FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[244]Seventh report of the committee on grievances (Journals of Assembly, 1835, App. 21).[245]Second report of a committee of the house of assembly of Lower Canada, 1835-1836.[246]This gentleman was afterwards the editor of the monumentalDocumentary History of New York.[247]4, Geo. III. C. 24.[248]Glenelg to Head, December 5, 1835.[249]Journals of Assembly, Upper Canada, 1836, p. 320, and Appendix, No. 52, to theseJournals.[250]Freeling to postmaster general, March 28, 1836 (Can. Arch., Br. P.O. Transcripts, VII.).[251]June 6, 1836 (Can. Arch., Br. P.O. Transcripts, VI.).[252]Journals of Assembly, 1837, p. 580.

[244]Seventh report of the committee on grievances (Journals of Assembly, 1835, App. 21).

[245]Second report of a committee of the house of assembly of Lower Canada, 1835-1836.

[246]This gentleman was afterwards the editor of the monumentalDocumentary History of New York.

[247]4, Geo. III. C. 24.

[248]Glenelg to Head, December 5, 1835.

[249]Journals of Assembly, Upper Canada, 1836, p. 320, and Appendix, No. 52, to theseJournals.

[250]Freeling to postmaster general, March 28, 1836 (Can. Arch., Br. P.O. Transcripts, VII.).

[251]June 6, 1836 (Can. Arch., Br. P.O. Transcripts, VI.).

[252]Journals of Assembly, 1837, p. 580.

Durham's report on the post office—Effects of rebellion of 1837 on the service—Ocean steamships to carry the mails—The Cunard contract—Reduction of Transatlantic postage.

The long controversy which had agitated the legislatures of the provinces was approaching its end. The decision on the constitutional point was given in their favour, though they did not know it; but the specific thing for which they had contended, they were constrained to relinquish.

The Upper Canada legislature which had commenced the agitation, and elaborated the argument against the constitutional standing of the British post office in the colonies, had become convinced that the provincial system, which they demanded, was not in the interest of either the mother country or the colonies. They therefore asked the British government to put the stamp of legality on the existing system, by suitable legislation in the imperial parliament.

But the argument of Upper Canada had done its work too well, and it became the turn of the British government to employ it, to show the impossibility of meeting the desires of Upper Canada. The difficulty now, however, was not one of principle, but of ways and means.

The British government were quite willing that the colonial legislatures should have full information as to the financial operations of their post offices, and that the surplus revenue, if any, should be divided among them. All they required was that the colonial legislatures should by concurrent action devise the means by which the ends in view might be effected. The British parliament was, in the opinion of the law officers, precluded from interposing its authority in the settlement of the difficulty.

Durham, who was sent out to Canada as high commissioner to inquire into, and, if possible, remedy the defects in the system of government, which kept the colonies in a chronic state of dissatisfaction, was directed to give his attention to the condition of affairs in the post office.

In his general report, he dealt briefly with this topic, expressing full sympathy with the colonial view, and giving it as his opinionthat if his proposition for a union of the provinces should be adopted the control of the post office should be given up to the colonies.[253]But he added the recommendation that, whatever arrangements of a political nature might be made, the management of the post office throughout the whole of British North America should be conducted by one general establishment. This suggestion was not realized until the confederation of the provinces in 1867.

The rebellion in Upper and Lower Canada in 1837 and the following year was productive of much embarrassment to the post office. Many of the postmasters, particularly in Lower Canada, were open sympathisers with the rebels, and, through the opportunities afforded by their post office duties, assisted largely in the carrying out of their leaders' schemes.

Stayner had realized the impolicy of many of the appointments to post offices in Lower Canada. But as the local government was continually appointing to the highest offices men who were conspicuous in the support they lent to the views of Papineau, he did not conceive himself warranted in noticing facts which were ignored by the governor.

There were at least from thirty to forty postmasters besides several mail couriers in Lower Canada implicated in the rebellion. The governor general in Lower Canada, and the lieutenant governor in Upper Canada gave their attention to the conditions, each after his manner.

Gosford, the governor general, having been informed of the disloyalty of the postmasters at Stanstead and Lacolle, suggested that these officials should be dismissed as soon as it could be done without prejudice to the service.[254]

Bond Head, the lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, directed the local surveyor to dismiss the postmaster at Lloydtown instantly, for having, as he said, sent to Mackenzie a series of traitorous resolutions to which the postmaster had attached his name as corresponding secretary of the West King and Tecumseth Political Union. Head explained to Stayner that he was aware that the usual course was to have the dismissal made by the deputy postmaster general, but as he desired to produce a certain moral effect by instant punishment, he was compelled to act through Stayner's agent.

Furthermore, Bond Head asked that Stayner should delegateto Berezy, the surveyor, the power to dismiss peremptorily any person connected with the post office whom the lieutenant governor should judge to have failed in loyalty. Head was an arbitrary personage, who never gladly suffered the execution of his wishes to linger after their utterance.

A painful instance of the hardships inflicted upon innocent men in times of political turmoil was the dismissal of Howard, the postmaster of Toronto.[255]His offence was not disloyalty. Even Bond Head would not venture to say that he was disloyal—but merely that his friendships were so far inclusive as to embrace men of widely differing political opinions.

James Howard had been connected with the post office in Toronto for eighteen years, during eight of which he had been postmaster. Testimony abounded as to his zeal and efficiency as a public official. Stayner reported to the postmaster general that Howard was a man of excellent character, and one of the best officers in the service.

An aspect of Howard's conduct, which won Stayner's warm commendation, was his withholding himself from all forms of political activity. "People in our department," wrote Stayner to Howard, some years before, "cannot too carefully abstain from identifying themselves with factions or parties of any kind."

Secure in the approbation of his chief, Howard, following his natural inclination, moved quietly through the troubled times, which were heading for an outbreak, and delivered the letters to Loyalist and Reformer, to Tory and Radical, with even-handed indifference. It would seem, too, that in the choice of his friends, he exhibited a like insensibility to the explosive possibilities of some of their opinions.

A few days after the public disturbances began, it was intimated to Howard that his general attitude towards affairs was not quite satisfactory, and he at once demanded an investigation. There was nothing to investigate. But a hint was conveyed to him that he was too intimate with "those people."

It was decided to have the correspondence of suspects placed under surveillance. But the duty was not confided to Howard. Letters supposed to contain information of the rebels were sent to the bank of Upper Canada, where they were subjected to scrutiny.

On December 13, 1837, eight days after the rebellion broke out,at Montgomery's Tavern, Toronto, Howard was removed from his office by the orders of the lieutenant governor. He was replaced by Berezy, the post office inspector, who throughout the rebellion was active as the confidential agent of Bond Head. Howard appealed to the lieutenant governor, protesting his perfect loyalty, and declaring that so far from concerning himself with politics, he had never voted in his life.

No statement could have been more unfortunate. Head, always a partisan, was unable to understand how a man could suppose himself to be loyal, and confess to such a degree of indifference, when the safety of the country was at stake. The admonition of the deputy postmaster general was pleaded. Bond Head would not listen. Friends of the government, of the tried qualities of Fitzgibbon, vouched for Howard's loyalty. It was to no purpose.

The lieutenant governor declared that he had his reasons for believing, not only that Howard favoured the disaffected party, but that he had actually become "subservient to the execution of the treasonable plans." No evidence has ever been produced to support these accusations. But Head, in his flamboyant style, prated about the struggle being waged between monarchy and democracy, and contrasted Howard's indifference with the zealous devotion of the chief justice and one of the judges, who, shedding the ermine, took up their muskets in the defence of the country—and their jobs and perquisites.

Head indulged himself in several similar excesses of authority, always justifying himself on the ground that he was a protagonist in a death struggle with the arch-enemy Democracy. When quiet was restored, Howard renewed his appeals for redress, but the clique surrounding the governor contrived to frustrate all his efforts in that direction.

In the spring of 1839, a robbery of the mails took place on the grand route, at a point between Kingston and Gananoque, under circumstances of peculiar aggravation.[256]The robbers, who lived on an island in the St. Lawrence, within the territory of the state of New York, made no attempt at concealment. They openly declared that this was only the first of a series of similar interferences with the courier passing between Upper and Lower Canada.

The New York state authorities, who were appealed to, were powerless to act, but the secretary of state at Albany intimatedthat it would not be regarded as a breach of amity if the Canadian officials arrested the robbers on the island. In view, however, of the excitement which prevailed at that period on both sides of the border, it was thought prudent to refrain from so provocative a proceeding.

While Durham was occupied with his preparations for his mission to Canada, events occurred which were not only of unsurpassed importance to communication between Europe and America, but which seemed to promise a strengthening of the relations between the mother country and her colonies.

In April 1838, two steamships sailed from the United Kingdom for New York—the "Great Western" from Bristol, and the "Sirius" from Cork—and reached their destination safely, the former in fifteen days, and the latter in seventeen days.[257]

As the voyages were made in the face of stiff, westerly winds, the speed of the "Great Western" and the "Sirius" gave much satisfaction, and it was accepted as settled that thereafter steam would be the motive power in the faster vessels employed in the transatlantic trade.

The rapidity with which this conviction established itself was remarkable. There is nothing surprising in the immediate recognition of this new achievement of steam by speculative publicists, who saw in the events only the realization of their visions, but the British treasury, the arcanum of conservative caution, yielded with almost equal readiness to the argument provided by the two vessels.

The British consul at New York was the first to bring to official attention the importance of this advance in the art of navigation. By the return of one of the vessels, he suggested to the colonial office that all official despatches and commercial letters for the Canadas should be directed to the consulate at New York. He undertook to assort the correspondence, and forward it to Montreal and Toronto by queen's messengers.

By avoiding the delays to which the regular couriers were subject, and taking advantage, wherever possible, of the steamboats running on the inland waters and of the railroads, which were beginning to be constructed throughout the eastern states, the messengers would be able to provide a greatly accelerated service. The answers to letters sent from London or Liverpool to Canada should be back in those cities in from thirty to thirty-five days—approximately the time taken by the Halifax packets on a single trip.

The British post office saw reasons for declining the proposal, so far as it regarded commercial correspondence. It was, however, prepared to transmit official despatches by this means, and to arrange for their conveyance from New York in the manner indicated by the consul.

The people of Halifax—who had always regarded with a jealous eye the disposition of the inland British colonies, to use the port of New York in preference to their own—managed, at this juncture in the history of ocean transport, by an appeal to imperial considerations to make a strong case for their port. By a happy chance, the "Sirius" on its first homeward voyage, overtook the mail packet from Halifax, and the captain of the packet, impressed by the higher speed of the steam vessel, induced the captain of the "Sirius" to take the mails, with the result that their arrival was advanced by several days.

Joseph Howe and some other gentlemen from the Maritime provinces who happened to be passengers on the sailing packet when this incident occurred, were struck with this demonstration of the superiority of steam, and discussed among themselves whether this fact might not indicate the means of overcoming, in favour of Halifax, the advantage enjoyed by the port of New York.

On the arrival of Howe in London, a meeting was called of men interested in the subject, and it was resolved to press their views on the attention of the government. Several of the gentlemen wrote to the colonial secretary, and a memorial of a more formal character was submitted, bearing the signatures of Howe, as representative of Nova Scotia, and of William Crane, a member of the legislature of New Brunswick, as representative of that province.[258]

The views and arguments were of a character similar to those employed by imperial federation leagues since that period—the shorter sea voyage, the fostering of common interests among the provinces, and the desirability of an interchange within the empire of news and correspondence, uncontaminated by passage through a foreign channel.

At that period, the last of these points had a peculiar timeliness. The rebellion in Upper Canada had just been subdued, but the embers were ready to blaze up afresh with the first favouring breeze; while in Lower Canada the outbreak was still unchecked. The fast sailing packets on the New York-Liverpool route so far outsailed the post office packets which ran to Halifax, that thenews carried by way of New York was sometimes weeks in advance of that which arrived by the Halifax packets.

As American popular sympathies, as distinct from official sympathy at Washington and Albany, lay mainly with the rebels, and as newspaper publishers were in general less scrupulous as to the veracity of their news than they are to-day, it often happened that the British public, and even the government in Downing Street, were grossly misled as to the movement of events in the Canadas. The truth reached England eventually, but it had the proverbial difficulty in catching up with the nimble fiction, which had earlier circulation.

In September the treasury made its decision.[259]In the early part of that month, the Great Western Steamship Company, which was organized in 1836 for the purpose of providing a steam service between Great Britain and America, and which had been for some months past demonstrating the entire feasibility of this class of service, applied to the government for a contract for the conveyance of the mails to New York.

But the plea of Howe and Crane for a direct service prevailed. On September 24 the treasury announced the substitution of steam vessels for the sailing packets on the Halifax route, and directed that tenders should be invited for such a service as the admiralty and post office considered most suitable.

The treasury deprecated the haste with which the plans were being pushed forward, suggesting that a winter's experience would be valuable in dealing with so important a matter. But there were strong reasons for avoiding unnecessary delay. Relations with the United States were causing some anxiety, and as regards transatlantic correspondence, that country stood in a position of advantage, which it seemed the business of Great Britain to equalize as far as possible.

Tenders were invited for a steam packet service between Liverpool and Halifax in November. But none of those submitted satisfied the conditions prescribed by the government. Samuel Cunard, of Halifax, who had had a large experience as a contractor for packet services, visited England, and as the result of negotiations, entered into a contract with the admiralty.

The contract called for two trips monthly each way between Liverpool and Halifax, and for trips of the same frequency between Halifax and Boston, and between Pictou on the gulf of St. Lawrenceand Quebec: the vessels to be employed to be of three hundred horse power for the transatlantic service, and of one hundred and fifty horse power for the other two routes. The contract was signed on May 4, 1839, the rate of payment being £55,000 a year.

This rate underwent a rapid series of augmentations. Two months after the contract was made £5000 a year was added to the rate on consideration that the vessels should leave the American ports, as well as Liverpool, on fixed dates. On September 1, 1841, the decision was reached that vessels of a larger size than in the service should be employed, and to secure these the rate was raised to £80,000.

Two years later, in consequence of representations by the contractors that the amount of payment was insufficient to enable them to carry on the service, £10,000 was added to the subsidy; and further additions were made as the result of changes in the arrangements, which will be detailed in their proper place.

In addition to the provision for the exchange of mails by the Cunard steamers, between Great Britain and Canada and the United States, arrangements were made for subsidiary services to Newfoundland and Bermuda. Halifax, indeed, was being made the pivotal point of the most extensive scheme ever attempted for the distribution of mails. All the communications between Great Britain and the North American continent were comprised in the plans.

The first trip by steamer between Liverpool and Halifax was made by the "Britannia," which left Liverpool on July 1, 1840. The vessel reached Halifax after a passage of twelve and a half days. The mails for Canada were carried overland from Halifax to Pictou, from which point they were delivered at Quebec five and a half days after their landing at Halifax. As the vessel conveying the mails up the St. Lawrence from Pictou to Quebec was delayed a day in the gulf by fog, there was reason for hope that the passage from Liverpool to Quebec would not materially exceed fifteen days.

The post office authorities at Halifax bent every effort to make the enterprise a success. As an instance of their zealous energy, the "Britannia," on its September sailing, reached Halifax on a morning at seven o'clock. At a quarter to nine the mails for Canada were on their way to Pictou; at ten the "Britannia" set out for Boston; and by noon the vessels for Newfoundland and Bermuda had left for their destinations.

Prince Edward Island did not at once enjoy the full benefitsof these efficient operations, but by a slight improvement in the arrangements, the island was put on an equal footing with the other colonies.

The scheme, however, admirable as it was in conception, and successful as it appeared to be in operation, had weaknesses, which were revealed by time—weaknesses which before many years led to its abandonment.

The test of the success of such a scheme lay in its capability to provide adequately for the exchanges with Canada. The mails to and from Upper and Lower Canada were not only much greater in volume than those exchanged with the other provinces, but owing to the existing political conditions in the Canadas, were at the time of greater importance; and, if, owing to any lack of co-operation on the part of the provinces participating in the transmission of the mails between Halifax and Quebec, or through other causes, these mails required a notably greater length of time in their passage by the Halifax route than they would have taken if landed at a port in the United States, the Halifax route must be considered a failure.

This is exactly what happened. When the British government decided to give the scheme a trial, it reminded the provinces concerned that there were several months in every year when the mails must be carried between Halifax and Quebec overland, and that this could be done successfully only if the roads in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Quebec, over which the mails must pass, were put in a condition to permit of fast travel by carriage, night as well as day.

At the time—1840—the steamships began to run to Halifax, the situation as regards the land routes was as follows: the distance from Halifax to Quebec—seven hundred miles—was rarely covered by the mail couriers in less than ten days. In the depth of winter, when the sleighing was good, and advantage could be taken of the ice road on the St. John river between Fredericton and the mouth of the Madawaska river, the journey was made in some hours less than six days.

But it was seldom that conditions combined to make so fast a journey possible, and it was not considered prudent to reckon on an average of less than ten days. In the spring and autumn this length of time was often greatly exceeded. Stayner, who went over the route in the autumn of 1838, after calculating the effect of all practicable ameliorations, did not believe that the time could be reduced to less than seven days. As against this possibletime, there was the fact that the journey from New York to Quebec occupied only six and a half days in winter.

The farther west the point of comparison was carried, moreover, the greater the disadvantage at which Halifax stood. The shortest time to be anticipated in conveying the mails from Halifax to Montreal, after all improvements had been made, was nine days. The courier from New York, who had but half the distance to travel, delivered his mails in Montreal in five days. Toronto, the capital of Upper Canada, and the entrepôt for the thriving and rapidly-spreading settlements in the west, was still more easily reached from New York than from Halifax. The journey from Halifax to Toronto covered a distance of one thousand two hundred and twelve miles, and occupied more than two weeks. New York was only five hundred and forty miles from Toronto, and the mails were carried between the two places in seven days in winter.

Halifax is five hundred and fifty miles nearer Liverpool than is New York, and consequently gained two days on the ocean voyage. But, in point of time, the odds were hopelessly against Halifax, as the landing port for the Canadian mails. The obvious political reasons, however, for maintaining Halifax as the port of exchange between the North American provinces, as a whole, and the mother country, provoked a determined effort to remove, as far as possible, the natural obstacles which seemed to prevent the achievement of that end.

Inquiry was directed first to the question of the best route. From Halifax to Fredericton, the first important point at which the courier arrived on his western journey, there were alternative routes, both of which had been used in the conveyance of the mails to Canada. Since the war of 1812, the courier had travelled along the northern shore of the bay of Fundy, passing Truro, Dorchester and the bend of the Petitcodiac, now Moncton.

This route was adopted first to avoid the necessity of the mails crossing the bay of Fundy from Annapolis to St. John, with the risks of falling in with American privateers, but after the termination of the war, it was continued from choice.

The earlier route, from Halifax to Windsor and along the Annapolis valley to Annapolis, still had its advocates, however; and inquiry was made as to the advisability of returning to it. Under certain ideal conditions, a better journey could be made by this route, but as these involved heavy additional expense, and a nicety of connection between the couriers and the packet boatat Annapolis, which was frequently unattainable, the proposition was rejected.

The real difficulties for the courier began when he left Fredericton on his journey to Quebec. The route lay along the shore of the St. John river to the point where the Madawaska empties into it; thence in a generally northern direction until the St. Lawrence is reached at the head of the portage.

At this period—1840—there was no road whatever over any part of this section of the route, though in 1839, a road called the Royal Road was in course of construction between Fredericton and Grand Falls. The schemes for the building of a road were embarrassed by the fact that for nearly one hundred miles, the proposed road lay in the territory claimed by the state of Maine, with the resulting risk that the expenditure upon it might be lost.

The only mode of travel from Fredericton northward to the mouth of the Madawaska was by canoe in summer. In the winter, when the ice was well set, travel was very easy. But during the early spring and late autumn, the floating ice made the journey in this part of the country one of great hardship. On a trip made in April 1842, it required three men and twelve horses to carry over this section a mail weighing not more than seven or eight hundred pounds.

The Special Council of Quebec, which was in existence in 1838-1840, owing to the suppression of the legislature due to suspension of the constitution of 1791 in Lower Canada, at the urgent instance of Sydenham, appropriated £5000 for a road over the portage between the St. Lawrence and the St. John rivers. The legislature of New Brunswick also made a liberal grant for the section lying in that province.

It is evident, therefore, that Halifax stood at an insurmountable disadvantage as compared with the New York route during the winter season. But, at least so far as concerned eastern Canada, the provincial route was not greatly inferior to that through the United States, during the period of open navigation on the St. Lawrence. The passage from Liverpool to Quebec did not usually exceed sixteen days, and to Montreal eighteen days.

An essential link in this conveyance was the overland route from Halifax to Pictou. As this service furnished the connection between the steamers on the Atlantic and those on the St. Lawrence, it was of the first importance that the route should be traversed at a high rate of speed. The route had been in use for many yearsfor the exchange of local mails, but the means of conveyance, which were sufficient for that purpose, were entirely inadequate to the requirements of the ocean mail service.

Cunard—who had every motive for expediting not only the mails, but the passengers and freight passing to and from the Canadas—drew attention to the necessity for ample provision for the new conditions. Unless he were able to afford a fast and comfortable conveyance at a moderate charge to his Canadian passengers, he could not hope to hold the business. As it was desirable that he should be able to exercise control over this part of the passage, he offered to provide the service between Halifax and Pictou on terms, which were accepted by the deputy postmaster general of Nova Scotia.

The service afforded left little to be desired in point of efficiency. Four horse stages ran over the route three times each way weekly in summer, and twice weekly in winter; the trip was to be made within seventeen hours, and the charge to passengers was not to exceed £2 10s. The charge for each person had been, until the contract was made, £6.

But accommodation such as this necessarily entailed considerable expense, and the compensation to Cunard under the contract was so great as seriously to embarrass the financial position of the post office in Nova Scotia. This amount—£1550 per annum—was £1265 in excess of what had been paid for this route before the British mails were carried over it.

The revenues of the provincial post office were quite unequal to this demand upon, them, and relief was sought from the legislature. That body agreed to contribute £550, and Canada was asked to add £750 to that sum. When Howe reported the facts to the postmaster general, the latter was disposed to tax him with having acted without consideration, and Sydenham was asked to give his opinion of the bargain.

The governor general laid the subject before the post office commission, which was then sitting, and they denounced the whole arrangement. The rate was extravagant, and the service provided for was entirely beyond the necessities of the ocean mails. As the steamers were to sail only twice a month, an express conveyance of that frequency was all that was required.

As for Canada's being at any expense for this service, the commission scouted the idea. The Cunard contract called for the transportation of mails between Great Britain and Canada, which was to be effected by two steamers, one running between Liverpooland Halifax, and the other between Pictou and Quebec. Any expense there might be for overland conveyance should fall upon the packet postage, that is, it should be a charge upon the postage collected by the British post office for the transmission of letters between Great Britain and Canada.

The British post office took a somewhat curious course in the difficulty. It resented the criticism of the commissioners, and sanctioned the agreement made by the deputy in Halifax, for a term of eight years. It made no effort to convince the Canadian authorities of the error in their views, which would indeed have been impossible; and, on the other hand, it refused to allow the additional expense to be thrown upon the packet postage. There was but one alternative—Nova Scotia must bear the whole charge. And that was the decision of the postmaster general.

The resentment throughout Nova Scotia at the injustice of this decision, and the manifest inability of the provincial post office to carry the added burden determined the postmaster general to make an effort to put an end to the situation. In 1842 he sent an officer of the department to Halifax to inquire into the whole provincial system, instructing him to give his special attention to the question of the expediency of continuing the use of the port of Halifax as the entrepôt for the Canadian mails.

The thing to be avoided was the long carriage by land, and the agent was directed to consider the ports of St. John, New Brunswick and Boston with this end in view. Boston was regarded with particular favour on account of the railway lines, which were being extended inland from that port. St. John was dismissed from consideration on a report from the admiralty that until some progress had been made in the survey of the bay of Fundy, especially of its tides and soundings, it would be very hazardous to send the mails by that route.

On the question of the comparative advantages of the Halifax and Boston routes there was practical unanimity in Canada. All classes of the mail-using public were agreed as to the superiority of the Boston route. The editors of newspapers complained that the British newspapers on which they depended for their foreign news—newspapers which were transmitted by way of Halifax—were useless by the time they reached Canada, as the news they contained had been received from New York or Boston several days earlier.

As for the objection to having the exchange of mails between Great Britain and Canada carried on through a foreign country,the publishers made light of it. The mails from England for India, were carried across the Continent through France and Italy; and there was no reason why the mails from England for Canada should not be carried through the United States.

These views were strongly presented by Stayner, and reinforced by the secretary of the post office, who laid them before the postmaster general. The Cunards also rendered assistance to the same end. They represented to the postmaster general that the service proved to be much more expensive than they had anticipated when they undertook the contract, and that the steamer on the St. Lawrence was a very heavy burden. In discussing the question of an increased subsidy, the company expressed their willingness to regard relief from the river service as equivalent to £10,000 a year.

These concurrent appeals, together with the fact that the change in the seat of government from Kingston to Montreal, established the governor in the city which would derive the maximum of benefit from the Boston connection, decided the government to make Boston the landing port for the Canadian mails; and the British minister at Washington was instructed to open negotiations for an arrangement by which the British mails would be permitted to cross the territory of the United States.[260]

It had long been an object of desire with the United States government to retain the hold its geographical situation has given it upon the correspondence between Great Britain and Canada. Before steam service was a practicable scheme, the president in a message to congress suggested that, to that end, the sailing packets should be put under post office regulations, and a greater degree of security to the mails thereby effected.

The United States government consequently were prepared to accept very moderate terms. They based their offer on the terms of the contract between the British and French governments for the conveyance of the Indian mails from Calais on the Channel to Marseilles on the Mediterranean. The British government paid the French government two francs per ounce of letters and ten centimes for each newspaper transmitted across French territory, and as the distance from Boston to St. Johns in Lower Canada was rather less than half that from Calais to Marseilles, they proposed that the British government should pay them half the rates paid to the French government.

These rates were regarded by the postmaster general of England as unusually favourable, and the proposal of the United States government was at once accepted. Under this arrangement, the postmaster general calculated that, besides the great saving in time that would be effected, there would be a reduction in the charges for the inland conveyance of the mails to and from Canada of £4600 per annum.

The course of conveyance across the territory of the United States was to be, in summer, from Boston to Burlington, Vermont, towards which a railway line was approaching completion, and from Burlington to St. Johns by steamer on lake Champlain. In the winter, the mails were to be carried from Boston to Highgate, Vermont, where they would be taken over by couriers attached to the Canadian post office. The time occupied would, under usual conditions, be forty-eight hours between Boston and St. Johns, and fifty-three hours between Boston and Highgate.

Thus was the great experiment brought to its appointed end. It had its origin in one of those imperial impulses, which seem to come most frequently from the colonies, and which now and then carry the Briton off his feet. But, as conditions stood, the scheme was foredoomed to failure. It was not until the construction of the Canadian Pacific railway in 1889, across the state of Maine between Montreal and St. John, that a Canadian ocean port was able to enter into successful competition with a United States port, as the point of exchange for mails passing between Great Britain and Canada.

While the plans for substituting steam for sailing vessels were being brought to maturity, the question of a substantial reduction in the postage between Great Britain and the colonies in North America were being discussed.[261]Stayner pointed out that it would be useless to enter upon an expensive scheme for reducing the time occupied in conveying the mails between Great Britain and Canada, unless the postage were brought down to a figure that would place the steamship service within reach of the farmers in western Canada.

As Sydenham observed, the new settlers, while living in great material comfort, had little money at their disposal. To them it was an impossibility to pay the postage—four shillings or more—which had accumulated on a letter on its way from the inlandparts of the United Kingdom to the backwoods in which they were making homes for themselves. They were served, and far from inefficiently, by the American ocean sailing packets, which left Liverpool weekly for New York; and unless the steam line were able to provide for the exchange of their letters at rates as low as they were paying, they would no more patronize the new line than they had the ten-gun sailing brigs, by which the British packet service was then carried on.

Stayner, with full knowledge of the conditions he had to meet, was convinced that the first step towards an effective reform was to sweep away the cumulative rates made up of the inland charges in the United Kingdom, the ocean postage and the inland colonial charge; and replace them by one fixed rate which would carry the letter from any post office in the United Kingdom to any post office in the colonies. When he first laid the proposition before the postmaster general, the Duke of Richmond, he recommended that this uniform rate should be two shillings a single letter.

But after some years' opportunity for reflection, aided beyond doubt by the argument of Rowland Hill for penny postage in Great Britain, Stayner concluded that his proposed rate was too high, and that, at one shilling and sixpence, or even one shilling and threepence, the increased patronage of the line by the public in the motherland and the colonies, would bring about an actual augmentation of the revenue.

How great the reduction in the charges would be, if Stayner's proposition were carried into effect, may be gathered from the fact that one of the elements making up the total postage was much in excess of the whole sum suggested by Stayner. On the supposition that the steamships landed the Canadian mails at Halifax, every letter brought by that means to Toronto would be subject to a charge of two shillings and ninepence for the conveyance from Halifax to Toronto, to say nothing of the shilling charge for its passage from Liverpool to Halifax, and the postage from the office of posting in the United Kingdom to Liverpool.

While negotiations with Cunard were still in progress, and the colonies waited expectantly for what was to be achieved by the new service, Stayner was much surprised and gratified to receive from the general post office in London a circular addressed to the postmasters in the United Kingdom stating that the postmaster general had decided to do away altogether with the inland rate or rather to incorporate it with the ocean rate which thenceforward would be one shilling.

This was beyond any anticipations Stayner had formed, and he lost no time in apprizing the public in Canada of the boon conferred upon them. There was rejoicing in Canada over the prospect of easy communication with the mother country, and the postmaster general received many commendations on his statesmanlike measure.[262]

But the rejoicing was not of long continuance. With the first intimation at the general post office of the announcement made in Canada there was despatched a letter from the secretary informing Stayner that he had quite mistaken the purport of the circular. Though sent to Stayner for his information, it was not intended to apply to Canada. The intention was merely to take off the British inland postage, and to leave the colonial inland postage to be collected as before. The reduction, in reality, amounted to very little, as the bulk of the postage on letters from Great Britain to Canada passing by way of Halifax had been that part levied for the conveyance from Halifax to the office of delivery in Canada.

Stayner was in no way to blame for the interpretation he placed on the circular, and he had the satisfaction of knowing that his misconception made the continuance of the high postage impossible. The public on both sides of the ocean had tasted the blessings of communication with their relatives on the other side, at an expense not considered beyond their means, and they were determined not to have the benefit withdrawn.

Accordingly when Poulett Thomson, afterwards Earl of Sydenham, came out as governor general with special instructions to remove all legitimate causes of dissatisfaction, he addressed himself to this question, and after a conference with Stayner, wrote to the colonial secretary urging the adoption of the shilling rate.

The colonial secretary submitted the governor general's views to the postmaster general, and in practical coincidence with the sailing of the first steamer under the Cunard contract, instructions were issued to make the total charge on letters to the British North American colonies one shilling, if the letter was addressed to Halifax, and one shilling and twopence, if its destination was inland, however distant.[263]

At the same time, a change of great importance was made in the principle on which the postage was based. It had been thepractice to charge postage, according to the number of enclosures the letter contained. When penny postage was introduced in England a few months previously, one of the features of the new plan was the establishment of the weight principle in determining the charge on a letter, in substitution of the principle under which letters were taxed according to the number of their contents.

The operation of the new plan in Great Britain caused much confusion and loss in the correspondence with the colonies. The British or Irish people, who had become accustomed to having their postage fixed by the application of the rate of one penny for each half ounce, could not in many cases be made to understand why the same principle did not apply to their letters to their friends and relatives beyond the seas.

Hence many letters weighing less than half an ounce were sent to Canada, which on examination were found to contain enclosures, and the postage was, in accordance with the regulations, doubled or even trebled, though their weight would not call for a charge of more than one shilling and twopence.

Poulett Thomson drew attention to the obvious embarrassment occasioned by the application of the two different principles, and he had the satisfaction of finding a ready acquiescence in his views on the part of the postal authorities at home. Accordingly, by the treasury minute of July 6th, 1840, the rate on letters conveyed by direct packet from any post office in the United Kingdom to Halifax was made one shilling the half ounce. If, for any other post office, the rate was one shilling and twopence.

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