned wages due to them from a public office whose revenues are every day increasing." This struck Walsingham as very strange. The letter-carriers were paid by weekly wages; and what, over and above their wages, they had earned for extra duty should also have been paid weekly. Besides, the accounts had been in his hands for only two or three days, whereasfor the last twelve months and more he had been pressing for their production, and had only now succeeded in getting them.
There was a mystery somewhere, and, as the best means of solving it, Walsingham called for the vouchers. Bonnor now lost himself in excuses. The vouchers were essential to his reputation. He could not part with them. If once they left his hands, they might be lost. It could not but be known to his Lordship how often this had happened with official papers passing to and fro. Besides, to inspect the vouchers would be to pry into his private concerns. This was enough for Walsingham, and he directed the accountant-general to look into the matter forthwith. The examination revealed a curious state of things. The amounts which the letter-carriers had earned for extra duty had not been paid for a whole year, and a part of the money which had been issued for that purpose had been applied to the payment of the persons irregularly appointed to the newspaper office. More than this. The accounts shewed, or professed to shew, that during the last eighteen months the mail-coach contractors had received in payment of their services the sum of £20,000; but the receipts for more than £16,000 of this amount bore no dates, and others were signed by Bonnor himself. "Signed," to use his own words, "by myself for money paid by myself to myself." In short, the so-called vouchers were no vouchers at all. Bonnor now made an apology, which, in point of abjectness, has probably seldom been equalled; and Walsingham, unwilling to force matters to extremities, let him off with a sound dressing. This disclosure did not tend to restore either harmony or confidence. Palmer, it is true, gave no heed to accounts; but Bonnor was under his protection, and Palmer resented a censure upon his lieutenant and friend even more than a censure upon himself.
We doubt whether in England a public department has often been in so singular a position as that which the Post Office occupied during the six months beginning withSeptember 1789. Carteret had been dismissed;[67]and Westmorland, Carteret's successor, whose patent had been delayed owing to the absence of the law officers from London, had not even entered upon his duties as postmaster-general before he wrote to announce his appointment as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. Meanwhile Palmer resolutely withheld obedience from the orders of his chiefs, backed though those orders were by the minister; and Walsingham was powerless to act. Minutes indeed he prepared by the score, proposing the most drastic measures; but Carteret refused to sign because he was on the point of going out, and Westmorland refused to sign because he had only just come in, and had no intention of remaining. Walsingham's signature alone carried no legal force. It was not until the following March, the March of 1790, that the office of postmaster-general was again properly filled by the appointment of Lord Chesterfield as Walsingham's colleague.
At the risk of interrupting the course of our narrative we cannot refrain from mentioning here in its chronological order memorial which was at this time received fromcertain merchants of the city of London trading with foreign parts. This memorial, or rather the counter-memorial to which it gave rise, is interesting if only as serving to shew that the conservative instinct—an indisposition to change, is not confined to public offices. The delivery of inland letters had been recently expedited; but foreign letters continued to be delivered as of old. Lest the practice in the case of these letters should seem to be overstated, we give it in the memorialists' own words. "It is the practice of the Post Office," they write under date the 20th of January 1790, "if a mail does not arrive before one o'clock to withhold the delivery of the letters till the next day, and even to protract the delivery till after the same hour the succeeding day, provided any other mail be expected or due. This happening on a Saturday (a case by no means uncommon), the letters are kept back till the Monday, when three other mails being due, and they not arriving perhaps till the stipulated hour of one, the delivery of the mail which arrived on Saturday is not made till between three and four o'clock on the Monday and sometimes later. Thus the advice of property shipt to a great amount on which insurances should immediately have been made, the receipt of remittances on which the credit of many persons may depend, and the general information so essential in commercial affairs are cruelly withheld for upwards of fifty hours without the least apparent necessity." The remedy which the memorialists proposed was moderate enough. They asked nothing more than that, in the case of mails arriving before four o'clock in the afternoon, letters might be given out to persons who should call at the Post Office for them in two or three hours after the mail had come in, such as were not called for being, at the expiration of that interval, sent out by letter-carrier; and that, in the case of mails arriving after four o'clock, the letters might be delivered at ten o'clock on the following morning.
The unfortunate merchants who signed this memorial little bethought themselves of the storm they were raising. Other merchants, also trading with foreign partsand more numerous than those who advocated an earlier delivery, put forward a counter-memorial strongly protesting against any change. The custom of postponing until the following day the delivery of all foreign letters arriving at the Post Office after one o'clock was, they said, a wise custom, a "custom recommended by our ancestors," and one that could not be altered save to their own great prejudice. The original memorial had been studiously kept from themselves, and "this most extraordinary proceeding" they could only ascribe to a well-founded apprehension on the part of the promoters that otherwise the impropriety of the "novelty" which they sought to introduce would be exposed. The remonstrants added that many and cogent reasons might be given in support of the existing usage; but, unhappily, they omitted to state what these reasons were. Doubtless, however, jealousy lest others should obtain priority of information was at the bottom of the protest; although it is not very clear how, under a regulation that was to be common to all, any one in particular would enjoy an undue advantage.
The Post Office, unassisted in this instance by Palmer, declared the change to be, if only on account of want of space, impossible. The average number of letters arriving by each foreign mail were at this time—from France 2500, from Holland 2000, and from Flanders 1500, or 6000 altogether. At the present day, when as many as 500 sacks full of letters come by a single mail, and several mails may arrive simultaneously, 6000 letters more or less make little appreciable difference. One hour at most is enough for three men to sort them. But in 1790 the office in which the foreign letters were sorted possessed but a single table and a single alphabet or sorting rack.
Although want of space was the ostensible reason for refusing an earlier delivery, there was another, not avowed indeed, and yet which, there can be no doubt, materially influenced the decision. This will be best explained in the words of the comptroller of the foreign letter department. "The delivery of foreign letters," writes this officer toWalsingham, "is so complicated withthe secret office[68]that any alteration will deserve the most serious consideration when you come to the Board."
It would hardly excite surprise if Chesterfield, on entering upon his duties in Lombard Street, had fallen under the influence of a colleague who, besides being possessed of a strong will, had had some years' experience in Post Office administration; but, as a matter of fact, he does not appear to have surrendered his private judgment. On one point, indeed, he took a view somewhat different from Walsingham. Walsingham regarded Palmer, in so far as he withheld obedience from the postmaster-generals' orders, as simply an insubordinate servant. To Chesterfield, on the contrary, Palmer was an object of no common interest. That two peers of large social influence, deriving their authority direct from the Crown, and to some extent supported by the minister, should be held in check by one man, and that man a subordinate, was an incongruity which struck Chesterfield's imagination. It amused him. It interested him. He could not withhold his meed of admiration from the masterful spirit which fought single-handed against long odds, and not always without success. The very terms Chesterfield employed, while implying a consciousness of defeat, implied also a certain amount of homage to the victor. It was always as "our Master," "our Dictator," "our Tyrant" that he referred to Palmer; and it is difficult to believe that a man who could thus playfully express himself would have proved implacable.
For ourselves, we have little doubt that, if at this time Palmer had demeaned himself with only moderate reserve, all might yet have been well; but it must be admitted that, from now till the end of his official career, his conduct wasstrangely aggressive. We have already seen how he made appointments to the newspaper office without reference to the postmasters-general, and how, in their despite, he retained in his own hands a considerable balance arising out of deductions from the mail guards' wages. He now went further. He declined to attend the Board meetings: he not only omitted but refused to answer inquiries which the postmasters-general addressed to him; he persistently withheld the surveyors' journals, if, indeed, he had required journals to be kept; he claimed to make contracts and to introduce what measures he pleased without the postmasters-general being so much as consulted; and because Walsingham and Chesterfield would not admit the claim, he suffered the contracts to expire, and the mail-coaches were run on mere verbal agreements. "Except the warrants we have signed," wrote the postmasters-general in October 1790, "there is no record whatever in our possession of any of Mr. Palmer's proceedings since his appointment."
From disobedience Palmer proceeded to defiance. We will give instances. The proprietors of the mail-coach between Carlisle and Portpatrick had demanded payment at the rate of 2d. a mile, and Palmer had agreed to the demand. This was just double the usual rate, and the postmasters-general, fearing that if given on one road it could not be refused on another, determined, before signing the warrant presented for payment, to obtain Treasury authority. Palmer, knowing that delay would thus be caused, protested that no such authority was necessary, and, in order to enforce his protest, stopped four mail-coaches, for which was being paid more than the usual allowance of 1d. a mile, namely, the coach to Falmouth, the coach to Bristol, the coach to Plymouth, and the coach to Portsmouth—coolly informing the postmasters-general that he had done so "under the idea that appears to influence their Lordships, that paying a higher rate to the proprietors on one road might induce others to make a similar demand." He next inquired whether the postmasters-general were to be understood as preferring a cart to the mail-coach, even though a cart should be themore expensive of the two. As nothing had been said about a cart, the postmasters-general remarked that this could only be meant for insult. Insult! rejoined Palmer, he was as little capable of offering an insult as he was of putting up with one; and then he proceeded to charge the postmasters-general with the grossest partiality. The postmasters-general had increased the salary of the postmaster of Tewkesbury beyond what Palmer conceived to be necessary. He denounced the transaction as extraordinary and ill advised, and, while himself professing to believe that it proceeded only from motives of benevolence, expressed his conviction that others would regard it as "a job." Smuggled goods had been found in the mail-box of the Dover coach; and coach, horses, and harness had, in consequence, been seized by the Commissioners of Customs. The same man who, in order to force a decision, had stopped four mail-coaches in a single morning, now rated the postmasters-general soundly because they did not at once and without inquiry take steps to get the Commissioners' proceedings reversed. "The comptroller-general," wrote Palmer on another occasion, "has informed their Lordships of his motives for not answering several of the postmaster-generals' minutes, which he trusts cannot but be satisfactory to them. The same reasons will prevent him from answering any others their Lordships may send but such as appear to him absolutely necessary."
But the particular case which brought matters to a climax was connected with Scotland. Palmer had sent two officers to Edinburgh, not to promote the conveyance of mails by coach, but to reform the internal management of the Scotch Post Office; and these officers had given orders for various changes to be made. Robert Oliphant was at this time deputy postmaster-general for Scotland, and from him alone, according to the terms of his commission, were Post Office servants in Scotland to receive instructions. It was by mere accident that the postmasters-general heard of the proceedings of Palmer's agents in Edinburgh, and, as soon as they did so, they wrote to Oliphant desiring thatthe proposed changes might be suspended until he had reported his opinion upon them and received authority from London for carrying them into effect. They at the same time wrote to Palmer, sending him a copy of their letter to Oliphant, and giving him to understand that he had exceeded his powers.
Palmer now threw off all restraint. He charged the postmasters-general with superseding his commission; he cautioned them against further interference with his regulations, and he appealed to the minister, to whom alone he declared himself to be responsible. It was true, he said, that he was nominally responsible to the postmasters-general, but, except for a legal difficulty connected with the constitution of the Post Office, he would have received an independent appointment. His commission had been made out as it stood merely as a matter of present necessity; and that in such circumstances they should venture to supersede it appeared to him a hasty and ill-advised measure—a measure not consistent with the judgment and temper which usually guided their proceedings. He had a profound veneration for the nobility of the country, and he could give no stronger proof of it than by stating that he still retained his respect and esteem for them in spite of their unhandsome conduct. The more he reflected on this conduct, the more he was struck at the haste and violence of it. Was it reasonable to suppose that he would consent to carry out his plan in trammels and fetters, and, liable as the postmasters-general were to change, to submit his regulations to them to be checked and controlled? The considerations for which he had received his appointment were twofold—for the good he had done in the past, and for the good he might do in the future. "When, therefore," he continued, "your Lordships from mistake or ill-advice shall send me any commands that I think may go to mischief instead of good, I shall most certainly not observe them; and if I apprehend ill consequences from any you may think proper to send to any of the officers under me, I shall take the liberty, for your Lordships'sake as well as my own and the public's, to contradict them."
It was impossible that this state of things should continue. Palmer had appealed to Cæsar; and to Cæsar he should go. Such at least was the postmaster-generals' intention, and they so far carried it into effect as to state their case in writing; but an interview with the minister, though solicited over and over again, the minister always found some excuse for declining. "We shall wait with the utmost impatience to hear from you that you have found a leisure moment when we may wait upon you to explain the nature of the question between Mr. Palmer and us." "The postmasters-general," they wrote again after a long interval, "present their compliments to Mr. Pitt. He will see by the enclosed copy of a minute from Mr. Palmer how totally the business of this Office must stand still, as far as respects the comptroller-general's department, till they can have the honour of seeing Mr. Pitt." And again, a fortnight later, "the postmasters-general present their compliments to Mr. Pitt, and take the liberty to remind him of the comptroller-general's two last minutes, and desire to have the honour of waiting upon him on Wednesday next at any hour he may be pleased to appoint previous to their holding their usual Board."
But all to no purpose. The truth is that Pitt was heartily tired of these unhappy dissensions. Palmer was doing, and doing admirably, the task which he had set himself to do. He might not indeed be all that could be desired. His conduct might be masterful and his pretensions absurd. Yet much allowance was to be made for a man who had undertaken a difficult business, and whose efforts had been crowned with success. And lamentable as the dissensions might be, there was no certainty that interference would effect a reconciliation. On the contrary, it might serve only to widen the breach, and, to judge from the past, this was the more likely result. And should the breach prove irreparable and a decision have to be given against the reformer who haddone so much for his country, and from whom yet more was expected, it would be little short of a disaster. Better that matters should remain as they were than incur such a risk. We can well believe that some such considerations as these influenced Pitt in avoiding an interview; and doubtless he was confirmed in his decision by what he learned from another quarter. Palmer was a friend of Camden's, and Camden was a friend of Pitt's. To this common friend Palmer gave his own version of the differences between himself and his chiefs; and this version, which was altogether different from the one which the postmasters-general gave, was studiously impressed upon Pitt to their prejudice.
Thus matters stood when, early in 1792, in consequence of some discrepancies in the accounts, the postmasters-general determined that letters for the city by the first or morning delivery should be checked. Care had been taken that the check should not be of a nature to retard the delivery; and yet, strangely enough, the delivery became later and later every day. At length a public advertisement appeared inviting the merchants and traders to meet at the London Tavern on Wednesday the 15th February in order to consider the subject. The meeting was held under the presidency of Alderman Curtis, one of the members of Parliament for the city; and strong resolutions were passed directing the postmaster-generals' attention to the delay, and calling upon them to explain and remove the cause.
Charles Bonnor, the deputy comptroller-general, owed all he possessed to Palmer. It was by Palmer that he had been brought into the Post Office in July 1784, and the same influence procured for him shortly afterwards a salary of £500 and an allowance of £150 a year for a house. Warm in his attachments as he was fierce in his animosities, the great reformer extended to Bonnor a confidence which probably no other man possessed, and during his frequent absences from London kept up with him a correspondence in which he poured out his inmost thoughts. This person, stung with jealousy at some fancied coolnesson Palmer's part, now published a pamphlet in which he charged his friend and benefactor with wilfully delaying the delivery of the morning letters, and then promoting the meeting at the London Tavern in order to protest against a mischief of his own making. According to Bonnor, Palmer had spared no effort to induce persons to attend the meeting, and had furnished Alderman Curtis, the chairman, with materials for denouncing the Post Office. All this, it was alleged, had been done in order to bring the postmasters-general into discredit, and to create a demand that Palmer might have larger powers given him and be left to deal with Post Office matters according to his unfettered judgment.
The postmasters-general were overwhelmed with astonishment. At first they could not bring themselves to believe that the pamphlet was authentic, and it was not until they had been reassured on this point that they began to make inquiries. Palmer, of course, denied the charge, and Bonnor reaffirmed it. Meanwhile the resolutions passed at the London Tavern had been sent to the Post Office; and the postmasters-general, not knowing what to believe, simply referred them to Palmer, with a request that he would explain the cause of the late delivery. Palmer's reply shews the frame of mind he was in. "The cause of the late delivery," he answered, "as well as every other existing abuse in the Post Office, arises from the comptroller-general not having sufficient authority to correct it." The postmasters-general naturally inquired in what respects his authority was insufficient to prevent the late delivery, and to what other abuses he referred. Palmer, without specifying what these abuses were, replied that among the causes which had produced them were "an unfortunate difference in opinion, and an equally unfortunate interference in his office"; and then he proceeded to ask for larger powers, which the postmasters-general, consistently with the terms of their patent, were unable to give.
A few days later Palmer did that which should perhaps have been done before. He suspended Bonnor. The postmasters-generalalso took action, but at the very moment when it might have been better if they had remained passive. They inquired the reason of Bonnor's suspension, and Palmer returned no reply. After waiting a week, the postmasters-general decided that, as no reason had been given, the suspension must be taken off; and Bonnor was directed to resume duty. On presenting himself for this purpose, however, Palmer refused to give up the key of his room, and sent him word that, if he dared to come to the Office again, the constables would have orders to turn him off the premises. The postmasters-general had put themselves in a false position. If their intention was to try conclusions with Palmer, they had selected the worst possible ground. Their only choice now was between submitting to defiance of their authority and supporting a worthless subordinate against his illustrious chief. They elected the latter alternative; and the suspension which had been imposed upon Bonnor was transferred to Palmer.
An interview with the minister had now become indispensable; and at length, but not without a great deal of pressure, Pitt fixed the 2nd of May for the purpose. Chesterfield was at Bath, slowly recovering from an attack of the gout. He was reluctant to leave his colleague unsupported on the occasion; and yet for a man who was still far from well it was a long and tedious journey to London. Should he go or should he not? A decision could not be longer delayed, as the 1st of May had already arrived. He ordered horses to be put to his carriage, then he countermanded them, then he changed his mind again, and finally, in response to a sudden twinge of the gout, he finally abandoned his journey, and determined to write to Walsingham a letter such as he might shew.
Chesterfield, unlike Walsingham, wrote a beautiful hand, a hand that was clear and easy to read; but on this particular occasion, in order that Pitt might have no excuse for not reading the letter, he wrote more clearly and legibly than usual. He had—thus the letter ran—been in fifty minds whether he should not repair to London and take part inthe interview with Pitt; but he was still so lame that he durst not venture on so long a journey. His desire to be present had not indeed been prompted by the slightest doubt as to what Walsingham would do or say. On the contrary, he had the fullest confidence that his colleague would strictly adhere to the resolution which they had adopted, that on no consideration could Palmer remain with them at the Post Office. This resolution the experience which they had gained since his suspension had served to strengthen, for how much better and with how much greater regularity had they gone on since they had in fact as well as in name been postmasters-general. All this would doubtless be pressed upon Pitt, and, should he waver in the least, he must be informed of their ultimatum, which nothing could make them change. If, contrary to expectation, they should be driven to that option, they must be satisfied to retire from an office where they had done their duty and could do it no longer. To the full extent of the resolution they went hand in hand to Pitt, and this point could not be pressed upon him too strongly. Should he begin to propose any middle measures, Walsingham should stop him at once. It would be disgraceful to listen to them. "Our resolution once taken, no power, no persuasion, no influence ought to shake it, and I am confident nothing will."
Walsingham waited upon the minister at the appointed time. Pitt received him courteously indeed, but coldly. Walsingham stated his case. Pitt said little, but that little clearly shewed that his leanings were in Palmer's favour. Palmer had done good service to the public. Was it impossible that he should be restored to duty? Or, much having been alleged and nothing proved, might not a court of inquiry be held by which the questions at issue between him and his chiefs should undergo a thorough and impartial investigation? After these and other questions had been put and answered, Walsingham produced Chesterfield's letter. Pitt read it from beginning to end, folded it up, and returned it. Formal civilities followed, and the interview was at an end. That night a letter from Walsinghaminformed Chesterfield that assuredly two persons would be dismissed from the Post Office, and that of these two persons Palmer would not be one.
The postmasters-general were in a state of sore perplexity. Of Pitt's intentions they entertained not the slightest doubt. "The Post Office chair," wrote Chesterfield, "totters under us"; and again, "I see that can the ingenuity of man detect a flaw in our proceedings, we are to be the victims." The doubt which the postmasters-general felt concerned their own conduct. Rightly or wrongly, they believed that they were powerful enough to depose the minister, and the question which now agitated their minds was whether they should have recourse to so violent a measure, or whether they should simply resign. Bonnor saved them from the necessity of coming to a conclusion on the point. This person had hoarded up the private correspondence which, during years of close intimacy and friendship, had passed between himself and Palmer; and among the correspondence were many compromising letters. Such of these as he could readily lay his hands upon Bonnor, with incredible baseness, now carried to Walsingham, and Walsingham in an evil moment accepted them.
The temptation was no doubt strong. Even in the eyes of the postmasters-general themselves it was a comparatively small matter that they were on the point of losing their places. But it was by no means immaterial to them that they should appear to Pitt, as they were conscious of appearing at the present time, in the light of false accusers, persons who had brought false charges, or at all events charges which they could not substantiate; and these letters would prove all, and more than all, that had been alleged or even suspected. They laid bare the story of the King's coach. They shewed how on that occasion the contractor had been cajoled into making an exorbitant charge in order that Walsingham might be deterred from again interfering in what Palmer regarded as his own peculiar province. They shewed also how, from that time to the present, a deliberate plot had existed at headquartersto hinder and thwart Walsingham in everything he undertook.
And yet they were private letters, letters which had passed under the seal of confidence. It is by no means the least strange part of a strange and painful business that it appears never to have crossed the mind of either Walsingham or Chesterfield that this was a class of evidence which could not with propriety be used. Bonnor, not content with the letters he had already produced, searched his correspondence through from the time that he and Palmer became connected with the Post Office, and hailed any additional testimony he was able to collect against his former friend and benefactor with fiendish delight. He literally revelled in the shameless task he had set himself to perform. Evidence-hunting he called it. "We shall not only prove all that has been asserted," he wrote, "but a great deal more; and on the grand point of his premeditating a thorough and complete confusion in the business of the inland office, for the declared purpose of thereby disgracing the postmasters-general, I have proof that for strength and conviction no holy writ can exceed. But," he added, "I have a great deal to work up yet."
As soon as the unholy brief was completed, a second interview took place with the minister. Pitt appears again to have said little, even less than on the previous occasion. He had been deceived. The postmasters-general must take their own course. The rest is soon told. Two official minutes were prepared, the one in Lombard Street and the other at Whitehall. By the postmaster-generals' minute Palmer, the insubordinate Post Office servant, was dismissed.[69]By the minister's minute Palmer, the distinguished Post Office reformer, was granted a pension equal to double the amount of his salary. His salary was £1500, and he derived another £1500 a year from his percentage. Thepension which Pitt conferred upon him was £3000. To this was added later on, after an interval of many years, a Parliamentary grant of £50,000.
Bonnor—we blush to record it—received as the reward of his infamy the place of comptroller of the inland department. His promotion brought him little pleasure. The Post Office servants, with all their faults, were loyal to the backbone, and they could ill understand being presided over by one who was branded with the foulest of all private vices, with treachery to a friend and ingratitude to a benefactor. His subordinates would hold no communication with him beyond what their strict duty required. His equals shunned him. Outside the Post Office, go where he would, he received the cold shoulder. Never was man left more severely alone. At the end of two years fresh postmasters-general came who, under the plea of abolishing his appointment, dismissed him with a small pension. Then he became insolvent, and was thrown into prison. Released from confinement at the end of the century, he published pamphlet after pamphlet, having for their object to vindicate what he was pleased to call his good name; but these vindications, though replete with professions of honour, proved nothing more than that the writer was a poltroon as well as a traitor.
The spirit of activity which Palmer had infused into the Post Office did not cease with the cessation of his official career. Those who served under him had been selected by himself; and they had been selected on account of qualities which the withdrawal of his dominating influence was calculated rather to stimulate than to check. These men now came to the fore, and not only ably sustained their late master's work but inaugurated important measures of their own.
But before proceeding to chronicle the acts of Palmer's successors, we propose to give a few particulars which will serve better perhaps than a mere record of leading events to shew the state of the Post Office at the time that Palmer left it; and in this relation the project with which his name is mainly identified shall have precedence.
In 1792 sixteen mail-coaches left London every day, and as many returned. These were in addition to the cross country mail-coaches, of which there were fifteen—as, for instance, the coach between Bristol and Oxford or, as it was commonly called, Mr. Pickwick's coach.[70]Those leaving London started from the General Post Office in LombardStreet at eight o'clock in the evening, and they travelled every day, Sundays included.
There is still extant at the Post Office in St. Martin's-le-Grand the model of an old mail-coach, as fresh and as perfect as the day it was painted. This model bears upon its panels four devices—one a cross with the motto,Honi soit qui mal y pense; another a thistle with the motto,Nemo me impune lacessit; a third a shamrock under a star, with the motto,Quis separabit?(ah! who indeed?); and a fourth, three crowns with the motto,Tria juncta in uno. It is commonly reputed to be the model of the first mail-coach, and as such we have seen it represented in foreign publications. We feel constrained in the interests of truth to expose this fiction. The first mail-coach ran between Bristol and London. The model bears upon it the words, "Royal Mail from London to Liverpool." The first mail-coach carried no outside passengers. The model has places for several passengers outside. The first mail-coach began to run on Monday the 2nd of August 1784. On the model, below one of the devices, appears in small yet legible figures the date 1783. But although certainly not the model of the first mail-coach, we are by no means sure that it is not still more interesting. We have little doubt that it is a model which, before mail-coaches began to run, was prepared for Pitt's inspection.
In 1787, owing to the faulty construction of the original mail-coach and the wretched materials of which it was made, hardly a day passed without one or more accidents. Occasionally, indeed, the Post Office would receive notice of as many as three and even four upsets or breakdowns in a single morning. Palmer at once discerned the origin of the disease and the remedy; and the latter he proceeded to apply with his usual resolution. Having satisfied himself that a patent coach which was being constructed at this time fulfilled the necessary conditions more completely than any other, he agreed with the patentee, one Besant by name, to supply whatever number of coaches might be required. It was a mere verbal agreement, an agreement confirmed byno writing of any kind; yet no sooner was it made than Palmer addressed a circular to all the contractors of the kingdom, reproaching them with the shameful condition of their coaches. This, he told them, was due to the miserable sums they gave to the coach-maker, sums so low as to oblige him to use the most worthless materials; and as to repairs, even if they made him an allowance for these, it was so inadequate to the continual mending which vehicles constructed of such materials required that he merely put in a clip or a bolt where the fracture might happen to be, and then returned them in as dangerous a condition as before. Such a state of things, Palmer continued, would no longer be tolerated, and, as fast as Besant could turn them out, the new patent coaches would be sent down to replace those that were now in use. For providing them and keeping them in thorough repair, for which of course the contractors had to pay, the patentee's terms would be five farthings a mile or 2-1/2d. a mile out and in. After this summary fashion did Palmer clear the country of the mail-coaches of original construction.
In 1792 the only mail-coaches on the road were those supplied by Besant. They were constructed to carry five passengers, four inside and one out. The coachman was not a Post Office servant; yet he, like the mail guard, was provided with uniform. The mail guard carried firearms. He carried also a timepiece; and this timepiece was regulated to gain about fifteen minutes in twenty-four hours, so that, when travelling eastwards, it might accord with real time. Of course, in the opposite direction, a corresponding allowance was made. The mail guard's position was one of no little responsibility. Not only were the mails under his personal charge, but he had to see that the coach kept time, that there was no undue delay for the purpose of obtaining refreshments, that the harness was in serviceable condition, and, generally, that matters along the road were conducted with order and propriety. If in any one or more of these respects there were any defect, it was the mail guard's duty to report the circumstance. Should the harness be reportedas in had condition, and the contractors fail to replace it on demand, a new set was sent down from London at their expense; and should a coach persistently keep bad time, a superintendent from headquarters was deputed to travel by it until proper time was kept. This was equivalent to a heavy fine, as the superintendent travelled free, and for the seat he occupied a passenger would have been charged at the rate of 4d. a mile. The fees which at this time it was usual to pay to the mail guard and coachman were moderate enough, only 1s. apiece at the end of the "ground"; and if the "ground" was less than thirty miles, only 6d. Even at this rate the gentlemen of Devonshire bitterly complained that between Exeter and Taunton they had to pay two coachmen.
The chief superintendent of mail-coaches at this time was Thomas Hasker, a man whose heart and soul were in his duties. Hasker has left behind him copies of letters written by himself or by his instructions; and these letters, though expressed in homely language, throw such a flood of light upon the ways of the road a century ago that we make no apology for quoting from them. "The Bristol coach," he writes to the postmaster of Marlborough, "is the fastest in the kingdom, and you must not detain it for the coach from Bath." Again, to the postmaster of Ipswich he writes, "Tell Mr. Foster to get fresh horses immediately, and that I must see him in town next Monday. Shameful work—three hours and twenty-two minutes coming over his eighteen miles." The Dover coach had long been keeping bad time. "I must beg you to attend to this directly," writes Hasker to the contractors, "or we shall be obliged to put three fresh guards on the coach, and keep a superintendent constantly up and down till time is kept." The contractors for another coach had failed to replace their harness when desired, and a set had been sent down from London. "The harness," writes the indefatigable superintendent, "cost fourteen guineas, but as it had been used a few times with the King's royal Weymouth [coach], you will be charged only twelve, which sum pleaseto remit to me." Thanks to the widening of the roads, it is only in thoroughfares more or less crowded that the device can now be practised to which the following refers: "Your coachman, Pickard, lost thirty-seven minutes last night coming up, and by so doing he always hinders the Manchester coach; he leaving Leicester first keeps on before, and prevents the other coach from passing. This is the case every night that Pickard comes up."
But it is the instructions to the mail guards which bring home to us most vividly the ways of the road a hundred years ago. Thus, to the mail guards on the Exeter coach: "You are not to stop at any place whatever to leave any letters at, but to blow your horn to give the people notice that you have got letters for them; therefore, if they do not choose to come out to receive them, don't you get down from your dicky, but take them on to Exeter and bring them back with you on your next journey." And again to the mail guards on another coach: "If the coachman go into a public-house to drink, don't you go with him and make the stop longer, but hurry him out." This hurrying out had sometimes to be applied to passengers, and not always with success. "Sir," writes Hasker to a mail guard who had complained of the futility of his efforts in this direction, "stick to your bill, and never mind what passengers say respecting waiting overtime. Is it not the fault of the landlord to keep them so long? Some day when you have waited a considerable time (suppose five or eight minutes longer than is allowed by the bill), drive away and leave them behind. Only take care that you have witness that you called them out two or three times. Then let them get forward how they can. Let the innkeeper [of the house] where they dine know that you have received this letter."
While thus urged to correct others, the mail guards had sometimes to be corrected themselves. Fines ranging from 2s. 6d. to 5s. were imposed for omitting to date the timetable or for dating it wrongly; and on one occasion an unfortunate guard was fined as much as one guinea becausesome bags for which he should have called at the Stafford Post Office were left behind. Also to delegate one's duties was strictly prohibited. "It has been reported to Mr. Hasker," writes Hasker's lieutenant, "that you send your mail to the Post Office by the person called Boots, and do not go with it yourself. You have been wrote to two or three times before on this subject. Therefore, if the irregularity be repeated, you will certainly be discharged." Occasionally advantage would be taken of a complaint to read a lesson to the complainant. A mail guard had been reported for impertinence by certain contractors who were notorious for the indifferent lights with which they supplied their coach. After replying that he had been severely rebuked for his conduct, Hasker slily adds, "but perhaps something may be said for the feelings of a guard that hears the continual complaints of passengers against bad lights and the disagreeable smell of stinking oil, especially when through such things the passengers withhold the gratuity which the guards expect."
On the part of the mail guards, however, the commonest irregularity, and the irregularity most difficult to check, was the carrying of parcels and of passengers in excess of the prescribed number. "In consequence"—so runs a general order which was issued about this time—"of several of the mail guards having been detected in carrying meat and vegetables in their mail-box to the amount of 150 pounds weight at a time, the superintendents are desired to take opportunities to meet the coaches in their district at places where they are least expected, and to search the boxes to remedy this evil, which is carried to too great a length. The superintendents," the order proceeds, "will please to observe that Mr. Hasker does not wish to be too hard on the guards. Such a thing as a joint of meat or a couple of fowls or any other article for their own family in moderation he does not wish to debar them from the privilege of carrying." Truth compels us to add that at the time to which we refer it was not only meat and vegetables that the mailguards carried. They carried also game. In later years the country gentleman was probably the mail guards' best friend, but at the end of the last century he did not hesitate to charge them with being in league with poachers, and not infrequently threatened prosecution. The mail-box indeed was admirably adapted to purposes of secretion. Occupying a part of the space which even in these early days was known as the boot, it opened not, as the boot opened, from behind but from the top, immediately under the mail guard's feet; and no one but himself had access to it. Constant were the injunctions to the superintendents to meet the coaches at unexpected places for the purpose of search. "Search," writes Hasker, "as many mail-boxes as you can, and take away all game not directed and anything else beyond a joint for the guard's family, and send it to the chief magistrate to be disposed of for the benefit of the poor of the parish." The temptation to carry an extra passenger or two was even greater than to carry parcels. What degree of indulgence was shewn to this form of irregularity appears to have depended upon the part of the coach in which the extra seat was provided. To be detected in carrying a passenger on the mail-box was certain dismissal.