CHAPTER XVI

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

1817-1836

We must now go back a few years. On the cessation of hostilities with France the state of the finances occupied a large share of men's thoughts, and among the plans for relieving the burden upon the taxpayer none perhaps was more obvious than to abolish sinecures and useless offices.

On the 16th of February 1817 Mr. Lambton, member for the county of Durham, gave notice of motion for a return shewing the number of Boards which had been held by the postmasters-general during the last twenty years, and distinguishing the names of the places where such Boards had been held and the persons by whom they were attended. The Post Office was in a flutter. Just twenty years before, the Commissioners of Inquiry into Public Offices had recommended, and the recommendation had been approved by the House, that a Board should be held by the postmasters-general at least once a week; and from that date to the present not a single Board had been held. The position was no doubt embarrassing, and not the less so because the postmasters-general, Lords Chichester and Salisbury, were the one at Stanmer and the other at Hatfield. Nothing could be done without the concurrence of both, and at such distances, little as would be thought of them now, it was a tedious process eighty years ago to arrive at a common understanding.

Freeling, who regarded it as little short of an outrage that the two noble peers, his masters, should be thus called to account, appealed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to have the terms of the motion altered; but Vansittart refused, and the return was granted and ordered to be laid on the table of the House. Of course it was necessary to admit that no Boards had been held; but the work of the Post Office, the return went on to state, did not lend itself to Boards. Boards could be held only at intervals, and the work of the Post Office was so continuous and pressing that, without detriment to the public interests, it could not be kept waiting for a single day. A daily transmission of papers to the postmasters-general was, therefore, necessary; and by such means the business was better conducted than it would be by any system of Boards. Such was the substance of the return which was now laid before the House. Eventually the matter was referred to a friendly Committee, and the appointment of second postmaster-general escaped for a time.

But it was for a time only. In May 1822, on the motion of Lord Normanby, an address to the throne was adopted in the following terms: "His Majesty's faithful Commons, relying upon His Majesty's gracious disposition expressed in answer to former addresses of that House to concur in all such measures of economy as the exigencies of the time require, and in such reductions in the civil department of the State as may be consistent with due consideration for the public service, humbly pray that His Majesty will be graciously pleased to give directions that the office of one of the postmasters-general may be abolished and the salary thereby saved to the revenue." It was Lord Salisbury, as the junior of the two postmasters-general, that was affected by the resolution of the House. Many men, incensed by such treatment, would have thrown up their appointments in disgust. Lord Salisbury did nothing of the kind. The very day he received official intimation that the address had been acceded to by the King he gave directions that his salary should be stopped;[91] but the appointment of postmaster-general he retained, and to the duties of it he gave at least as much attention as before. It was not until his death a year later that Lord Chichester was appointed sole postmaster-general, and the Post Office received the constitution under which it still remains.

[91] The official intimation was received at the Post Office on the 28th of May. On the same day Lord Salisbury wrote to the receiver-general as follows:--

GENERAL POST OFFICE, _May 28, 1822_.

SIR--I have received instructions from the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury to acquaint you that on the 5th of July next you are to retain in your hands the salary of £2500 hitherto paid to me as joint postmaster-general.--I am, etc., SALISBURY.

R. Willimott, Esq., Receiver-General.

Other economies followed. All periodical increases of salary were suspended and salaries were for the first time made subject to abatement in order to provide a superannuation fund.[92] The effect of these two measures was to reduce the Post Office servants to a state of destitution not very far short of that from which Pitt had rescued them some thirty years before. It must not be thought, however, that ministers imposed upon others conditions to which they were unwilling to submit themselves. On the contrary, they procured an Order in Council to be passed reducing their own salaries and those of all the great officers of State by 10 per cent, and the reduction was to continue for five years. The desire to be just and equal was present; the one thing wanting was a due sense of the difference between superfluity and need.

[92] The sums abated were afterwards returned. It was not until 1834 that abatements towards superannuation were imposed by statute.

And now a blow which had long been impending fell. This was the transfer from the Post Office to the Admiralty of the packets stationed at Falmouth. The question had been discussed again and again during the war; but how it came to be revived at this particular time is not very clear. There had indeed been a mutiny among the seamen at Falmouth, and the packets had been temporarily removed to Plymouth; but many years had since elapsed, and now, so far as appeared, matters were perfectly quiet. We only know that at the instance of Lord Liverpool a memorandum was prepared by Lord Melville, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and that after a sharp paper-warfare between him and Freeling the arguments in favour of the change prevailed. At Falmouth thirty packets were employed, nearly double the number at all the other stations put together; and these thirty packets with their crews of 600 seamen, whose deeds of daring had often shed lustre on the Post Office, were now made over to another department. Freeling was in despair. This little fleet had, next perhaps to the mail-coaches, been the object of his keenest solicitude; and it gave him little consolation that the packets at the other stations--at Dover and Harwich, at Weymouth, Milford, Holyhead, and Portpatrick, were to remain under the charge of the Post Office.

Some little comfort, however, was at hand. Steam packets being beyond the means of the captains to purchase, the Government provided them and purchased the sailing packets, which they replaced, at a valuation. Thus the Post Office became once more absolute owner of its own boats. This, though by no means reconciling Freeling to the loss of the Falmouth packets, was at all events some compensation. "The steam flotilla belonging to the Post Office," he was able to write in 1827, "consists of no less than nineteen vessels complete, to the aggregate amount of 4000 tons, with machinery equal on the whole to the power of 1540 horses."

Exaggerated opinions have been expressed as to the speed of the mail-coaches during the first two decades of the present century. In 1821 few mail-coaches travelled as much as eight miles an hour, and only one mail-coach attained to a speed of nine miles, and that for only part of the journey. The exact rates of travelling are shewn in the following table:--

1821.

+---------------+-------+---------+----------+----------+-------------+ | | Number| Hour | Hour | Rate of | | | MAIL COACH | of | of | of |Travelling| Remarks. | |FROM LONDON TO | Miles.|Despatch.| Arrival. | per hour.| | +---------------+-------+---------+----------+----------+-------------+ | | M. F.| | | M. | | |Berwick | 341 6 | 8.0 P.M.| 6.15 P.M.| 7-13/16 | The rates of| |Berwick to | | | | |travelling | | Edinburgh | 59 4 | -- | 2.55 A.M.| 7-2/16 |include | |Birmingham | 110 2 | 8.0 P.M.|10.0 A.M.| 7-13/16 |stoppages for| |Bristol | 122 4 | " | " | 8-10/16 |change of | |Carlisle by | | | | |horses, but | | Manchester | 311 4 | " | 1.30 P.M.| 8-5/16 |not stoppages| |Carlisle by | | | | |for refresh- | | Boroughbridge| 302 6 | " | 1.40 P.M.| 7-10/16 |ment and for | |Carlisle to | | | | |Post Office | | Glasgow | 103 2 | -- | 4.50 A.M.| 7-4/16 |business. | |Chester | 191 0 | 8.0 P.M.|10.50 P.M.| 7-8/16 | | |Chester to | | | | | | | Holyhead | 88 0 | -- | 7.5 A.M.| 7-7/16 | | |Dover | 73 4 | 8.0 P.M.| 6.45 A.M.| 7 | For a | |Exeter | 176 2 | " | 7.40 P.M.| 7-11/16 |considerable | |Exeter by Bath | 194 0 | " | 7.50 P.M.| 8-7/16 |part of the | |Gloucester | 111 0 | " |10.0 A.M.| 8-3/16 |distance the | |Holyhead | 264 6 | " | 6.50 A.M.| 7-15/16 |London and | |Leeds | 196 0 | " |11.25 P.M.| 7-8/16 |Bristol | |Liverpool | 207 4 | " |12.10 A.M.| 7-6/16 |coach | |Norwich by | | | | |travelled at | | Ipswich | 114 4 | " |11.0 A.M.| 7-14/16 |the rate of | |Ipswich to | | | | |nine miles an| | Yarmouth | 54 2 | -- |11.56 A.M.| 7-15/16 |hour. | |Poole | 117 4 | 8.0 P.M.|11.20 A.M.| 7-14/16 | | |Portsmouth | 72 6 | " | 6.45 A.M.| 7-1/16 | | |Worcester | 114 4 | " |10.40 A.M.| 8-7/16 | | +---------------+-------+---------+----------+----------+-------------+

It was not until some fourteen or fifteen years later, when the main roads of the kingdom had passed under Telford's hands and vehicles of lighter build had been introduced, that mail-coaches attained the speed which is very commonly ascribed to an earlier period. In 1836 there were in England 104 mail-coaches, all drawn by four horses. Of these the fastest was the Liverpool and Preston coach, which travelled at the rate of ten miles and five furlongs an hour; and the slowest was the coach between Canterbury and Deal, which travelled at the rate of only six miles an hour. The average speed of all the mail-coaches in 1836, namely eight miles and seven furlongs an hour, was actually higher than the highest speed attained by any one mail-coach in 1821. It should be added that in 1821, as in 1836, the number of passengers by a mail-coach was limited to four inside and four out. On some mail-coaches, indeed, no more than three outside passengers were allowed.

But the mail-coach at the beginning of the present century did something more than carry mails and passengers. It was the great disseminator of news. In times of excitement men would stand waiting along the mail roads and learn the latest intelligence as shouted to them from the tops of the coaches. It may well be believed that this mode of communication did not tend to either accuracy or completeness of statement. We cannot, therefore, be surprised that on important occasions or occasions on which false or inexact intelligence might lead to mischief recourse should have been had to the expedient of printing hand-bills, and sending them to the postmasters with instructions to distribute them in their respective towns. The following are specimens of hand-bills which were so distributed:--

LONDON, _February 10, 1817_.

The statement in the morning papers that several persons have been arrested by warrants from the Secretary of State is true.

The meeting was held this morning at Spa Fields; but the arrests which have taken place and the precautions adopted by Government caused everything to end peaceably and the town is perfectly quiet.

* * * * * _17th November 1818._ Her Majesty the Queen expired at one o'clock this day.

* * * * *

The following hand-bill sent to the different ports where vessels from Jamaica were likely to arrive is interesting in so far as it shews the exceptional facilities which, even seventy or eighty years ago, the Post Office possessed for making inquiries:--

GENERAL POST OFFICE, _February 10th, 1821_.

Mr. Freeling requests the postmaster to make inquiries of the master of any ship arriving from Jamaica into the state of the Duke of Manchester's health, and inform him of the result by the first post.

Of the reason of this solicitude we are not aware.

Police notices, notices giving particulars of crimes which had been committed and offering rewards for the apprehension of the criminals, were similarly dealt with. These, like the hand-bills of which specimens have been given, were sent from Lombard Street under cover to the postmasters with instructions to circulate them in their respective towns. The propriety of this proceeding is not free from doubt. Of course, every department of the State is interested in the detection and punishment of crime; and yet it may be a question whether by taking an active part in the distribution of these documents the Post Office was not to some extent identifying itself with a class of business from which, for obvious reasons, it had better hold itself aloof.

While changes were taking place in other directions, the regulations for the transmission of newspapers through the post remained as they had been at the beginning of the century. Within the United Kingdom newspapers could not pass free except under the frank of either members of Parliament or of the clerks of the roads. To the Continent of Europe and to the colonies they could pass only at the letter rate of postage unless they were franked, in the case of the Continent, by the comptroller or clerks of the foreign department, and, in the case of the colonies, by Freeling. This privilege of franking was to the Post Office servants who possessed it a source of considerable profit. Freeling's share alone amounted to nearly £3000 a year; but he, unlike his subordinates, claimed to frank not newspapers alone but the _Edinburgh_ and _Quarterly Reviews_ and other publications of a like nature.

The West India merchants had long writhed under this exaction, and now at their instance Joseph Hume, the member for Montrose, brought the matter under the notice of the House of Commons. The practice had only to be made known in order to secure condemnation. A bill was brought in and passed extinguishing the privilege so far as the colonies were concerned, empowering the Treasury to grant compensation for the loss of it, and providing for the transmission of newspapers at easy rates. These rates were, from the United Kingdom to the colonies, 1-1/2d. and, from the colonies to the United Kingdom, 3d. for each newspaper, the reason for the difference of charge being that the paper would bear a stamp-duty in one direction and not in the other.

In the case of newspapers for the Continent the franking privilege remained untouched. It may seem strange that this should have been so; indeed, not more than two or three years had elapsed before members of Parliament were expressing surprise that the Act which had taken away the privilege in respect to one class of newspapers had not taken it away also in respect to the other. But the explanation, we think, is simple. Some nine or ten years before it had been rumoured that in the case of all Post Office servants the franking privilege was to be abolished, and those who would have been injured by its abolition proceeded to shew cause why in their own case an exception should be made. Only by those who franked to the Continent were even plausible reasons given; and there can be little doubt that, at all events to some extent, the same reasons operated now. These were that over a great part of the Continent, except for the arrangements made by the Post Office servants in Lombard Street, English newspapers could not circulate at all or could circulate only under most onerous conditions. In France their circulation was prohibited. To Holland they could not be sent unless ordered by some postmaster there. In Germany and Sweden, unless so ordered, they could not pass through the post except at the letter rate of postage. In Portugal the letter rate of postage was always charged. In Russia, besides being charged 7s. 6d. apiece, they were generally delayed and not seldom suppressed altogether. These obstacles had been overcome by the private arrangements made from Lombard Street, and, if these should be disallowed, the transmission of newspapers to the Continent, instead of being facilitated, would be rendered more difficult and costly. Thus in 1816 argued those who were interested in the maintenance of the privilege, and we can well understand that in 1825 much the same considerations prevailed.

The same Act of Parliament which imposed upon newspapers to the colonies a postage of 1-1/2d. allowed newspapers within the United Kingdom to pass through the post free from any postage at all. This was the effect of the Act, but it was accomplished in a roundabout manner. By a statute passed early in the century[93] a member of Parliament was required, in order to send his newspapers free, to sign his name on the outside in his own handwriting, and, in order to receive them free, to have them addressed to some place of which he had given previous notice in writing at the Post Office. By the present statute these provisions were repealed. A newspaper, to be exempt from postage, need no longer bear the signature of a member of Parliament and need no longer be addressed to a place of which previous notice had been given. In other words, newspapers might pass through the post free; and as a consequence the franking privilege possessed by the clerks of the roads was at an end.

[93] 42 George III. cap. lxiii. sec. 10.

This, it might naturally be supposed, was a signal epoch in the history of the Post Office. As a matter of fact, it was nothing of the kind. For many years past the law had been disregarded. It had indeed been insisted upon that a newspaper, in order to pass free, must bear a member's name, without which the full letter rate of postage would be charged; but by whom the name was written, whether it was written at all or only printed, and whether the use of it had been authorised, had long ceased to be considered material. So well was this understood that some of the largest news-vendors in the kingdom adopted a member's name without the slightest reference to the member himself, and had it printed on their newspaper-covers.

This laxity in the case of newspapers may appear all the more extraordinary in view of the stringency which was observed in other matters. The Chelsea pensioners had by statute enjoyed the privilege of sending and receiving letters at low rates of postage. Freeling never rested until the statute was repealed. At the close of hostilities with France letters which had been detained in Paris since the war broke out in 1803 were forwarded to London, and the merchants urged that they might be delivered free. The Treasury were in favour of granting the request; but Freeling energetically opposed it. The delivery of such letters free, he insisted, would be a plain breach of the law. On a dissolution of Parliament those who had been members lost their privilege in the matter of franking; and yet it might be supposed that a short period of grace would have been allowed, a period sufficient to admit of letters which were already in the post being delivered free. Nothing of the kind. These letters were surprised in course of transit and charged with postage.[94]

[94] This is the circular which was issued to postmasters on the occasion of a dissolution:--

"The Parliament is dissolved. The franks of this evening are necessarily charged with postage, and you will immediately charge all letters and packets excepting the letters franked by such public officers as are by law at all times exempted from postage. Full instructions will be sent to-morrow."

Lord Salisbury when at the Post Office contrasted the stringency of later years with the laxity which prevailed in his early manhood. "In the year 1778," he wrote, "and in many succeeding ones while I took the field with the militia it was the constant practice to write on all regimental papers the words, 'On His Majesty's service,' which insured a free delivery; but in process of time the Post Office became rather stricter and more attentive, and then such a superscription was charged except when addressed to peers and members of Parliament, and I have frequently paid for such letters overweight without getting any redress."

When such strictness was observed in other matters, one can only wonder at the liberties which were allowed to be taken with newspapers, and it appears all the more strange because the very act which in the case of newspapers was countenanced and encouraged was in the case of letters a highly penal offence. Was it not for forging a single frank, the frank of Sir William Garrow, that the clerical impostor, Halloran, was in 1818 sentenced to seven years' transportation? The plain truth would seem to be that vested interests were so deeply involved in the matter of newspapers that there was on the part of the Post Office the utmost indisposition to make them the subject of legislative enactment; and yet, without some concessions to the news-vendors, it would have been impossible to resist the pressure which would have been brought to bear. This, we doubt not, is the true explanation; and it will account for much that is otherwise dark and obscure. It will explain why that which was regarded as a heinous offence in the case of letters was sanctioned and encouraged in the case of newspapers; why, enormously as the circulation of newspapers within the United Kingdom increased during the first quarter of the present century, we look in vain for any legislative enactment regulating the conditions under which, except when sent or received by members of Parliament, they might pass through the post; and why in 1825, when at length they had conceded to them the right to pass free, the concession was enacted in an indirect and circuitous manner.

So far, therefore, as inland newspapers were concerned, the practical effect of the statute which now passed was little more than to make law correspond with usage. During many years newspapers had been passing through the post, as they were to pass for the future, free. The only difference was that, in order to secure exemption, it was no longer necessary to go through the farce of either writing or printing the name of some member of Parliament on the outside of the cover. The clerks of the roads were unaffected by the statute. The advantage which these officers had at one time derived from their franking privilege had already been lost to them through the action of the Post Office in evading the law; and we can well believe that even so they considered themselves fortunate in being permitted to escape with their newspaper-business. This business, long after they had begun to compete with the news-vendors on equal terms, was of large dimensions. During the year 1829, out of 11,862,706 newspapers despatched from London into the country, 1,207,794 or more than one-tenth of the whole number were despatched by the clerks of the roads.

But it was not only in respect to newspapers that the House of Commons began about this time to manifest in the proceedings of the Post Office an interest such as it had never taken before. Committee after Committee was appointed to report upon the communications of the country, upon roads, mail-coaches, and steam packets; but without any definite result. Obviously the House was not satisfied with things as they were, and yet did not well see how to improve them. Only one man appears to have had a clear perception of what he wanted, and to have been possessed of the requisite ability to carry his object. This was Sir Henry Parnell, chairman of the Select Committee on the Holyhead Road, a Committee the title of which only inadequately denotes either its scope or importance. Parnell, presuming on the authority which this position gave him, and convinced no doubt of the feasibility of his scheme of improvement, adopted towards the Post Office an air of superiority which was peculiarly galling to Freeling, who for the first time in his life found himself dictated to in respect to matters in which he had hitherto been regarded as supreme. The effect of this Committee was not only to keep the Post Office busily employed in the preparation of returns but to put it on the defensive.

Another inquiry which was going on contemporaneously contributed to the same result. Early in the reign of George the Fourth a Commission had been appointed to inquire into the state of the revenue, and this Commission, which began with the Post Office in 1823, did not report the result of its labours until 1829. Meanwhile the Post Office, which was practically on its trial, put forward as few proposals as possible; and even from those that were put forward the Treasury withheld assent on the pretext that the Commission had not yet reported. Hence followed the somewhat curious result that the very period during which the House of Commons began to manifest an interest in the Post Office was on the part of the Post Office itself a period of more than ordinary inaction.

And yet the period in question, though not remarkable for Post Office progress, is by no means an uninteresting one if only because within its limits the old and the new are brought together in striking contrast. In 1818 the express office in the Haymarket is closed, an office which had been established in 1797 for the purpose of facilitating the receipt and despatch of Government expresses. In 1821 gas, or oil-gas as it was then called, is introduced into the Post Office, and at once asserts its superiority over oil in point not only of illuminating power but of cheapness as well. In 1822 the Post Office, by virtue of a warrant under the royal sign-manual, is cleared of its irrecoverable debts. These have been accumulating during a period of 137 years--since 1685, when the Post Office was first taken out of farm, and now amount to £62,141.

About the same time Thomas Gray, writing from Brussels, advocates the introduction of steam engines on iron railways and predicts that, once established, they will absorb the carrying trade of the kingdom and displace mail-coaches. In 1823 Brunel, who has already achieved distinction, offers his services in the construction of a steam engine which shall prove as efficient and as safe at sea as when employed on land. The brilliant engineer receives no encouragement, and Gray receives not even the courtesy of an answer. In the same year passes away at Tunbridge Wells, James Sprange, the courtly old postmaster, who up to the date of his last illness might be seen pacing the Pantiles scrupulously dressed in the costume of the reign of George the Second, even to the long ruffles. In 1825 Glasgow is pleading, and pleading in vain, for a Post Office which shall not be kept at a shop. In 1828 the Roman Catholic peers are once more protesting against the outrage which precludes them, on the score of their religion, from exercising the privilege of franking. In 1829 Waghorn is vainly striving to induce the Post Office to co-operate in facilitating communication with the East.

The inferiority of sailing vessels to vessels propelled by steam has now been conclusively established, and steam packets are being placed on every station. Not the Holyhead Road alone but all the great roads of the kingdom have passed under Telford's hands and are beginning to assume the condition in which we see them to-day. And all this while postage remains at the ridiculously high level at which it was fixed in 1812. To Windsor the charge on a single letter is still 6d., to Birmingham 9d., and to Liverpool 11d. Letters are still held up to a strong light to see whether they contain an enclosure or not, and are to be charged as single or as double. The first general delivery in St. James' Square is not begun before twelve o'clock in the day or finished much before one. Offices for the receipt of general post letters are still kept separate and distinct from those for the receipt of letters for the twopenny post. By the twopenny post the postage is not necessarily 2d., but, according as it is a twopenny post letter, a general post letter, or a foreign letter, may be 3d., 2d., or nothing. On a letter for abroad the fee for registration is still one guinea.[95] An additional penny is still charged upon every letter that crosses the Conway or the Menai Bridge. Two hundred and seventy-five post towns still remain without a free delivery, and--what proves a constant source of contention between the Post Office and the inhabitants--even in those towns in which the letters are delivered free, the limits of the free delivery are not defined.

[95] Since 1814 receipts had been given for registered letters. In that year Mr. H. M. Raikes, of 4 Portman Square, represented that he frequently sent valuable parcels of diamonds between this country and Holland, and that these parcels he insured, but that, to be certain of recovering his insurance should any casualty happen, "the London merchant ought to have some proof in his possession of his having delivered such a packet into the charge of the Post Office." If, he added, the clerks would give a receipt, the merchant would gladly give them for their trouble an additional guinea. The suggestion to charge a second guinea was not adopted; but from that time a receipt had been given for a registered letter in the following form:--

FOREIGN POST OFFICE.

LONDON 181

It is hereby certified that ......... has registered at this office a sealed packet said to contain .......... addressed to ............... which will be forwarded to ............. by the mail of this evening; but for its safe conveyance this office is not responsible.

(_Signature_) ....................

Twenty years before, the office in Gerrard Street, the headquarters of the twopenny post in Westminster, had been enlarged. Of this office, which ranked next in importance to the General Post Office in Lombard Street, the postmasters-general wrote in 1809--not, surely, without a touch of exaggeration: "The sorting office, where fourteen persons are generally employed at a time and nearly one-half of which is occupied by tables, is only seventeen feet long by thirteen wide"; and, again, "The letter-carriers' office, in which fifty persons are employed at a time and one-fourth of which is occupied by tables, is but eighteen feet by sixteen." Such were the conditions under which, until lately, the Post Office servants had been accustomed to work; and now on a site rich in historical associations is rapidly approaching completion a stately edifice which not only provides ample and even lavish accommodation for the present, but will, it is confidently predicted, suffice for all time.

The new Post Office in St. Martin's-le-Grand was opened on the 23rd of September 1829. Little more than sixty years have since elapsed, and the building has been shorn of its chief attraction, the central hall, and has otherwise been so altered internally that even the accomplished architect, were he to revisit us, would probably fail to recognise his own handiwork. Of the old Post Office in Lombard Street, with its courts and its alleys and its interesting associations, not a fragment remains. Part of the site was retained for Post Office purposes, and is now occupied by what is known as the Lombard Street Branch Office; part was thrown into the street then forming, and to be called after the King, King William Street; and the remainder was sold, and has long been covered with banks and counting-houses.

It were much to be wished, if only for his own reputation and peace of mind, that Freeling had now retired. Full of years, recently created a baronet, of ample means, and enjoying the confidence of the Government as probably civil servant had never enjoyed it before, he could not have selected a better moment for relinquishing the duties of his arduous post. But a man who has been accustomed to exercise power is seldom willing to give it up. And in Freeling's case we suspect there was an additional reason. Of the large income which he derived from the Post Office, exceeding £4000 a year, considerably more than two-thirds was compensation for the loss of the franking privilege; and this compensation, according to a well-understood rule, was not to count for pension. As the fees which had been received for the exercise of the privilege must have ceased on retirement, so the compensation was to cease also.

That Freeling would have received a special pension is beyond doubt; but even a special pension, with the utmost goodwill on the part of the Government, could not have approached the amount of his official income. And of this Freeling must have been well aware, for grumblings were already to be heard. The Commissioners of Revenue Inquiry, indeed, had gone so far as to question his right to receive any fees at all, and, even assuming such right to exist, had impugned the conduct of the Government in fixing the amount of his compensation at close upon £3000 a year.

The removal into the new building was celebrated by two important steps in advance. Two branch offices were opened, one at Charing Cross and the other in Oxford Street, where letters were received without a fee until half-past six o'clock in the evening. Up to this time, except in Lombard Street, no office for the receipt of letters had been kept open later than five o'clock. A still more important step was the earlier delivery of letters in the morning. This was accomplished within the city by the employment of additional letter-carriers, and in the more distant parts by conveying the men to their walks in vehicles. A whole hour was thus gained. In the west end of London the delivery had not been completed until between twelve and one o'clock. It was now to be completed, except on Mondays, when the greater number of letters caused delay, between eleven and twelve.

It will be convenient here to notice, though not strictly in chronological order, a third step in advance which took place about a year later, a step regarded as of little moment at the time, and yet one which, in view of subsequent events, was of the highest importance. On the 11th of November 1830 the first mail was sent by railway, this being the mail between Liverpool and Manchester. Except as the opening of a new era, the fact would hardly deserve to be recorded, for many years had yet to pass before railways became sufficiently general to afford to the Post Office any sensible relief. Meanwhile the roofs of the mail-coaches groaned under the weight of the mails. Time had been when no mail was allowed to be put on the roof or elsewhere than in the mail-box; but, as the correspondence increased, the Post Office was forced to countenance a practice of which it highly disapproved. What, except for the railways, would have happened on the introduction of penny postage is a question into which, happily, we need not inquire.

The new Post Office had not been long occupied before the Government changed hands, and Earl Grey came into power with the Duke of Richmond as postmaster-general. It is not often that a change of Government affects the proceedings of the Post Office. One postmaster-general may be more active than another, or he may take a more lively and personal interest in the questions with which he has to deal; but there must, from the nature of the case, be a continuity of policy which can seldom be broken. Nor was there in this respect any exception to rule in the present instance. And yet the peer who now assumed the direction of the Post Office adopted a mode of procedure so different from that of his immediate predecessors that it is impossible to pass over the occasion in silence.

Richmond on his appointment as postmaster-general declined to receive any salary; and having formed this determination on the ground that the office was notoriously a sinecure, he straightway proceeded to shew that a sinecure was the very thing which in his hands the office was not to be. He devoted himself heart and soul to his new duties. Early and late, at his private residence as well as the Post Office, he was in constant and personal communication with officers of all classes from the highest to the lowest. Nothing like it had been seen since the days of Walsingham. He frequented the sorting office, saw for himself how the work was done, and with many a kindly word encouraged the men to do their best. With his own hands he on one occasion opened a bag for the colonial office, and, in confirmation of the suspicion which had prompted the act, found it full of letters for bankers, army agents, and others, representing postage to the amount of £60.

Yet hard as he laboured, the Duke's repugnance to receive remuneration for his services could not be overcome. Learning that his salary remained undrawn, the Treasury addressed to him a letter of gentle remonstrance. To this letter he returned no reply. Fourteen months later the Treasury wrote again. To gratuitous service there were, in their Lordships' opinion, serious objections. The Lord Privy Seal had declined to receive the salary annexed to his office, and a Select Committee of the House of Commons had expressed disapproval of the step as being inconsistent with the wishes and the dignity of the country. Could that be right on the part of the postmaster-general which had been held to be wrong in the case of the Lord Privy Seal? Richmond now yielded, feeling that it would be indelicate, if not disrespectful to the House, to force gratuitous service where he was authoritatively informed gratuitous service would not be welcome; but while yielding he managed to draw as little of the arrears of salary as possible. His appointment as postmaster-general bore date the 14th of December 1830, and the views of the Committee were for the first time made known to him at the end of April. The end of April, he was pleased to say, was an inconvenient time to begin. It was a broken quarter. He would, in deference to the opinion of the Committee, draw salary from the 5th of July but not before.

Richmond had been only a short time at the Post Office when he had a most invidious task to perform. This was the carrying out of the arrangements consequent upon the consolidation of the Irish Post Office with the Post Office of Great Britain. The state of things arising from the maintenance within the United Kingdom of two independent Post Offices had long been felt to be intolerable. Until four or five years before, not only had the rates of postage in Ireland been different from those in England, but on a letter passing from one part of the kingdom to another both the English and the Irish rates had been charged. This had now been altered,[96] but the inconvenience of the dual control remained. A letter from Ireland might have miscarried or been delayed. The postmaster-general of England could not answer for its course except on this side of the Channel, and for further particulars the complainant had to be referred to Dublin. The English packets were timed to arrive in Ireland at a particular hour; but on the goodwill of the authorities in Dublin it depended whether the Irish posts corresponded or whether, as had not been unknown to be the case, their times were perversely fixed so as to keep the English mails waiting.

[96] 7 and 8 George IV. cap. xxi.

Nor was this all. The Revenue Inquiry Commissioners had recently reported upon the Irish Post Office, and the evidence, on which their report was based, revealed the existence of scandalous abuses such as no Government could suffer to continue. For nearly fifty years the Irish Post Office had been independent of the Post Office of Great Britain, and it was now determined that this independence should cease. In 1831 an Act was passed incorporating the two Post Offices into one, and Richmond's patent as postmaster-general of Great Britain had hardly been completed before another passed constituting him postmaster-general of the United Kingdom.

Upon Richmond as postmaster-general of Ireland as well as England and Scotland it now devolved to sweep out the Augean stable; and his stern sense of duty peculiarly qualified him for the task. Rosse and O'Neill had ceased to be postmasters-general of Ireland upon the Act of incorporation passing. Lees, their secretary, was removed from Dublin to Edinburgh. Only those who had performed their duties in person were retained. All others were summarily dismissed and pensions were refused to them. In the result the Irish establishment was reduced in point of numbers by one-half, and in point of cost by nearly £10,000 a year; and this after the salaries of those who were retained had been increased all round.

One important function had yet to be performed. This was to audit the Irish accounts, which had not been audited for fourteen years, and were known to be in a state of the utmost confusion. The receiver-general, who carried on the private business of banker and money-lender, had recently died, and speculation was high as to what further scandals the audit would reveal. All preparations had been made, and the persons selected for the task were on the point of starting for Dublin when intelligence reached London that the receiver-general's bond was not forthcoming. It had, shortly after his death, been surrendered under an instruction from Lees which, like the instruction which conferred upon his brother a valuable appointment, purported to have been given at a Board at which were present "the earls." The earls, as a matter of fact, had not been present and had never been consulted on the point. As it was felt that in the absence of the bond an audit would be of little use, the Government abandoned their intention, and the Irish Post Office accounts from 1817 to 1831 remain unaudited to the present day.

Lord Althorp was at this time Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the position which he assumed towards the Post Office was probably unique. Ordinarily, between the Treasury and the Post Office there is a certain amount of antagonism which, deplorable as it may be, is not difficult to understand. The Post Office wants to spend money; the Treasury wants to save it. The Post Office knows by experience that it must sow before it can reap; the Treasury, while ready enough to reap, has a rooted aversion to sowing, and resolutely shuts its eyes to the fact that between the two processes there is a direct and necessary connection. All this was reversed in Althorp's time. Often, during his tenure of office, might be witnessed the strange spectacle of a Chancellor of the Exchequer urging the Post Office to adopt some improvement, and the Post Office attempting to frighten him with the bogey of cost.

The first matter on which Althorp brought his authority to bear was the boundary of the general post delivery. The limits of this delivery were irregular and capricious in the extreme. Of two streets, possibly adjoining streets, one might receive its general post letters for the general post rate alone, while the other, though at no greater distance from St. Martin's-le-Grand, had to pay the twopenny rate as well.

The question now forced itself into prominence. Belgrave Square had been laid out, and the houses were being occupied as fast as they could be built. Those of the occupiers who were members of Parliament found to their chagrin that every letter they received cost them 2d., for the franking privilege did not clear the twopenny post; and, of course, by those who were not members of Parliament, 2d. had to be paid in addition to any other postage to which their letters might be liable. Althorp insisted that the general post limits should be not only extended but fixed on some definite principle. But what was the principle to be? Contiguity of building? This was held to be impracticable. A line drawn on such a basis would extend beyond Brentford on the west to Hampstead and Highgate on the north, and beyond Clapham on the south. A line drawn according to parishes would be little better. The parish of St. Pancras, which nearly touched Holborn in its southern extremity, extended as far as Finchley in the north, and the parish of Lambeth reached nearly to Croydon.

Another course would be to draw a circle of which the Post Office should be the centre, and let all letters within this circle be delivered free; but even with a radius of no more than three miles, the additional cost would be £25,000 a year. This was an outlay which the Post Office could not recommend, and, if it were incurred, the Government must take the responsibility. Althorp was not to be daunted, and after April 1831 the general post limits extended for a distance of three miles from St. Martin's-le-Grand. A little later, the threepenny post was extended to a radius of twelve miles. This, boon as it was considered to be sixty years ago, was shorter by some miles than the radius of the penny post when Queen Anne ascended the throne.

Althorp was hardly less determined on the subject of the packets. It had been a matter of principle with Freeling, that to all places beyond the sea to which there was regular communication the Post Office should carry its own mails. That they should be carried in vessels belonging to private persons, however respectable these persons might be, appeared to him to be unworthy of the English Government, and on this ground many an advantageous offer had been refused.

Althorp held a different opinion, and an opportunity soon offered of carrying his own view into effect. From Harwich the mails to Holland and to Hamburg were still carried by sailing packet, and the merchants of London, regarding this as an anachronism, urged that the sailing packets might be replaced by steam packets. The request was not unreasonable, but, unwilling that the Government should be at the cost of substituting one description of packet for the other, Althorp directed that the service should be put up to public competition. Here we see the first application of a principle which in the result has furnished us with a fleet of packets such as no other country in the world can produce. The tender of the General Steam Navigation Company was accepted, though saddled with the condition that its vessels should start from the Thames. This was a death-blow to Harwich. The sailing packets for Sweden were, indeed, still retained there; but in little more than eighteen months the Swedish Government contracted for the mails to be forwarded from Hull, and Harwich as a packet station was closed.

But of all the changes which Althorp introduced perhaps the most important, and certainly the one which excited most opposition at the Post Office, was the abolition of the newspaper privilege. The number of newspapers sent by post from London into the country had, within the last fifty or sixty years, increased enormously. In 1764 they averaged 3160 a day, in 1790 the daily average was 12,600, and in 1830 it had risen to 41,412. The rate of increase, moreover, was advancing. In 1829 the total number of such newspapers was 11,862,000, and in 1830 12,962,000; and more than one-tenth part of the whole number was supplied by the clerks of the roads.

The news-vendors now took the matter up in earnest. A general meeting was held to protest against the Post Office servants being any longer allowed to compete with the private dealers, and a petition to the same effect was presented to Parliament. This called forth a vigorous rejoinder from Freeling, and it is interesting to note by what arguments he defended his position. So far, he said, from the news-vendors having any ground of complaint against the Post Office servants, it is the Post Office servants who have reason to complain of the news-vendors. For their own interest and advantage a few persons engaged in a trade of modern creation are endeavouring by clamour to deprive others of the remains of an old and long-established privilege, which they exercise not only under the sanction of immemorial usage, but by the direct authority of Acts of Parliament. It is not as though the public were interested in the question. The public have absolutely no interest in it, except indeed to this extent--that, if what remains of the privilege be withdrawn, they will be asked to compensate those whose incomes are reduced in consequence, and to provide higher salaries for their successors; and this "for the sole purpose of transferring their authorised official remuneration to the pockets of a few individuals who, having been admitted to a participation in what was originally an exclusive privilege, have now thought proper to set up a claim to the whole."

Such were Freeling's arguments, but Althorp was not convinced by them. By his direction the privilege was withdrawn as from the 5th of April 1834, and those whose incomes suffered were handsomely compensated. Thus ended a practice which had existed from the first establishment of the Post Office, and which, while the Post Office was still in its infancy, may perhaps have had this to justify it--that except for the franking privilege possessed by the clerks of the roads the provinces would probably have had to go without even the few copies of newspapers which at that time found their way there.

It may appear strange that, while Althorp was thus applying his sturdy common sense to the affairs of the Post Office, no steps were taken to correct what most needed correction--the exorbitant rates of postage. Our own belief is that in a very short time, had the Government of which he was a member remained in office, a reduction would have been made, and that it was to this result that he and Richmond, who worked hand in hand together, were preparing the way. As to Richmond's views on the matter there can be little doubt. Under previous Governments the Post Office had been accustomed in exceptional cases to appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to mitigate the severity of its own rates by the exercise of a dispensing power; but Richmond set his face against the practice, insisting that the law should be obeyed until it was altered; and, after being released from the trammels of office, he was one of the first to propose an alteration.

But if such were indeed Althorp and Richmond's intention, we cannot regret that it was not carried into effect. The illustrious man who gave us penny postage had not yet directed his attention to the subject; and, as he tells us himself, it was with him a matter of long and careful consideration whether he should devote his energies to the reform of the Post Office or to the improvement of the printing machine. If in 1834 only a moderate reduction had been made in the extortionate rates of postage which were then in force, Rowland Hill might not have embarked upon his plan, and, even if he had done so, that plan might have failed to evoke from the public sufficient support to overcome opposition in high quarters. In proportion to the extent of the evil did men welcome the remedy.

Meanwhile, although the demand for cheap postage had not yet taken shape, profound dissatisfaction existed with the conduct of the Post Office. This, under the reformed Parliament, was perhaps to be expected in any case; but there were special circumstances which contributed to the result. Nearly five years had elapsed since the Royal Commission of Inquiry had reported upon the Post Office, and nothing had since been done to carry its recommendations into effect.

It is not difficult to understand this inaction. In Freeling's view the Post Office had been brought to a pitch of perfection such as it had never reached before, and he regarded it as little short of sacrilege that a body of outside novices should presume to lay its hands upon the sacred ark which he had now for more than a generation been moulding into form. Of the change of opinion which the labours of the Commission had wrought he appears to have been utterly unconscious. Hitherto the Post Office had been regarded as a marvellous mystery, which none but experts could understand. This mystery had now been invaded, and men were beginning to wonder, not, as in the past, at the things which the Post Office was able to do, but how it was that these things were not done better.

The Commission had also brought to light the existence of abuses, and these on one pretext or another had remained uncorrected. We will give a single instance. The Money Order Office had been established in 1792 with the object of facilitating the transmission of small sums from one part of the country to the other by means of orders drawn on the different postmasters. The plan was excellent and deserved success. The only objection to it was that the enterprise was a private one, undertaken by a few Post Office servants for their own benefit, and that to make it remunerative to the projectors required from the authorities an amount of favour which they had no right to bestow. Originally there had been no limit to the amount for which a money order might be drawn;[97] but long before 1829, in order to prevent interference with the banking interest, the limit had been fixed at £5:5s.; and the commission chargeable was at the rate of 8d. in the £1 on the sum remitted. Of this amount 3d. went to the postmaster who issued the order, 3d. to the postmaster who paid it, and the residue to the proprietors.[98]

[97] At the outset in 1792 the limit had indeed been fixed at £5:5s.; but even in the first year this limit was largely exceeded. During the three months ending the 10th of October 1800, 697 money orders were issued, viz. 220 in London and 477 in the country, representing an aggregate amount of £8863, or at the rate of more than £12 apiece.

[98] Among the records of the Post Office is still preserved a money order drawn by one postmaster upon another at the beginning of the century. A facsimile of it is given in the Appendix.

Seeing that the postage on a single letter between two towns no farther apart than London and Bristol was at this time 10d., it will be obvious that in respect to orders for small sums the enterprise would have been conducted at a loss unless the correspondence on money order business had been exempt from postage. And such indeed was the case. All letters passing from London to the country were impressed with the official stamp, and those passing from the country to London were enclosed in printed covers addressed to the secretary, and bearing, immediately below the secretary's name, that of the proprietors, "Stow and Company." For correspondence between themselves on money order business the postmasters were supplied with franks sent down from London in blank. Strongly as the Commission of Inquiry had animadverted on this abuse, nothing had been done to correct it, and the franking privilege was, for money order purposes, being as freely used as ever.

The returns which the House of Commons called for about this time, and the returns which the Post Office furnished, shew, more forcibly perhaps than anything else, in what direction men's minds were tending, and how hollow was the foundation on which a part of the Post Office system rested. More than sixty years had elapsed since the Law Courts decided that inhabitants of post towns were entitled to a gratuitous delivery of their letters. The House now inquired at how many post towns a charge on delivery was still being made, and by what authority. The return furnished by the Post Office shewed the number of towns to be eighty-nine, and after giving as the authority for the charge "immemorial usage," went on to state that "the payment is not compulsory if the parties choose to object."

It was still the practice to hold up to a strong lamplight every letter that passed through the post in order to see whether it was a single or a double one; and the House called upon the Post Office to state by what authority this was done. The Post Office, having no authority to adduce, returned an evasive reply. The House next called for the number of persons who had been prosecuted in the course of the year for the illegal conveyance of letters. The Post Office return shewed that on this ground, during the last twelve months, as many as 341 prosecutions had taken place, many of them involving a large, and some of them a very large, number of persons, and that the cases were still more numerous in which, in order to avoid prosecution, the transgressors had submitted to fines. And how had the revenue been prospering meanwhile? A return called for by the House in April 1834 answers the question. During the last ten years, despite the increase of population, the net Post Office revenue had actually declined. In 1824 the receipts were £2,055,000 gross and £1,438,000 net, as against £1,391,000 net and £2,062,000 gross in 1833.

In 1834 Earl Grey was succeeded by Viscount Melbourne; and one of the first acts of the new Government was to appoint another Commission of Inquiry into the Post Office, with directions to ascertain and report how it was that the recommendations of the former Commission had not been carried out. These recommendations were now set down one by one, and the Post Office was called upon to explain, opposite to each, whether any and, if so, what steps had been taken to give effect to it. One or two of them had indeed been adopted--such, for instance, as the recommendation that Post Office servants should cease to deal in newspapers--but only under compulsion. Others affecting the internal administration of the Post Office were certainly not feasible. But there remained not a few which, while excellent in themselves, had been discarded on the merest pretext.

The Commissioners had recommended that the "early," that is the preferential, delivery of letters should be discontinued. The Post Office replied that it was impossible. The Commissioners had recommended that, instead of the receiving houses for general post letters being separate and distinct from those for the letters of the twopenny post, every receiving house should take in letters of both kinds. The Post Office replied that the existing arrangement was the best adapted not only to the convenience of the public but to the business of the department. The Commissioners had recommended that the letter-carriers, instead of being separated into general post, twopenny post, and foreign letter-carriers, should all form one corps and deliver letters of every description. The Post Office replied--a reply all the more extraordinary inasmuch as the very arrangement which the Commissioners recommended was already in force both in Edinburgh and Dublin--that "it would be productive of the greatest confusion and delay."

The last of the recommendations to which we shall refer was that "the total charge upon all letters should be expressed in one taxation." The Post Office replied that it was "not possible for country postmasters to know the precise line of demarcation between the general post and twopenny post deliveries." In other words, no postmaster could know what, in the case of letters for London--and, it might have been added, for any other town than his own--the proper charge should be. This was no pretext. It was, on the contrary, perfectly true; and perhaps no more striking testimony could be afforded to the unsoundness of the system then in vogue.

It is impossible to conceive that on Freeling's part there can have been anything in the shape of contumacy, still less of defiance; but we are by no means sure that the House of Commons did not incline to that view. Be that as it may, however, the Post Office was in bad odour, and an unfortunate series of incidents which occurred about this time little tended to remove the unfavourable impression which the unwillingness to carry out the Commissioners' recommendations had created. The House, at the instance of the Select Committee on Steam Navigation, had called for a return of the casualties which within a given period had happened to the Irish packets. The return furnished by the Post Office omitted two accidents in which one of the members of the Committee had himself assisted; and the Committee forthwith ordered the attendance of a witness from the Post Office to explain the omission. Another return contained obvious errors, and was sent back to the Post Office to be corrected.

But the two returns which excited most comment referred to the mileage allowance received by the mail-coach contractors, and to the Money Order Office. As regards the mileage allowance the only reply vouchsafed by the Post Office was that it "has not the means of furnishing any account of the amount paid." The return as regards the Money Order Office was still more unfortunate. The ground on which this office had been condemned by the Revenue Inquiry Commissioners was that it was carried on for the benefit of individuals, and yet in so far as its correspondence was exempt from postage, at the expense of the revenue. Several years had since passed, and the House, not doubting that the abuse had been corrected, called for a return shewing the amount of postage derived from letters containing money orders, and to what purpose it was applied. "The Money Order Office"--thus ran the return which the Post Office furnished--" is a private establishment, and the business is carried on by private capital under the sanction of the postmaster-general; but as no accounts connected in any degree with it are kept at the Post Office, no return can be made by the postmaster-general to the order of the House of Commons." The House was highly incensed, and ordered that, both as regards the Money Order Office and the mileage allowance, proper returns should be rendered at once.

The energy of the new Commission had now nearly brought the Post Office into trouble. The contract for the supply of mail-coaches was in the hands of Mr. Vidler of Millbank, who had held it for more than forty years, and little had been done during this period to improve the construction of the vehicles he supplied. Designed after the pattern in vogue at the end of the last century, they were, as compared with the stage-coaches, not only heavy and unsightly but inferior both in point of speed and accommodation. Moreover, the charge made for them, namely, 2-1/2d. a mile in England and 2d. a mile in Scotland, was considered to be high; and the Commissioners, altogether dissatisfied with the manner in which the contract had been performed, arranged with the Government not only that the service should be put up to public tender, but that Vidler should be excluded from the competition. This decision was arrived at in July 1835, and the contract expired on the 5th of January following. To invite tenders would occupy time, and, after that mail-coaches would have to be built sufficient in number to supply the whole of England and Scotland. A period of five or six months was obviously not enough for the purpose, and overtures were made to Vidler to continue his contract for half a year longer. Vidler, incensed at the treatment he had received, flatly refused. Not a day, not an hour, beyond the stipulated time would he extend his contract, and on the 5th of January 1836 all the mail-coaches in Great Britain would be withdrawn from the roads.

A man less loyal than Freeling or endued with less generous instincts might have felt a twinge of satisfaction at this result of interference with what he considered his own domain. But such emotion, if indeed he felt it, was not suffered to appear. With a difficulty to overcome, some of his old energy returned, and when the 5th of January arrived there was not a road in the kingdom from Wick to Penzance on which a new mail-coach was not running.

It was now that the mail-coaches reached their prime. Eight or nine miles an hour had hitherto been their highest speed, and now, with vehicles of lighter build, the speed was advanced to ten miles an hour and even more. Truth compels us to add that while the fastest mail-coach on the road, the coach between Liverpool and Preston, travelled at the rate of ten miles and five furlongs an hour, a private coach accomplished within the hour rather more than eleven miles. This was the coach between Edinburgh and Aberdeen, of which Captain Barclay of Ury was the proprietor. Besides coachman and guard it carried fifteen passengers, namely, four inside and eleven outside, while a mail-coach carried four in and four out or eight altogether. Nor would Captain Barclay admit that, in order to attain this high rate of speed, recourse need be had to anything like furious driving. Nothing more, he maintained, was necessary than to keep the horses at a "swinging trot."

Freeling's success in averting a breakdown with the mail-coaches did little or nothing to arrest the tide which had set in against him. After exercising an influence such as probably no civil servant had exercised before, he found himself discredited and the object of vehement and not over-scrupulous attack. Of the ministers under whose orders he had acted not a few had passed away, and none were in a position to share his responsibility, while their successors only knew him as identified with a system which had become unpopular. Owing to an unusually rapid succession of postmasters-general,[99] he was without even the solace and support which a chief of some years' standing might have given him. Single-handed, the old man had maintained a gallant defence; but his spirit was now broken. In the midst of his exertions to prevent any interruption of travelling facilities the House of Commons had called for a return which was calculated to wound him deeply. This return implied not only that he had been guilty of gross mismanagement, but that his salary was higher than he was entitled to receive, that he was drawing unauthorised emoluments, and that the Post Office was made subordinate to his personal interests.

[99] Five within a single year. The Duke of Richmond ceased to be postmaster-general in July 1834; and he was followed by Lord Conyngham, Lord Maryborough, Lord Conyngham a second time, and Lord Lichfield, the last of whom was appointed in May 1835.

To the outside world Freeling maintained much the same demeanour as before, and few would have suspected the weight that pressed at his heart; but in the solitude of his study he was an altered man. There he brooded over the past and contrasted it with the present. Notes jotted down haphazard on official papers that chanced to be on his table reveal the inner workings of his mind. We know few sadder records. He recalls the time when Governments consulted him and he stood high in favour with the public. He cannot forget how, in the course of debate in the House of Commons, his own proficiency and devotion to duty were urged as reasons for not retaining the second appointment of postmaster. In the recollection of those happy days he endeavours to find consolation for the calumny and detraction of the present. He repudiates as unfounded the charge that he has long ceased to consult the interests of the public, and affirms that in this cause he has of late years laboured even more abundantly than he did of old.

Then there is a break, after which he takes up his pen again. "Cheap postage,"--to this effect he writes. "What is this men are talking about? Can it be that all my life I have been in error? If I, then others--others whose behests I have been bound to obey. To make the Post Office revenue as productive as possible was long ago impressed upon me by successive ministers as a duty which I was under a solemn obligation to discharge. And not only long ago. Is it not within the last six months that the present Chancellor of the Exchequer[100] has charged me not to let the revenue go down? What! You, Freeling, brought up and educated as you have been, are you going to lend yourself to these extravagant schemes? You, with your four-horse mail-coaches too. Where else in the world does the merchant or manufacturer have the materials of his trade carried for him gratuitously or at so low a rate as to leave no margin of profit?"

[100] The Right Hon. Thomas Spring Rice.

Here the manuscript abruptly ends. It is dated the 24th of June 1836. Within sixteen days from that date Francis Freeling was no more.

* * * * *

We have done. From 1836 downwards the story of the Post Office is told, far better than we could tell it, in the Autobiography of Sir Rowland Hill and the reports which, since 1854, the department has issued annually. The story of the preceding period is less well known, if indeed it be known at all. To tell the earlier story--to trace the Post Office from its humble beginnings down to the time when the illustrious reformer took it in hand--this has been the extent of our object, and no one perhaps is more conscious than ourselves how imperfectly it has been accomplished.

APPENDIX

SUCCESSION OF POSTMASTERS-GENERAL FROM 1660 TO 1836

From 1660 to 1667 the Post Office was in farm, the farmers being--

1660 to 1663. Henry Bishopp. Rent, £21,500. Bishopp surrendered his patent, which was for seven years, in 1663.

1663 to 1667. (Being residue of Bishopp's term.) Daniel O'Neile. Rent, £21,500.

1667 to 1685. Henry, Earl of Arlington. Rent for later part of the term, £43,000. Office managed, at first, by Sir John Bennet, Lord Arlington's brother, and afterwards by Colonel Roger Whitley.

1685 to 1689. Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester. (For part of the time Lord Treasurer.)[101] Office managed by Philip Frowde, Esq., under the title of Governor.

[101] The concentration of the offices of Lord Treasurer and Postmaster-General in one person served to facilitate the transaction of Post Office business in a manner which those who have had experience of the present system will not be slow to understand. Take, for instance, the question of increasing a Post Office servant's salary. At the present time the Postmaster-General may be thoroughly convinced himself that an increase is called for, but--what is a very different matter--he has also to convince the Treasury. In 1686 the Postmaster-General's own conviction was enough. The following will serve as an illustration. Thomas Cale, Postmaster of Bristol, applies for an increase of salary, and Frowde, the Governor, satisfies Rochester that an increase will be proper. Forthwith issues a document, of which the operative part is as follows:--"You are therefore of opinion that the said salary (£50) is very small considering the expense the petitioner is att, and his extraordinary trouble, Bristoll being a greate Citty, but you say that you doe not think all the things he setts downe in the aforesaid accompt ought to be allowed him, the example being of very ill consequence, for (as you informe me) you doe not allow either candles, packthread, wax, ink, penns or paper to any of the Postmasters, nor office-rent, nor returnes of mony, you are therefore of opinion that tenn pounds per annum to his former salary of £50 will be a reasonable allowance, and the petitioner will be therewith satisfied, these are therefore to pray and require you" to raise his salary from £50 to £60 accordingly. ROCHESTER.

WHITEHALL TREASURY CHAMBERS, _Dec. 13, 1686_.

July 1689 to March 1690. Colonel John Wildman.

1690 to 1708. Sir Robert Cotton, Knight, and Sir Thomas Frankland, Bart.

1708 to 1715. Sir Thomas Frankland, Bart., and Sir John Evelyn, Bart.

1715 to 1721. Charles, Lord Cornwallis, and James Craggs, Esq.

1721 to 1725. Edward Carteret, Esq., and Galfridus Walpole, Esq.

1725 to 1732. Edward Carteret, Esq., and Edward Harrison, Esq.

Christmas 1732. Edward Carteret alone to Midsummer 1733.

1733 to 1739. Edward Carteret, Esq., and Thomas, Lord Lovell, afterwards Earl of Leicester.

1739 to 1744. Thomas, Lord Lovell, and Sir John Eyles, Bart.

1744 to 1745. Thomas, Earl of Leicester (sometime Lord Lovell) alone.

1745 to 1758. Thomas, Earl of Leicester, and Sir Everard Fawkener, Knight.

1758 to 1759. Thomas, Earl of Leicester, alone.

June 2, 1759 to November 27, 1762. William, Earl of Bessborough, and Hon. Robert Hampden.

November 27, 1762 to September 23, 1763. John, Earl of Egmont, and Hon. Robert Hampden.

September 23, 1763 to July 19, 1765. Thomas, Lord Hyde, and Hon. Robert Hampden.

July 19, 1765 to December 29, 1766. William, Earl of Bessborough, and Thomas, Lord Grantham.

December 29, 1766 to April 26, 1768. Wills, Earl of Hillsborough, and Francis, Lord Le Despencer.

April 26, 1768 to January 16, 1771. John, Earl of Sandwich, and Francis, Lord Le Despencer.

January 16, 1771 to December 11, 1781. Francis, Lord Le Despencer, and Right Hon. Henry Frederick Thynne, afterwards Carteret.

December 11, 1781 to January 24, 1782. Right Hon. Henry Frederick Carteret (sometime Thynne) alone.

January 24 to April 25, 1782. William, Viscount Barrington, and Right Hon. Henry Frederick Carteret.

April 25, 1782 to May 1, 1783. Charles, Earl of Tankerville, and Right Hon. Henry Frederick Carteret.

May 1, 1783 to January 7, 1784. Thomas, Lord Foley, and Right Hon. Henry Frederick Carteret.

January 7, 1784 to September 19, 1786. Charles, Earl of Tankerville, and Right Hon. Henry Frederick Carteret. (Created Baron Carteret, January 29, 1784.)

September 19 to December 10, 1786. Thomas, Earl of Clarendon, and Henry Frederick, Lord Carteret.

December 10, 1786 to July 6, 1787. Henry Frederick, Lord Carteret, alone.

July 6, 1787 to September 19, 1789. Henry Frederick, Lord Carteret, and Thomas, Lord Walsingham.

September 19, 1789 to March 13, 1790. Thomas, Lord Walsingham, and John, Earl of Westmorland.

March 13, 1790 to July 28, 1794. Thomas, Lord Walsingham, and Philip, Earl of Chesterfield.

July 28, 1794 to March 1, 1798. Philip, Earl of Chesterfield, and George, Earl of Leicester.

March 1, 1798 to February 27, 1799. George, Earl of Leicester, and William, Lord Auckland.

February 27, 1799 to March 31, 1801. William, Lord Auckland, and George, Lord Gower.

March 31, 1801 to July 19, 1804. William, Lord Auckland, and Lord Charles Spencer.

July 19, 1804 to February 20, 1806. Lord Charles Spencer and James, Duke of Montrose.

February 20, 1806 to May 5, 1807. Robert, Earl of Buckinghamshire, and John Joshua, Earl of Carysfort.

May 5, 1807 to June 6, 1814. John, Earl of Sandwich, and Thomas, Earl of Chichester.

June 6 to September 30, 1814. Thomas, Earl of Chichester, alone.

September 30, 1814 to April 6, 1816. Thomas, Earl of Chichester, and Richard, Earl of Clancarty.

April 6, 1816 to June 13, 1823. Thomas, Earl of Chichester, and James, Marquess of Salisbury.

Since Lord Salisbury's death on the 13th of June 1823, no second Postmaster-General has been appointed.

June 13, 1823 to July 4, 1826. Thomas, Earl of Chichester.

July 4, 1826 to September 17, 1827. Lord Frederick Montague.

September 17, 1827 to December 14, 1830. William, Duke of Manchester.

December 14, 1830 to July 5, 1834. Charles, Duke of Richmond.

By his first patent, dated the 14th of December 1830, the Duke was appointed Postmaster-General of Great Britain; and by a second patent, dated the 14th of April 1831, he was appointed Postmaster-General of Great Britain and Ireland.

July 5 to December 31, 1834. Francis Nathaniel, Marquess Conyngham.

December 31, 1834 to May 8, 1835. William, Lord Maryborough.

May 8 to May 30, 1835. Francis Nathaniel, Marquess Conyngham.

May 30, 1835, to September 15, 1841. Thomas William, Earl of Lichfield.

SUCCESSION OF SECRETARIES TO THE POST OFFICE DOWN TO 1836.

The appointment of Secretary was created by Treasury Warrant dated the 20th of June 1694.

1694 to 1700. Name uncertain; but probably Willboyl.

[In 1694 the Postmasters-General urge the creation of the appointment of Secretary; in 1697 they speak of "having sent our Secretary down to Worcester"; and in October 1701, when reporting on a paper which had been referred to them as far back as June 1699, they explain that "by the death of our late Secretary y^e paper has been mislaid and but very lately recovered." That there was a Secretary during this period is, therefore, beyond doubt.

During the same period the Post Office letter books are written in a handwriting as peculiar as it is good; and in the same handwriting, of the identity of which there can be no question, there is in the Frankland-Blaithwaite correspondence, until lately in the possession of Sir Thomas Phillipps, a letter from the General Post Office dated the 27th of May 1697, and docketed thus, the docket having obviously been written at the time of receipt:--"From Mr. Willboyl, Commissioner of the Post Office." Now, Commissioner of the Post Office he certainly was not, there being at that time no such appointment; but it is probable that he was Secretary, and that with this official title, which had been only recently given, Blaithwaite was not acquainted.]

1700 to 1714. Benjamin Waterhouse.

1714 to 1715. Henry Weston.

1715 to 1721. James Craggs.

1721 to (about) 1730. Joseph Godman.

(About) 1730 to 1737. W. Rouse.

1737 to 1738. Thomas Robinson.

September 1738 to July 1742. John David Barbutt.

July 1742 to December 1762. George Shelvocke.

December 1762 to July 1765. Anthony Todd.

July 1765 to January 1768. Henry Potts.

January 1768 to June 1798. Anthony Todd (again).

June 1798 to July 1836. Francis Freeling.

INDEX

Abdy, Sir Robert, 38

Abercorn, James, Earl of, his unreasonable complaint, 153

Absenteeism, in England, 231; in Ireland, 371

Alien Office, assists the Post Office in procuring foreign newspapers, 347

Allen, Ralph, postmaster of Bath, takes in farm the bye and cross-post letters, 147; conditions of his contract, 147; success of his enterprise, 148; is thwarted by the postmasters, 149; his contract renewed, 150; nature of his plan and his special qualifications for carrying it into effect, 155; his local knowledge, 157; his difficulties with the postmasters, 157 _seq._; as a means of check lays down certain propositions, 161; instances of imposition practised by postmasters, 163; by post-boys, 164; by carriers and others concerned in the illegal conveyance of letters, 165; the liberality of his arrangements, 166; his course of procedure contrasted with that of the postmasters-general, 168; pays higher rent and increases the frequency of the post every seven years when his contract is renewed, 169; his injunction about the use of expresses, 182; his death, 185; his character, 186; is an object of jealousy to Palmer, 230

Alphabet, 374; ingenious one in use at Belfast, 375

Althorp, John Charles, Viscount, urges on Post Office improvements, 415; fixes the limits of the general post delivery, 416; throws the packet service open to public competition, 417; abolishes the newspaper privilege enjoyed by the clerks of the roads, 418; contemplates apparently a reduction of postage, 419

America, posts set up in, 110; first postmaster of New York, 111; and of Virginia and Maryland, 111; establishment of what was virtually a penny post between England and America, 113; American posts become self-supporting, 116; postmasters ejected from their offices, 207

Amsterdam, practice at, on arrival of the mails, 174

Anne, Queen, treatment of letters for, when in residence at Newmarket, 98

_Antelope_ packet, Captain Curtis, gallant action with privateer, 321

Apertures, introduction of, on the outside of post offices, 180

Argyll, John, Duke of, 64

Arlington, Henry Bennet, Earl of, appointed postmaster-general, 34

Armit, secretary to the Post Office in Ireland, displaced by Lees, 221

Ashburnham manuscripts, 20

Ashurst, Mr. Justice, his judgment touching the free delivery of letters, 200

Aston, Mr. Justice, his judgment touching the free delivery of letters, 200

Attorneys, their provisional resolution to withhold postage on writs, 178; hold appointments in the Dublin Post Office, 371

Auckland, William Lord, postmaster-general, his pleasantries, 333

Auditors of the imprests, 256 _note_

Austria, liberties taken with post-horses by travellers in, 5 _note_

Aylsham, Norfolk, post established to in 1733, 167

Baker, Sir George, physician to George the Third, 252

Bank of England notes, robbery of, from mail evokes important legal decision, 183; origin of cutting bank notes when sent by post, 206; contemplated reduction of postage on letters containing second halves of bank notes, 298

Bankers' franks, meaning of term, 315 _note_

Barbutt, John David, secretary to the Post Office, 185

Barclay, Captain, of Ury, high speed of his coach, 426

Barclay's plot, expresses sent on discovery of, 63

Barham, Edmund, packet agent at Dover, terms of his agreement with Walcot, secretary to the Post Office in Ireland, 222

Barlow, clerk in the secretary's office, modifies the practice of the Dead Letter Office, 308

Barnstaple, private post set up to Exeter in 1633, 17

Bath asserts its right to a free delivery, 198; right admitted and letter-carrier appointed, 202; slowness of post between Bath and London, 208; amount of toll between the same towns, 210; Post Office Establishment at Bath and amount of the postmaster's salary in 1792, 292

Beccaria, Bonesana, his essay on Crimes and Punishments, 245

Belfast, ingenious "alphabet" in use at, 375; peculiar usage of delivery, 375

Belgrave Square, included in the limits of the general post delivery, 416

Bell, Colonel, comptroller of the Inland Office, particulars of charge against, 185 _note_

Bells, letters collected by ringing of, introduction of system, 121; and its termination, 123 _note_; bellmen in England and in Ireland paid on different principle, 367 (196, 221, 257)

Bernard, Sir Robert, 192

Besant's patent coaches, 282

Bethnal Green, a second penny on penny post letters improperly charged at, 203

Bianconi, Charles, his enterprise, 376

Bigg, Stephen, his enterprise as a farmer of the posts, 60

Billingsley, Henry, a broker, carries letters of foreign merchants, 13; and is consigned to prison, 14

Bills of exchange and of lading to and from foreign parts exempt from postage until 1801, exemption then withdrawn, 331

Birmingham, one of many towns in which a free delivery of letters had ceased, 197; free delivery restored and letter-carrier appointed, 202; salary of postmaster in 1792, 293; penny post opened at, 300

Bishopp, Henry, farmer of the posts, 33, 34

"Black-box"; the box in which the correspondence of the Secretary of State for Scotland was carried, 53

Blaithwaite, William, Secretary of War, remonstrated with on his abuse of the franking privilege, 132

Blome's _Britannia_, 35

Bonnor, Charles, deputy comptroller-general of the Post Office, his conduct in the matter of the king's coach, 252; delays replies to the postmaster-general's inquiries, 264; practises deception, 264; his base ingratitude, 274; is suspended by Palmer, 275; suspension removed by the postmasters-general, 276; his treachery, 278, 279; receives the reward of infamy, 280

Boulton and Watt build the first steamboats used by the Post Office, 384

Bourne, Frederick, clerk in the foreign department of the Post Office; suggests the establishment of a Ship Letter Office, 328

Bournemouth, mode of receiving its letters in 1854, 293 _note_

Bowen, passenger by packet; brings news of the victory at Oudenarde, 105

Boyle, Henry, Secretary of State, charges the packet agent at Harwich with receiving a bribe, 89

Bracken, Henry, author of _The Gentleman's Pocket Farrier_, his device to obtain exemption from postage, 161

Braithwaite, Daniel, clerk to the postmasters-general, his honesty of purpose, 244

Brighton, salary of the postmaster of, in 1792, 293

Brill, The, 73, 83, 88

Bristol, course of post between Bristol and Exeter in 1660, 29; and in 1696, 57; salary of the postmaster of, in 1690, 50; and in 1792, 293; first mail-coach starts from Bristol, 213; penny post opened there, 300; revision of postmaster's salary in 1686, Appendix, _note_

Brown, sub-agent of packets at Ostend, his clandestine letter, 106

Brunel, Sir Marc Isambard, offers to construct a steam engine for the Post Office packets, 408

Buckingham, George Villiers, Duke of, letter endorsed by, in 1627, 20

Buckingham, George Villiers, Duke of, son of the preceding, tedious course of letter addressed to, in 1666, 34.

Buckingham, George Grenville Nugent Temple, Marquis of, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, deprecates reduction of packet establishment at Holyhead, 248

Burlamachi, Philip, is appointed Master of the Posts, 21; his title contested, 21; is consigned to prison, 22

Bye-letters, probable meaning of the term in Queen Elizabeth's reign, 4; its certain meaning in 1690 and after, 52, 147; postage upon bye-letters intercepted, 52, 53, 134 _note_; Bye-Letter Office, 308

Bye-nights, 46

Byng, Sir George, 102, 104

Cadogan, Brigadier-General, packet detained for, 87

Camden, John Jeffreys, Earl, promotes Palmer's plan, 212; gives to Pitt Palmer's version of his differences with the postmasters-general, 274

Candles, inordinate supply of, to Post Office servants, 231

Canning, George, charges the Post Office with forestalling his intelligence, 347

Carlisle, salary of postmaster of, in 1792, 293

Carriers allowed to carry letters under restrictions, 19; restrictions more clearly defined, 129

Carteret, Edward, postmaster-general from 1721 to 1739. _See_ Postmasters-General, Part IV.

Carteret, Henry Frederick, Lord, postmaster-general from January 1771 to September 1789. _See_ Postmasters-General, Parts V. and VI.

Carts, first employment of, in London for bringing letters to the General Post Office, 316

Castello, a prisoner on board packet, 88

Chalmers, George, his suggestions, 256; excites Palmer's jealousy, 259

Channel Islands without an official post in 1792, 294; official post provided, 312; rates of postage, 314

Charing Cross, opening of branch office at, 411

Charlemont, Lord, his misunderstanding as to packet charges, 86

Charles, Archduke, 78, 86

Chelsea pensioners, their privilege of sending and receiving letters at low rates of postage withdrawn, 404

Chenal, captain of packet, rebuked by the postmasters-general, 94 _note_

Chepstow, the inhabitants of, though under no obligation, continue to pay pence on the delivery of their letters, 293

Chester, in 1720 the only town outside London with two Post Offices, 151; salary of postmaster in 1792, 293

Chesterfield, Philip, Earl of, postmaster-general from March 1790 to March 1798. _See_ Postmasters-General, Part VII.

Chichester, Thomas, Earl of, postmaster-general from May 1807 to July 1826. _See_ Postmasters-General, Part VIII.

Christmas boxes, intercepted, 232

Clancarty, Richard, Earl of, postmaster-general of Ireland from 1807 to 1809; and of England from September 1814 to April 1816. [This latter appointment he did not take up.] His decision of character, instance of, 368; advocates facilities of communication between England and Ireland, 389

Clarendon, Thomas, Earl of, postmaster-general from September to December 1786, 229, 242

Clerks of the roads, their duties, 47; their salaries, 49; are allowed to frank newspapers, 49; their franking privilege invaded, 191; mischief resulting from a reduction of their emoluments, 193; their financial troubles, 206, 250; extent of their newspaper business after newspapers become exempt from postage, 407

Clermont, William Henry, Earl of, deputy postmaster-general of Ireland, 194

Clies, Francis, captain of packet, his audacious smuggling, 90; his attention to religious observances, 90; strikes his colours, 94

Coals supplied to Post Office servants in profligate profusion, 231

Cobbett, William, inveighs against the early or preferential delivery, 342; and against the treatment of foreign newspapers, 343

Coke, Sir John, his indignant protest against the claim of the foreign merchants to have a post of their own, 12

Colours, special colours assigned to the Post Office boat employed in the Pool, 74; the colours of the packets altered at the Union with Scotland, 117

Comer, postmaster of Tunbridge Wells in 1725, 153

Common Council of London, The, sets up a post of their own to Scotland, 24

Compensation for losses by the penny post, 38; when ceased to be given, 188

Conspiracies against the State, to check these the original object of the Post Office monopoly, 7; danger chiefly apprehended from the Continent, 9; Coke's opinion on the subject, 13; the same opinion expressed in the Act of 1657, 28

Constables, the duty of, in certain cases, to seize horses for the service of the posts, 3, 6

Convention posts, establishment of, 332; their failure and the reason, 350; are gradually absorbed, 352

Conway Bridge, additional rate of postage on letters passing over, 395

Conyngham, Francis Nathaniel, Marquess of, postmaster-general from July 1834 to January 1835, and again from May 8 to May 30, 1835, 427 _note_

Cornwall, its posts improved in 1704, 62

Cornwallis, Charles, Lord, postmaster-general from 1715 to 1721. _See_ Postmasters-General, Part III.

Cotton, Sir Robert, postmaster-general from 1690 to 1708. _See_ Postmasters-General, Part I.

Counsel in Post Office cases required to give receipts for their fees, 324

Country letter, meaning of term, 147

_Courier_ newspaper, sum paid by the, for early intelligence from the Post Office, 345

Couriers originally employed to carry letters on affairs of State, 2

Court, The, at one time the centre of all the posts, 3; a trace of the old state of things to be found in an existing statute, 99

Court letters, definition of, in 1706, 83 _note_; mails detained for the Court letters, 211; these letters, unlike others, delivered the moment they arrived, 347

Court-post, his duties, 99; duties performed by deputy, 231

Coventry, Sir Thomas, Attorney-General, afterwards Lord Keeper, holds De Quester's appointment to be valid, 11; cajoles Stanhope into surrendering his patent, 23

Craggs, James, postmaster-general from 1715 to 1721. _See_ Postmasters-General, Part III.

Crichton, Doctor, refuses to pay his fare by packet, 86

Cromwell, Thomas, Brian Tuke's letter to, on the paucity of the posts, 1

Crosby, Brass, 192

Cross-posts, first post of the kind set up, 57; cross-post letters, definition of the term, 147

Croydon, postmistress of, Auckland's pleasantry on her marriage for the third time, 334

Culverden, captain of packet boat, engages in smuggling, 89

Culvert, member of Parliament, expostulated with as to the irregular use of his frank, 141 _note_

Curtis, Alderman, 274, 275

Customs, Commissioners of, lodge a complaint against the captain of the _Expedition_ packet, 90; represent that smuggling is carried on by packet from Ostend, 103; take proceedings against some of the Harwich packets, 237; are charged by the postmasters-general with unhandsome conduct, 238; seize the Dover mail-coach, 271

Dacre, Lord, superscription on Protector Somerset's letter addressed to, 20

Dartmouth, William, Lord, his attention called to the late arrival at the Post Office of the Court letters, 211

Dashwood, Francis, postmaster-general of Jamaica, exaction from, as a condition of his appointment, 226

Davy, Mrs., her account of the condition of Penzance before 1784, 291

Day, John, sent from London in 1733 to establish a post at Aylsham in Norfolk, his instructions, 167

Dead letters, treatment of, a source of perplexity to Allen, 158; irregular payments claimed under cover of, 236; Dead Letter Office, 307; returned letters charged with postage, 360

Decypherer, the chief, 171

De Joncourt, express clerk, 373

Delivery, claim made by several towns to have their letters delivered free resisted by the Post Office and question tried at law, 197; claim allowed by the Courts, 200; decision carried out grudgingly, 203; hour of delivery of foreign letters in 1790, 267; early, that is preferential, delivery, 342; hour of delivery in St. James's Square between 1820 and 1830, 409; in the country, limits of free delivery not defined, 410; morning delivery in London accelerated, 411; limits of general post delivery fixed at three miles, 417; recommendation of Royal Commission to abolish early or preferential delivery not carried out, 423

Delivery penny, meaning of term, 69

Denmark, Frederick the Second, King of, his letter of complaint to Queen Elizabeth, 8 _note_

De Quester, Matthew, appointed postmaster for foreign parts out of the King's dominions, 10; his appointment offends Lord Stanhope, 10; is superseded by the Privy Council, 12; is restored at the instance of Sir John Coke, 13; assigns his patent, 14

Derby, salary of the postmaster of, in 1792, 293

Dereham, Sir Thomas, Court-post, his duties, 99

Derrick, Samuel, Master of the Ceremonies at Bath, his account of Ralph Allen, 186 _note_

Despatch of mails, hour of, in 1690, 47; and until 1784, 211; indignation caused by the change then made, 220

Devonshire, William, Duke of, course of post between Chesterfield and Manchester altered in 1736 at the instance of, 166

Directories, 195, 309

Distances, inaccuracy of, as computed by the Post Office, 175

Dockwra, William, establishes a penny post in London, 36; his right contested and case decided against him, 40; is granted a pension and, on the penny post being absorbed into the Post Office, is appointed comptroller, 41; is dismissed, 41; provision made by, for the care of general post letters, 68; contrast between Dockwra and Povey, 122

Donlevy, William, 368

Double letter, definition of, 139

Dover, a packet station, 73; packets to Flanders provided by the packet agent, 103; engage in smuggling, 103; and bring news clandestinely, 106; the Dover mail-coach seized by the Customs, 271

Drink and feast money, 50, 232

Dublin, Post Office establishment at, in 1690, 53; penny post proposed at, in 1703, 69; and opened in 1773, 196; the clerks at the castle surrender their franking privilege, 194; the roof of the Dublin Post Office falls in, 207; office in Dublin styled British Mail Office, account of, 367; abuses, 370

Dummer, Edmund, Surveyor of the Navy, builds packets for the Harwich station, 75; also for the West India service, 78; undertakes this service himself, 79; his miscalculations, 79; ill-fortune attends him, 81; his bankruptcy and death, 109

Early, _i.e._ preferential, delivery, 342, 423

Eastbourne, mode of receiving its letters in 1792, 293

East India Company, send to the Post Office letters received at the India House, 311; object to the provisions of the Ship Letter Act, 361; procure its alteration, 362; their generosity, 363; unhandsome return contemplated by the Post Office, 364

East Indies, rates of postage to the, in 1815, 362

Edinburgh, post to, set up by the city of London, 24; Post Office establishment at, in 1707, 117; horse-post between Edinburgh and Glasgow refused by the Treasury, 136; course of post between London and Edinburgh accelerated in 1758, 180; and increased in frequency in 1765, 195; Edinburgh Post Office falls into decay, 207; penny post established at, 300

Eldon, John, Lord, reluctantly assents to the giving of repressive powers, 335

Elections, Parliamentary, Post Office servants prohibited from intermeddling in, 128; and from voting at, 206

Ellenborough, Edward, Lord, 335

Evelyn, Sir John, postmaster-general from 1708 to 1715. _See_ Postmasters-General, Part II.

Exeter, private post set up between, and Barnstaple in 1633, 17; course of post between Exeter and Bristol in 1660, 29; in 1696, 57; salary of postmaster in 1792, 293

Expresses, 63, 83; when to be sent from Dover, 107; employment of, becomes more general about the middle of the eighteenth century, 182; is jealously restricted, 182; their number reduced on the establishment of mail-coaches, 214; fees on expresses, 233; express sent daily to and from Ireland after the Union, 387

Express clerks, 371

Express office, Haymarket, 408

Eyles, Sir John, postmaster-general from 1739 to 1744, 238

Falmouth, packet station opened at, in 1689, 75; closed and reopened, 77; packet regulations, 82; systematic smuggling, 89, 238; packet agent also victualler, 95

Fares, by packet to Holland before and after 1689, 76; by steam packet and by sailing packet, comparative statement, 385

Farmers of the Post Office, their popularity and the reason of it, 59; are ruined by increase of postage and converted into managers, 136; as managers prove useless, 138

Farra, John, is supplied with a special travelling order, 131 _note_

Faversham, marriage of the postmistress, 334

Fees, exacted from postmasters, 232; received by the chief sorter on the occasion of royal birthdays, 233; on expresses, 233; on the registration of foreign letters, 233

Ferrers, Countess, 182

Fielding, Henry, his tribute to Ralph Allen, 186

"Fifth-clause" posts, 350-352

Firearms, worthless quality of those originally supplied to mail guards, 261

Fire of London, intelligence of, takes five days to reach Worthing, 34

Flemings, resort to London, where they introduce the manufacture of wool into cloth, 8; instance of value set upon cloth made in London, 8 _note_

Flying coach, 63, 67

Flying packet, meaning of the term, 63 (108)

Flying-post, 63 _note_

Foreign bottoms, employment of, by the Post Office illegal, 98

Foreign merchants claim to set up a post of their own to the Continent, 9; claim conceded by the Privy Council, 12; and repudiated by Coke, 13

Foster, John, Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer, his efforts to improve communication with Ireland, 388

France, Post Office treaty with, imperfectly observed, 77; a new one made and its onerous conditions, 138; postage on letters from, increased, 296; improvement of communication with, deprecated by merchants of London, 298

Franking, abuses of, in 1711, and means taken to check them, 132; effect of franking upon the Post Office revenue, 142; becomes the subject of Parliamentary enactment, 189; conditions altered, 189; franking in Ireland, 190; of newspapers inland, 191; franking privilege possessed by the clerks at Dublin Castle surrendered, 194; franks to be dated and are otherwise restricted, 216; further restrictions imposed, 315; franks do not clear either the penny, the twopenny, or the convention posts, 350; franking privilege withdrawn in the case of newspapers to and from the Colonies, 402; privilege remains in the case of newspapers to and from the Continent, 403; and in the case of newspapers circulating within the United Kingdom gradually disappears, 404; franked letters charged immediately on dissolution of Parliament, 405; franking privilege withheld from Roman Catholic Peers, 408; abuse of franking in the case of the Money Order Office, 421; specimens of franks, Appendix

Frankland, Sir Thomas, postmaster-general from 1690 to 1715. _See_ Postmasters-General, Part I.

Frankland, William, son of the preceding, Comptroller of the Inland Office, in attendance upon the Queen at Newmarket, 99

Franklin, Benjamin, his dismissal, 203; amicable relations with, not suspended, 204

Free delivery. _See_ Delivery

Freeling, Sir Francis, appointed surveyor, 228; appointed joint secretary with Todd, 294; devises new arrangements for the sorting of the American and West Indian mails, 310; his project for guarding the horse and cross-posts, 317, 335; becomes sole secretary, 327; his craze for high rates of postage, 330; his zeal in repressing illicit correspondence, 333; is checked by Auckland, 335; procures additional measures of repression, 335; recommends increase of postage rates, 340; his estimate of Cobbett, 342; his emoluments from franking newspapers, 344; his indignation at criticisms in the _Times_ newspaper, 348; brings an action, 348; contemplates a high-handed proceeding towards the town of Olney in Buckinghamshire, 351; procures a charge to be made on returned letters, 360; his contention with the India House in the matter of ship letters, 361; urges a technical adherence to the provisions of the statute, 364; his elation at the increase of the Post Office revenue, 365; contrast between Freeling and Lees, 370; his difference with Lees, 381; his claim for the Post Office in the matter of steam vessels, 387; opposes improvement of communication with Ireland, 389; his interview with Sir Arthur Wellesley, 390; attempts to get terms of a hostile motion altered, 397; his dismay at the transfer of the Falmouth packets from the Post Office to the Admiralty, 399; his strictness in Post Office matters, 404; is irritated by Sir Henry Parnell's assumption of superiority, 407; the probable reason for not resigning on the opening of the new Post Office in St. Martin's-le-Grand, 411; his view that the packet service should not be thrown open to public competition opposed by Althorp, 417; defends the newspaper privilege enjoyed by the clerks of the roads, 418; his attitude towards the Royal Commission, 420; averts a breakdown with the mail-coaches, 426; becomes the object of vehement attack, 426; broods over the past, 427; his death, 428

Frizell, William, 14

Frowde, Ashburnham, comptroller of foreign office, 234

Furness, Sir Harry, 174

Gardner, penny postman, murder of, 183 _note_

Garrow, Sir William, his frank forged, 406

Gas, introduction of, into the Post Office, 408

General Steam Navigation Company undertakes first packet contract, 418

George the Third, when at Cheltenham or at Weymouth is attended by a mail-coach, 251; his illness and distribution of a prayer for his recovery, 254; his interest in his coach, 288; objects to roof-loading, 288; attends trial trip, 288; distributes largesse among mail guards and coachmen, 289

Gerrard Street, crowded condition of Post Office in, 410

Glasgow petitions for a horse-post to Edinburgh, 136; and for a post office which shall not be kept at a shop, 408

Gloucester protests against certain houses being excluded from the free delivery, 199; salary of postmaster in 1792, 293

Godolphin, Sidney Godolphin, Earl of, his rebuke to the postmaster-general, 106; insists upon communication with the army in Flanders being improved, 107; his instruction about extraordinary payments, 137; directs that in Post Office cases Counsel shall give receipts for their fees, 324 (121, 124, 125)

Grafton, Augustus Henry, Duke of, specimen of his frank, Appendix

Grand mail, 83

Grand Post Nights, 46, 221

Granville, Lord, urges improvement of the Cornish posts, 62

Gratuities, on delivery of letters, 52, 61, 62, 152, 166; legality of, questioned in the case of towns, 197; question decided in favour of the public, 200; still being charged, 422

Gray, Thomas, his prediction that mail-coaches would be displaced by railways, 408

Grey, Charles, Earl, 412, 423

Grosvenor, Sir Richard, member for Chester, expostulated with as to the irregular use of his frank, 141

Groyne, The, 75, 77

Guide to accompany post-horses when two are taken, 18

Guildhall Library, letter preserved in, showing tardy course of post in 1666, 34

Halfpenny carriage set up by Povey, 121

Halloran, a clerical impostor, 406

Hamburg, practice at, on arrival of the mails, 174

Hamilton, Andrew, acts as Neale's agent for setting up posts in North America, 110; his suggestions for improving the posts, 112; acquires Neale's patent, 116; dies and the patent is surrendered to the Crown, 116

Hamilton, John, son of the preceding, appointed deputy postmaster-general of America, 116

Harley, Robert, afterwards Earl of Oxford, raises the rates of postage, 124; attempts to trace the writer of an anonymous letter, 181

Harwich, a packet station, 73; number and strength of its packets, 75; packet regulations, 82; a hot-bed of smuggling, 91, 237; its exorbitant charges, 96; is closed as a packet station, 418

Hasker, Thomas, chief superintendent of mail-coaches, his pithy instructions, 284; is complimented by the King, 288; will not suffer even the King to detain the mail-coach, 289; enters a protest against the speed of the Holyhead mail, 394

Hayman, Peter, first postmaster of Virginia and Maryland, 111

Heath, Sir Robert, Solicitor-General, 11

Hickes, Prideaux's servant, imprisonment of, 22

Highwaymen, rewards for apprehension of, 183; refrain from attacks upon mail-coaches, 290; confine their attention to horse and cross-posts, 317; instances of the recovery of mail bags stolen by, 336

Hill, Sir Rowland, 269 _note_, 420, 428

Hippisley, Sir John, 20

Hiver, Richard, 192

Holt, Sir John, Chief Justice, his opinion respecting compensation for losses by post, 188 _note_

Holyhead, packet service at beginning of eighteenth century performed with regularity, 82; contemplated reduction of the packet establishment deprecated by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 248; conditions of passage between Holyhead and Dublin in 1813, 379

Hompesch, Baron, packet detained for, 87

Horn, when to be blown, 4; a man on horseback blowing a post-horn assigned as a device for Post Office colours, 75 _note_

Horses, to be kept in readiness for affairs of State, 2; two to be kept at every post-house, 4; use of, obtained under false pretences, 5; overridden, overladen, and not always paid for, 5, 51; charge for post-horses in 1603, 6; in 1635, 18; in 1660, 30; not to be supplied except at post-houses, 6; to be attended by a guide when two are hired, 18; not to be let when the post is expected, 18; not to be taken without the consent of the owners, 30; only indirectly a source of revenue, 30; monopoly of letting horses continued to the Post Office by the Act of 1711, 130; control exercised by the Post Office over horses for travellers merely nominal, exception given, 131; charges for post-horses increased by the erection of milestones, 176; monopoly of letting post-horses withdrawn, 205

Horse and cross-posts, project for checking robberies of, 317; authority withheld, 318; eventually given, 335

Hostages taken on capture of a packet, 93; instance of inhuman treatment of, 94

Houses numbered, 195; their not being so a hindrance to the Post Office, 36, 151

Hume, David, 29

Hume, Joseph, 402

Hungerford selected to try the question of free delivery, 198; question decided in favour of the public and a letter-carrier appointed, 202, 293

Illicit conveyance of letters, between town and town and between the country and London, 54; is stimulated by increase in the rates of postage, 134, 141; becomes less after the introduction of mail-coaches, 227; prosecutions for, 333; return to the House of Commons, 422

Impressment, persons employed on the packets exempt from, 84; specimen of protection order, 84 _note_

Instructions to the sorting office communicated by word of mouth, 324

Insurance an essential condition of Dockwra's penny post, 38; this condition abandoned, 188

Invoices to and from abroad exempt from postage until 1801, exemption then withdrawn, 331

Ipswich asserts its right to a free delivery, 198; right admitted and letter-carrier appointed, 202

Ireland, tardiness of post to, before 1635, 16; postage to, 18; method of Post Office business in 1690, 53; abuse of franking in 1773, 190; clerks at the castle surrender their franking privilege, 194; posts to and within Ireland improved, 195; Penny Post Office opened in Dublin, 196; the roof of the Dublin Post Office falls in, 207; the Irish Post Office separated from that of England, 221; effects of the separation in the case of correspondence by the Milford Haven and Waterford route, 249; between the Irish and English Post Offices differences in point of law, 366; and of practice, 367; office in Dublin styled British Mail Office, account of, 367; and improper use made of it, 371; Clancarty's energy and decision of character, 368; Lees, secretary to the Post Office in Ireland, his mode of conducting business, 369; Lees contrasted with Freeling, 370; the postmasters-general absentees, 370; absence also of the subordinates and other abuses, 371; the express clerks and clerks of the roads deal in newspapers and are given undue advantages, 371; account of the alphabet, 374; ingenious one in use at Belfast, 375; arrangement in favour of soldiers' wives, 374; peculiar mode of delivery at Belfast, 375; mail-coach contracts in Ireland different from those in England, 376; Charles Bianconi, 376; arrangement between Ireland and Great Britain in the matter of the packets, 378; Lees is dissatisfied with it, 380; and sets it aside, 381; Freeling's indignation, 382; sailing packets replaced by steam packets, 383; effect upon the number of passengers carried by the Post Office, 385; Irish traffic diverted from Holyhead to Liverpool, 385; and Liverpool made a packet station, 386; except in the matter of the packets, indisposition of the British Post Office to improve communication with Ireland, 387; such improvement urged by Foster, Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer, 388; and resisted by Freeling, 389; Freeling forced to give way, 390; the Irish Post Office consolidated with the Post Office of Great Britain, 414; and the Dublin establishment reformed, 415; the auditing of the Irish accounts rendered futile, 415

Iron mail-cart stopped and rifled of its contents, 290

Isle of Wight, its Post Office establishment in 1792, 294

Jackson, a passenger by packet without a pass, 89

Jacob, Giles, 188 _note_

Jamaica, Post Office establishment in, and sea rates fixed, 78; duration of voyage to and fro in 1798, 320; House of Assembly vote sum of money in recognition of the gallant defence of the _Antelope_ packet, 323

James, Duke of York, afterwards James II., opposes introduction of the penny post, 37; wrests it out of Dockwra's hands, 40; suffers the clerks of the roads to retain their newspaper privilege, 49

Jamineau, Isaac, purveyor of newspapers to the clerks of the roads, 300

Jeffreys, Sir George, afterwards Lord, inflicts exorbitant fine upon Edmund Prideaux, son of the Master of the Posts, 27

Johnson, Edward, letter-carrier, improves the penny post, 302; is appointed deputy comptroller, 305

Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 209 _note_

Jones, distiller of Old Street, St. Luke's, his action against the Post Office, 203

Kent, post through the county of, more carefully nursed than any other, 9

Kenyon, Lloyd, Lord, when Attorney-General, gives receipts for fees in Post Office cases, 325

King's coach, deception practised on Walsingham in the matter of the, 251

King's messengers, their complaint against the Post Office on the erection of milestones, 176

Lambton, John George, moves for a return of the number of Post Office Boards, 396

Lancashire, the badness of its posts in 1699, 60

Le Despencer, Francis, Lord, postmaster-general from 1766 to 1781, 221, 226

Leeds, salary of postmaster in 1792, 293

Lees, Sir John, secretary to the Post Office in Ireland, his testimony to the abuse of franking, 191; having been transferred to the War Office, recapitulates conditions on which he accepts reappointment to the Post Office, 221; recapitulation gives offence to Carteret, 222; and leads to Carteret's exposure, 226

Lees, Sir Edward Smith, son of the preceding, also secretary to the Post Office in Ireland, his method of conducting business, 369; deals in newspapers, 373; his instruction respecting the alphabet, 374; his difference with Freeling, 381; becomes a director of the Dublin Steam Packet Company, 383; is transferred to Edinburgh, 415; his unauthorised surrender of the receiver-general's bond, 415

Leet, express clerk, 373

Leicester, the Corporation of, binds itself to keep post-horses for the use of the Sovereign, 2; salary of postmaster at, in 1792, 293

Leicester, George, Earl of, postmaster-general from 1794 to 1799, 326

Letter-carriers, their pay in 1690, 49; as late as 1772, none employed except in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, 197; are appointed at certain other towns, 202; in London their interests suffer from the earlier closing of the Post Office, 221; are put into uniform, 299; the sufferings of some of their number during the winter of 1794-95, 306; select their walks according to seniority, 324; deliver letters according to classes, one class for general post letters, another for penny or twopenny letters, and a third for foreign letters, 423

Letters, on affairs of State originally sent by courier, 2; particulars of, when sent by post, to be carefully recorded, 4; letters on other than the affairs of State received at the post-houses, 4; not, without the authority of the Master of the Posts, to be collected, carried, or delivered, 6; notice that none are to be sent except through the post served on the merchants of London, 9; letters detected in being illicitly conveyed to be sent to the Privy Council, and their bearers apprehended, 10; what letters excepted from monopoly, 18; are given precedence over travellers, 18; circulate mainly through London, 29; their mode of distribution, 47; clandestine conveyance of, 54; number of penny post letters for the suburbs of London at the end of the seventeenth century, 69; letters for America and Jamaica charged with postage, although there was no packet service, 78; clandestine conveyance of, stimulated by increase of postage, 134; definition of single and double letter, 139; Allen's injunction to check illegal conveyance of, 165; are examined by means of a strong light, 171, 409, 422; penalty for opening letters, 171; letters containing patterns or samples, whether to be charged as single or double letters, 177; right to make, on the delivery of letters, any charge beyond the postage contested, 197; memorials for and against the earlier delivery of foreign letters in London, 267; average number of letters for each foreign mail in 1790, 268; treatment of dead and missent letters before and after 1793, 308; return of the number of letters passing through the London Post Office submitted to the postmasters-general daily, 324; made penal not only to carry letters, but to send them otherwise than through the post, 335; on the delivery of letters, despite the decision of the Courts, a charge beyond the postage continues to be made, 422; owing to the complication of rates, not possible to express the total charge upon a letter in one taxation, 423

Lewis XIV. assembles a squadron before Dunkirk, 101; his delay in refusing to sign the preliminaries of peace, 105

Lichfield, Thomas William, Earl of, appointed postmaster-general May 1835, 427 _note_

Lincolnshire, the paucity of its posts before 1705, 61

Liverpool, salary of postmaster in 1792, 293; penny post established at, 339; is opened as a packet station, 386

Liverpool, Robert, Earl of, mediates between Freeling and Lees, 382; transfers the Falmouth packets from the Post Office to the Admiralty, 399

Lloyds supplied by the Post Office with ship news, 218

Loppinott, Colonel, 321

Losses by post, compensation for, 38; when ceased to be given, 188

Lovell, Mary, receiver in St. James's Street, Lord Abercorn's complaint against, 153

Lovell, Thomas, Lord, afterwards Earl of Leicester, postmaster-general from 1733 to 1759, 167; receives a threatening letter, 183 _note_; his loose notions about smuggling, 238

Lowndes, William, Secretary to the Treasury, takes charge of the Post Office Bill of 1711, 124; overbears Swift, the solicitor to the Post Office, 126; confounds gross and net revenue, 145 (325 _note_)

Macadam, John Loudon, introduces new method of road-making, 392

Macaulay, Lord, his account of the fine inflicted upon Edmund Prideaux, son of the Master of the Posts, 27; his statement that a part of the Post Office revenue was derived from post-horses questioned, 30 (39)

Mackerness, Thomas, postmaster of Chipping Norton, 163

Macky, John, packet agent at Dover, proceeds to Flanders, 102; receives a remarkable caution, 103; having become contractor for the Dover and Ostend packet service, his boats engage in illicit operations, 103; and bring news clandestinely, 106; is commissioned to settle posts for the army, his excellent arrangements, 107

Maddison, George, 205

Magistrates, the duty of, in certain cases, to seize horses for the service of the posts, 3, 6; are enjoined to see that horses are procured at the post-houses alone, 9

Maidstone, excellency of the delivery at, in the seventeenth century, 48; amount of the postmaster's salary, 50

Mails, hour of despatch of the, from the General Post Office in 1690, 47; after 1784, 220; cost of conveyance of, before and after the introduction of mail-coaches, 290; are exempt from toll in Great Britain but not in Ireland, 354; exemption withdrawn in Scotland, 359

Mail bags, curious instances of recovery of, 337

Mail-carts, mail-cart made of iron rifled of its contents, 290; first used in London to bring letters to the General Post Office, 316

Mail-coaches, begin to run, 213; rapid extension of the system, 214; system deprecated by some of the leading merchants, 220; their effect upon expresses, 214; upon the illicit conveyance of letters, 227; a mail-coach in attendance upon the King when at Cheltenham, 251; are put off the road by Palmer, 270; number of, in 1792, 281; model of mail-coach preserved at the Post Office, 282; mail-coaches of new pattern supplied, 283; number of passengers by, restricted, 283, 401; roof-loading, and objections to it, 287, 412; roof not always safe, 288; mileage allowance in the case of mail-coaches, 290; their freedom from attacks by highwaymen, 317; become liable to a duty of one penny a mile, 337; are diverted from the direct route for a consideration, 341; number of, in 1811, 352; their unpopularity with road trustees, 353; question considered of withdrawing their exemption from toll, 354; mail-coaches withdrawn instead, 355; in Scotland, are made liable to toll, 359; and their number is reduced, 360; speed of mail-coaches, 399, 426; the mail-coach the great disseminator of news, 401; supply of mail-coaches thrown open to public competition, immediate result, 425

Mail guards, not originally Post Office servants, 260; their little excesses, 261; their wages, 263; treatment of their wages a cause of difference between Walsingham and Palmer, 263; their position one of responsibility, 283; their fees, 284; specimens of instructions to, 285; carry parcels and game, and suffer to be carried excess-passengers, 286, 287

Main, George, deputy-postmaster of Edinburgh, 117

Maîtres de poste in Canada, 205

Managers, sometime farmers, of the Post Office, 137

Manchester, its Post Office establishment in 1792, 292; establishment increased and Penny Post Office opened, 301

Manley, Captain John, Post Office farmed by, 27

Manley, Isaac, deputy-postmaster of Dublin, 69 _note_

Mansfield, William, Earl of, his opinion upon compensation for losses by the post, 188 _note_; his judgment as to the duty of the Post Office in the matter of delivering letters, 198

Marlborough, John Churchill, Duke of, interests himself in the post with Flanders, 101 (104, 107)

Maryborough, William, Lord, postmaster-general from December 31, 1834 to May 8, 1835, 427 _note_

Master of the Posts, his duties, 2; no one not authorised by, allowed to collect, carry, or deliver letters, 6; his salary and emoluments, 12

Melbourne, William, Viscount, 423

Melville, Robert, Viscount, advocates transfer of the Falmouth packets to the Admiralty, 399

Menai Straits, additional rate of postage imposed on letters crossing the, 395

Merchants' accounts to and from abroad exempt from postage until 1801, exemption then withdrawn, 331

Merchant adventurers. _See_ Foreign Merchants

Methuen, Sir Paul, ambassador to Portugal, calls attention to the irregular proceedings of the packets, 91

Mileage allowance, in case of mail-coaches, 290; higher in Ireland than in England, 376; flippant return to the House of Commons on the subject of, 424

Miles, difference between measured and computed miles, 175

Milestones, erection of, 175; their effect upon the charge for post-horses, 176

Milford Haven and Waterford, packet service between, 249

Missent letters, treatment of, before and after 1793, 309

Money Order Office, 420; the subject of a flippant return to the House of Commons, 424; facsimile of a money order issued in 1802, Appendix

Monopoly of the Post Office, origin of, in the matter of letters and of post-horses, 7; confined in the first instance to the county of Kent, 9; confirmed by Act of Parliament, 27; withdrawn as regards post-horses, 205

Mountstuart, John, Viscount, 256 _note_

Murray, Robert, reputed to have been the first to suggest the penny post, 36

Neale, Thomas, obtains grants for setting up posts in North America, 110; his pecuniary difficulties, 112; offers to surrender his patent, 115; patent passes on his death to Andrew Hamilton, 116

Newcastle, Thomas Holles Pelham, Duke of, his orders about the packets countermanded by Pelham, 173; sends to the Post Office to inquire the price of corn, 255

Newcastle, salary of the postmaster in 1792, 293

News, hunger after, 50; the postmasters-general the great purveyors of, 104; news disseminated by the mail-coaches, 401

Newspapers, franking of, by the clerks of the roads, 49; are received from abroad by Post Office servants in advance of the general public, 175; conditions of franking newspapers altered, effect of alteration, 191, 250; copies of, supplied to Post Office servants, 232; newspaper office established, 261; number and weight of newspapers passing through the Post Office in 1788, 262 _note_; treatment of foreign newspapers, 343; newspaper agency at the Post Office largely developed, 344; London newspapers supplied by the Post Office with early intelligence from abroad, 346; newspapers, though franked, not exempt from postage by the penny, twopenny, and convention posts, 350; postage on newspapers for the East Indies reduced below the letter rate, 363; improper dealing with newspapers in Ireland, 372; on newspapers to and from the Colonies special rates established and franking privilege withdrawn, 402; this privilege retained in the case of newspapers for the Continent, 403; newspapers circulating within the United Kingdom exempted from postage, 404; extent of newspaper business conducted by the clerks of the roads in 1829, 407; in 1830, 418; newspaper business finally withdrawn, 419

Newton, Sir Isaac, 66

New Year's gifts, extortion of, 325

Nicholas, Sir Edward, 20

Nodin, passenger on board the _Antelope_ packet, his gallantry, 321

Normanby, Henry Constantine, Viscount, proposes abolition of the office of second postmaster-general, 397

North, Frederick, Lord, 206; receives singular reply from the Post Office, 218

Northampton, Countess of, 63

Northey, Sir Edward, 143

Northumberland, Hugh, Earl of, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 194

Nottingham, salary of postmaster in 1792, 293

Ogilby, John, calls attention to the difference between measured and computed miles, 175 _note_

Oldfield, Thomas, postmaster of York, 337

Oldmixon, 26

Old Street, St Luke's, a second penny charged on penny post letters addressed to, 203

Oliphant, Robert, deputy postmaster-general for Scotland, 271

Olney, Buckinghamshire, attempts to improve its post and the consequence, 351

O'Neile, Daniel, farmer of the posts, 33, 34

O'Neill, Charles Henry St. John, Earl, postmaster-general of Ireland from 1807 to 1831, 368 _seq._, 415

Onslow, Denzil, 185

Opening of letters, during the Commonwealth, 28; under James II., 44; practice systematically carried on under Walpole's administration, 170; continued, as regards foreign letters, until 1844, 269 _note_

Ordnance, Board of, 86

Ormonde, James, Duke of, 70

Oxenbridge, Clement, reduces postage, 29; receives an appointment under the Post Office, 32

Oxford Street, branch post office opened in, 411

Packets (sailing), packet establishment in 1690, 45; are forbidden to carry merchandise in times of war, 76; regulations for control of, 82; carry their own surgeon, 84; are not, without a pass, to carry passengers, 85; or goods, 88; fares are not sufficiently made known and inconvenience arises, instances given, 86; curious assortment of goods sent free by packet, 88; packets bring both passengers and goods without passes, 89; engage in smuggling, 89; are forbidden to give chase, 93; are not entitled to the prizes they take, 93; agreement with prizes honourably observed as a rule, exceptions given, 94; are victualled at Falmouth and at Harwich on different principles, objections to both systems, 95; copy of letter-bill by the _Prince_ packet, 97; transport recruits with disastrous results, 97; must be of English build, 98; engage with privateers, 101; are placed on a peace footing, 108; colours altered on Union with Scotland, 117; sufficiency of the burthen and crew of the Falmouth packets questioned by the merchants, 173; the packets generally meet with a series of disasters, 207; wholesale smuggling on the part of the Harwich packets, 237; inordinate growth of the packet expenditure, 238; and the reason, 239; packets established between Milford Haven and Waterford, 249; representation by the merchants as to the number of packets captured, 320; their gallant actions with privateers, 321; probable explanation of these actions occurring only when passengers were on board, 323; mode of procuring packets for the East Indies and the Cape in 1815, and their cost, 363; arrangement in the matter of packets between Great Britain and Ireland, 378; steps taken by the Dublin Post Office to set the arrangement aside, 381; sailing packets replaced by steam packets between Holyhead and Dublin, 384; between Milford Haven and Waterford, 385; between Portpatrick and Donaghadee, 385; the Falmouth packets transferred to the Admiralty, 398

Packets (steam), between Holyhe ad and Dublin, charges by, as compared with sailing packets, 385; number of passengers before the introduction of steam, 383 _note_; and after, 385; number of steam packets possessed by the Post Office in 1827, 399; packet service thrown open to public competition, 417; Irish steam packets, defective return to the House of Commons in the matter of, 424

Pajot, director of the French posts, his obstinacy, 77; his unreasonableness, 138

Palmer, John, his activity, 208; general sketch of his plan, 209; his plan is brought to the notice of Pitt, 212; and is tried on the Bath road, 213; extends his plan, 214; induces Pitt to raise the rates of postage, 215; alleges obstruction, 217; alters the length of the stages, 219; his plan is opposed by the merchants, 220; opposition dies away, 227; procures appointment of his nominees, 228; conditions of his own appointment, 228; his jealousy of Allen, 230; expedites the morning delivery in London, and introduces an improved method of business, 235; imposes upon Walsingham in the matter of the King's coach, 251; his treatment of official papers, 256; pays an unexpected visit to Walsingham at Old Windsor, 258; betrays his jealousy, 259; establishes, but without the necessary authority, a newspaper office, 261; and a mail guards' fund, 263; is called to account by Walsingham, 263; takes umbrage at a rebuke administered to his deputy, Bonnor, 265; disobeys orders, 266; becomes aggressive and defiant, 270; and appeals to Pitt, 272; is charged by Bonnor with promoting a public meeting antagonistic to the postmasters-general, 275; suspends Bonnor, 275; is suspended himself, 276; is dismissed, 279; receives a pension and, later on, a Parliamentary grant, 280; general result of his plan, 290 (299, 302, 353)

Palmerston, Henry John, Viscount, his humorous reply to Freeling, 380

Parkin, Anthony, solicitor to the Post Office, 333

Parnell, Sir Henry, 407

Pascoe, John, boatswain of the _Antelope_ packet, his gallant resistance to the attack of a privateer, 322

Patterns and samples, letters containing, and being less than one ounce in weight, whether to be charged single or double, 177; question tried at law, 178; settled by Act of Parliament, 179; concessions in favour of, 315

Pay. _See_ Wages

Pelham, Henry, countermands Newcastle's orders about the packets, 173

Pennant, Thomas, 261

Penny post, its introduction by Dockwra, 36; general plan of, 37; carries up to one pound in weight, 37; includes a system of insurance, 38; days on which it does not go, 39; increases number of country letters, 40; is absorbed into the General Post Office, 40; establishment of, in 1690, 45; stimulates the clandestine conveyance of letters into London, 54; on its acquisition by the State its general conditions remain unchanged, 67; number of penny post letters for the suburbs at the end of the seventeenth century, 69; its contemplated extension to Dublin in 1703, 69; affects the number of ship letters, 73; is without legal sanction, 119; legal sanction given, 128; its limits restricted to ten miles, 129; the charge of a second penny on all letters delivered outside the bills of mortality made legal, 143; weight carried by the penny post reduced from one pound to four ounces, 188; compensation for losses by the, when ceased to be given, 188 _note_; attempts made by the Post Office to charge a second penny within the bills of mortality, 203; principal officers of the penny post absentees, 231; stagnation of the penny post, 302; the post is improved by Johnson, a letter-carrier, 302; financial result, 305; prepayment, hitherto optional, made compulsory, 306; restriction on limits withdrawn, 307; the charge of a second penny, heretofore confined to letters delivered at places outside the bills of mortality, imposed upon letters coming therefrom, 307; the penny post converted into a twopenny post, 331; and the twopenny post into a threepenny one, 340. _See_ twopenny and threepenny posts

Penzance, its post before and after 1784, 291

Pepys, Samuel, 84 _note_

Perceval Spencer, 354, 379

Percival, Joseph, a passenger by packet without a pass, 89

Pickwick, "Mr. Pickwick's coach," 281

Pitt, William, his attention is called to Palmer's plan, 212; sweeps away frivolous objections and desires that it may be tried, 213; raises the postage rates, 215; relaxes the restrictions upon franking, 217; dismisses Tankerville, 224; settles conditions of Palmer's appointment, 229; his knowledge of abuses at the Post Office and his unwillingness to expose them, 241; suppresses report of Royal Commission, 242; authorises increase of salary to the clerks of the roads, 251; declares Palmer's proceedings to be irregular, 263; turns a deaf ear to the postmaster-general's request for an interview, 273; interview at length granted, 277; a second interview, 279; acquiesces in Palmer's dismissal and grants him a pension, 279; makes to Post Office servants a periodical grant pending a revision of the establishment, 300; promotes plan for improving the penny post, 305; disallows practice of charging returned letters, 308; modifies arrangements for dealing with ship letters, 329; his precepts in this matter afterwards disregarded, 361

Plymouth, salary of the postmaster in 1792, 293

_Political Register_, its criticisms on Post Office practice, 342

Pope, Alexander, his lines on Ralph Allen, 186

Portage, 29

Portland, William Henry, Duke of, 379

Portland Packet, Captain Taylor, its gallant action with privateer, 321

Postage, introduction of, 18; settled by Act of Parliament, 27; original meaning of term, 29 _note_; rates of postage in 1635, 18; in 1657 and 1660, 28; in 1711, 127; in 1765, 187; in 1784, 216; in 1797, 318; in 1801, 331; in 1805, 339; in 1812, 356; device resorted to in order to evade high rates of, 142; rates lapse through effluxion of time, 180; rates of postage between London and the Channel Islands and within the islands themselves, 314; from Portugal and America, 319; financial result of increase of rates, 341; bewildering complications, 357; extraordinary toleration of the public, explanation suggested, 358; an additional rate imposed in Scotland on withdrawal of exemption from toll, 359; and on letters passing over the Menai Straits or Conway Bridge, 395; rates of postage to the East Indies in 1815, 363; instances of exorbitant rates, 409

"Poste for the Pacquet," 5 _note_

Post-boys, 164

Post-coaches, 214

Post-haste, 20

Post-horn. _See_ Horn

Post-horses. _See_ Horses

Post-houses, to have horses in readiness, 4; horses not to be let except at, 6; pay of keepers of, in arrear, 15

Postilions, 107

Postmarks, introduction of, 38

Postmasters, their duties in 1690, 48; their salaries, 50; their grievances, 51; their contingent advantages, 52; intercept postage on bye-letters, 52, 53; their correspondence exempt from postage, 160; their moderation on the erection of milestones, 177; are enjoined to frequent the local markets and report the price of corn, 254; salaries of certain postmasters in Scotland in 1707, 118; in England in 1792, 293

Postmasters-General (I.) [Cotton and Frankland, 1690 to 1708], their simple-mindedness, 45; their accessibility, 46; their concern about the illicit correspondence, 53; their powerlessness to check it, 56; let the posts out to farm, 58; refuse to sublet the penny post, 69; their difference with Pajot, minister of the French posts, 77; remonstrate with captains of packets at Falmouth, 89; and at Harwich, 91; chuckle over the capture of a prize, 93; their rebuke to the captain of a Falmouth packet, 94 _note_; instance of their rough-and-ready justice, 95; take vigorous measures to protect the packets from Flemish privateers, 101; their admonition to the packet agent at Dover, 102; act as purveyors of news to the Court, instances given, 104; advocate cheap postage to America, 114; become, at the Union with Scotland, responsible for the Scotch posts, 117; their inaction, explanation suggested, 119; action forced upon them, 120; are contrasted with their successors, 185, 202

Postmasters-General (II.) [Frankland and Evelyn, 1708 to 1715], their interview with Godolphin, 106; their instruction about expresses from Dover, 107; treat personally with Povey, 123; Frankland ceases to be a member of Parliament, 128; concern themselves only slightly about travellers, 130; take measures to check the abuse of franking, 133; in vain urge the appointment of surveyors, 134; negotiate new treaty with France, 138; quit office on accession of George the First, 139

Postmasters-General (III.) [Cornwallis and Craggs, 1715 to 1721], are amazed at the absence of check in the Post Office, 140; note how little the increase in the rates of postage has added to the revenue, 141; and how largely it has stimulated the abuse of franking, 142; their dispute with the merchants, 142; convict Lowndes of a ludicrous error, 145; their harsh treatment of their secretary, 152

Postmasters-General (IV.) [Edward Carteret and Walpole, 1721 to 1725], their kindness to subordinates, 152; their interview with Abercorn, 154. [From 1725 to 1733 Carteret had for his colleague Edward Harrison, and from 1733 to 1739 Lord Lovell.] Carteret establishes a post to Aylsham, 167

Postmasters-General (V.) [Henry Frederick, Lord Carteret and, for the second time, Tankerville, 1784 to 1786], collect opinions on Palmer's plan and submit them to Pitt, 213; entertain doubts as to its feasibility, 218; their differences between themselves, 221; their open rupture, 223; Tankerville is dismissed by Pitt, 224; his ungovernable temper, 225

Postmasters-General (VI.) [Carteret and Walsingham, 1787 to 1789], Walsingham's industry and thoroughness, 243; questions Carteret's right to sign first, 243; his preponderating influence, 244; his habit of annotating and execrable handwriting, 244, 263; reduces packet establishment at Falmouth, 246; is dissuaded from carrying out a similar reduction at Holyhead, 248; is powerless to control the correspondence by the Milford packets, 249; in conjunction with Carteret procures increase of salary for the clerks of the roads, 250; is imposed upon in the matter of the King's coach, 251; calls for the surveyors' journals, 255; his correspondence with Chalmers, 256; receives an unexpected visit from Palmer, 258; detects Palmer's jealousy and endeavours to allay it, 260; calls Palmer to account for acting without authority, 263; exposes Bonnor's attempt at deception, 265; Carteret's dismissal, 266; Walsingham inquires into the solicitor's accounts, 324

Postmasters-General (VII.) [Walsingham and Chesterfield, 1790 to 1794], Chesterfield's playful allusions to Palmer, 269; Palmer sets the postmasters-general at defiance, 270; they seek in vain an interview with Pitt, 273; receive assurances from Bonnor of Palmer's disloyalty, 275; remove Bonnor's suspension and suspend Palmer, 276; Chesterfield's letter, 276; Walsingham's interview with Pitt, 277; feel confident of their own dismissal, 278; are furnished with evidence by Bonnor, 278; have a second interview with Pitt and dismiss Palmer, 279; contrast Palmer's reticence in official matters with Freeling's wealth of explanation, 295; Walsingham attempts to improve communication with France, 296; and to reduce postage on letters containing the second halves of bank notes, 298; give attention to coach-building, 393

Postmasters-General (VIII.) [Chichester and Salisbury, 1816 to 1823], are called upon for a return of the number of Post Office Boards, 396; address to the Throne praying that one of the two offices of postmaster-general be abolished, 397; Salisbury stops his own salary, and on his death Chichester becomes postmaster-general sole, 398; Salisbury's testimony to increase of stringency in Post Office matters, 405

Post Office, origin of its monopoly, 7; monopoly confined in the first instance to the county of Kent, 9; a Post Office opened in the city of London, 20; dispute for its possession, 21; becomes the subject of Parliamentary enactment, 27; its position in 1680, 39; is the only receptacle for letters in London, 40; description of it, 46; relations between the Post Office and the Treasury, 57; the Post Office becomes unpopular and the reasons, 170 _seq._; its retrogression, 184; assumes a new character, 202; loses monopoly of letting post-horses, 205; Post Office buildings in Edinburgh and Dublin fall into decay, 207; indignation caused by the earlier closing of the Post Office in London, 220; this office enlarged, 295; state of the Post Office as between the years 1695 and 1813 compared, 356; the Post Office disseminates news, 401; and police notices, 402; becomes object of interest to the House of Commons, 407; is cleared of more than a century of debt, 408; a new post office opened in St. Martin's-le-Grand, 410

Post-runners, 118

Posts, paucity of, in time of Henry the Eighth, 1; their close connection with the Sovereign, 3; instructions for the regulation of, 4; designed not only to carry the letters of the Sovereign, but for the use of persons travelling on the Sovereign's concerns, 4; posts originally maintained at loss to the Crown, 7; at the beginning of the seventeenth century only four in number, 8; of these the post to Dover the most important, precautions taken lest this post should be used for designs against the State, 9; decadence of the posts, 15; improved by Witherings, 16; to be self-supporting, 17; thrown open to the public, 18; let out to farm, 25; rent paid in 1650, 25; in 1653, 27; in 1660, 33; in 1667, 34; in 1657 become the subject of Parliamentary enactment, 27; their inadequacy to meet public demands, 34; even where they existed, their existence not generally known, 35; at what intervals they left London in 1680, 36; regarded as vehicles for the propagation of treason, 43; again let out to farm, 58; resumed by the State, 137; as late as 1728, not of general concern, 152

Povey, Charles, sets up a halfpenny post, 121; contrast between him and Dockwra, 122; his insolence, 122; is proceeded against and cast in damages, 123

Prideaux, Edmund, takes part with Burlamachi against Warwick, 21; rescues the mail from Warwick's servants, 22; brings the imprisonment of his own servant before the House of Commons, 22; becomes Master of the Posts, 23; his activity, 24; suppresses unauthorised post to Scotland, 25; makes profit out of the posts and is called upon to pay rent, 25; is dismissed, 25; retains an interest in the posts, 26; Oldmixon's estimate of his character, 26; destination of a part of his wealth, 27

Prideaux, Edmund, son of the preceding, 27

Prior, Matthew, negotiates Post Office treaty with France, 138

Prior Park, 185

Prizes, practice observed on capture of, 93

Prosecutions, for the illicit conveyance of letters, 333; measures taken to secure their publicity, 359; return to the House of Commons on the subject of, 422

Protection order, specimen of, 84 _note_

Quartering of soldiers, a grievance to postmasters, 51

Quash, Ralph Allen's predecessor as postmaster of Bath, 147

Queen's letters, meaning of term in 1706, 83 _note_

Queen's servants not exempt from fare by packet, 86

Queensberry, James, Duke of, 64

Raikes, a diamond merchant, suggests the giving of receipts for registered letters, 409 _note_

Railways, prediction concerning, 408; first mail sent by railway, 412

Ramsgate, cost of Post Office at, in 1792, 293

Randolph, Thomas, Master of the Posts to Queen Elizabeth, 3

Receiving offices, first opened in London, 37; generally kept at public-houses, 68; to remain open on six nights a week instead of three, 196; letter-boxes at, to be closed and fixed, 306; receiving offices for twopenny post letters separate and distinct from offices for letters by the general post, 409, 423

Recruits, exemption of, from fare by packet, 85; disputes with officers in charge of, 87; packets employed for transport of, 97

Registration, exorbitant fees for, of foreign letters, 233; amount of these fees in 1783 and 1784, 235; receipts for foreign registered letters begin to be given, 409 _note_

Returned Letters. _See_ Dead letters

Revenue of the Post Office, surrendered by the Crown to the public, in part, in 1711, 126; and wholly, in exchange for a Civil List, in 1760, 189; amount of, from 1635 to 1694, 46; in 1710 and 1721, 144; in 1787 as compared with 1784, 227; in 1796 and 1806, 341; in 1824 and 1833, 422

Richmond, Charles, Duke of, postmaster-general from December 1830 to July 1834, declines to receive salary, 413; his industry, 413; becomes postmaster-general of Ireland as well as Great Britain, and reforms the Dublin establishment, 414; contemplates, apparently, a reduction of postage, 419

Ripon, Post Office at, refused in 1713, 151; in possession of one in 1792, 293

Roads, condition of, in 1691, 65; during the first two decades of the nineteenth century, 390; begin to be constructed on scientific principles, 392; Macadam's plan for dealing with the surface of, 392; difference between roads in the country and roads in the neighbourhood of London, 394

Rochester, Lawrence Hyde, Earl of, postmaster-general from 1685 to 1689, 43, 74 _note_, 110, Appendix _note_

Rogers, captain of packet, engages in smuggling, 89

Roof-loading of mail-coaches, 287, 412

Rosencrantz, the Danish envoy, to be specially accommodated on board Harwich packet, 87

Rosse, Laurence, Earl of, postmaster-general of Ireland from 1809 to 1831, 369, 415

Rotterdam, practice at, on arrival of the mails, 174

Royal boroughs of Scotland, 208

Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Post Office in 1787, 227, 230; in 1823, 407; recommendations of this last Commission not carried into effect, 420; another Commission appointed to ascertain the reason, 423; this Commission procures the contract for mail-coaches to be thrown open to public competition, 425

Runners, 118

Rye-House Plot, the cause of a Post Office proclamation, 43

Sailors on board the packets, their conditions of service, 83; receive pensions for wounds, 85; their wages withheld, 91; their wages increased, 248

St. John, Henry, afterwards Viscount Bolingbroke, 211

St. Leonards, Shoreditch, a second penny on penny post letters improperly charged at, 203

St. Martin's-le-Grand, opening of Post Office at, 410

Salaries. _See_ Wages

Salisbury, James, Marquess of, postmaster-general from 1816 to 1823. _See_ Postmasters-General, Part VIII.

Samples. _See_ Patterns

Sampson, captain of packet, 313

Sandwich, John, Earl of, postmaster-general from 1768 to 1771, 172; specimen of his frank, Appendix

Sandwich, John, Earl of, son of the preceding, postmaster-general from 1807 to 1814, 348

Sandwich, Kent, asserts its right to a free delivery, 197; right admitted and letter-carrier appointed, 202, 293

Scotland, tardiness of communication with, before 1635, 16; communication expedited by Witherings, 16; postage to Scotland, 18; post to Edinburgh set up by the City of London, 24; extent of correspondence with Scotland in 1690, 53; Scotch posts placed under the postmasters-general of England, 117; salaries of Scotch postmasters, 118; course of post between London and Edinburgh accelerated in 1758, 180, 256; in 1765 posts to and within Scotland increased in frequency, 195; Post Office in Edinburgh no longer habitable, 207; internal administration of Scotch Post Office revised by Palmer, 271; penny post established in Edinburgh, 300; postage rates within Scotland raised, 319; wholesale prosecutions for illicit correspondence, 333; exemption from toll withdrawn and an additional postage rate imposed, 359; unhandsome conduct of the road trustees, 359; roads discoached, 360

Search, powers of, refused by the House of Commons, 128

Sebright, Sir John, his letter accidentally opened, 333

Secretary of State, clerks in the office of, compensated for the loss of the newspaper privilege, 193

Secretary of the Post Office, appointment of, created in 1694, 70

Secret Office, 170, 269

Sharpus, postmaster of New York, 111

Sheffield, salary of postmaster in 1792, 293

Shelburne, William, Earl of, 212

Ship letters, origin of ship letter money, 73; by means of the penny post evade full postage, 73; number of, in 1686, 74; pence paid upon, without legal sanction, 119; legal sanction given, 128; ship letter office established, 328; rates on, increased and restrictions imposed, 361; restrictions modified, 362; made compulsory upon private ships to carry mails, 362

Ship news supplied by the Post Office to Lloyds, 218

Shipwrecked seamen pass free by packet, 85

Shrewsbury, curious reply to petition from, for earlier post, 218

Single letter, definition of, 139

Smart and bounty money, 85

Smuggling, on board the packets at Falmouth, 89, 238; at Harwich, 91, 237; at Dover, 103; in the Dover mail-coach, 271

Soldiers' wives, when travelling supplied with money through the medium of the Post Office, 374

Solicitor to the Post Office, appointment of, created in 1703, 70; an absentee and his duties performed by deputy, 231; his accounts inspected by Walsingham's direction, 324

Somerset, Protector, superscription of his letter to Lord Dacre, 20

Sorters, pay of, in 1690, 49

Southampton, salary of postmaster in 1792, 293

Speed of post in Queen Elizabeth's time, 4; in time of James the First, 6; at the end of the seventeenth century, 62; between London and Falmouth and London and Harwich, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, 83; under Allen's contract, 148; in 1765, 187; after 1784, 290; speed of Holyhead mail-coach before and after Telford's improvement of the road, 394; of mail-coaches generally in 1821 and 1836, 399, 426

Spencer, Lord Charles, postmaster-general from 1801 to 1806, 333

Spitalfields, a second penny improperly charged on penny post letters addressed to, 203

Sprange, James, postmaster of Tunbridge Wells, 408

Spring Rice, Thomas, Chancellor of the Exchequer, 428

Stage, inconvenience resulting from term not being defined, 219; term dropped as unit of charge, 318

Stanhope of Harrington, John, Lord, Master of the Posts, 10; resents what he conceives to be an invasion of his patent, 10; dies and is succeeded as Master of the Posts by his son, 11

Stanhope of Harrington, Charles, Lord, Master of the Posts, son of the preceding, vigorously asserts his rights, 11; vacillating decisions of the Privy Council, 12; surrenders his patent, 20; alleges cajolery, 23

Stanhope, Arthur, comptroller of the foreign department, his emoluments from franking, 344; supplies newspapers with summaries of foreign intelligence, 346

Stanhope, James, Secretary of State, 64

Stanwix, Colonel, 97

State letters, 83 _note_

Staunton, John, postmaster of Isleworth; appointed comptroller of the bye and cross-roads, 224

Steam packets, first employment of, by the Post Office, 384

Stock Exchange, The, outwits the Post Office, 106

Stockdale, a highwayman, execution of, 183 _note_

Stokes, William, 245

Stone, George, Receiver-General, a defaulter, 185

Stowmarket, its position and its trade unknown to Allen, 157

Strangers' post. _See_ Foreign merchants

Sudbury, duties and salary of postmaster in 1690, 50

Sunderland, Charles, Earl of, 89

Surveyors, appointment of, refused by the Treasury, 134; afterwards sanctioned, 140; their original functions, 134; their functions and emoluments after 1786, 228; their journals, 255, 259; cease to hold postmasterships in addition to their appointments as surveyors, 339

Swift, Richard, solicitor to the Post Office, prepares Post Office bill of 1711, 125; is overborne by Lowndes, secretary to the Treasury, 126

Tankerville, Charles, Earl of, postmaster-general from April 1782 to May 1783, and again from January 1784 to September 1786. _See_ Postmasters-General, Part V.

Telford, Thomas, takes in hand the road between Holyhead and Shrewsbury, 392; between Shrewsbury and London, 393; other roads, 409

Thanet, Elizabeth, Countess Dowager of, undertakes to establish a penny post in Dublin, 69

"Thorough poste," 5 _note_

Thrale, Mrs., 209 _note_

Threepenny post, 340, 417

Thurloe, John, secretary, assumes direction of the Post Office in 1655, 27; intercepts letters, 28

Thurlow, Edward, Attorney-General, afterwards Lord Chancellor; his opinion as to the duty of the Post Office in the matter of delivering letters, 198, 201

Thynne, Henry Frederick, afterwards Carteret. _See_ Postmasters-General, Parts V. and VI.

Timepieces, mode of regulating mail-guards', 283

_Times_ newspaper, its priority of intelligence, 347; its criticisms on Post Office procedure, 348; proceedings against, taken by Freeling, 349

Tinware, supply of, to the postmasters-general, 232

Todd, Anthony, secretary to the Post Office; his correspondence with Benjamin Franklin, 204; his indifference, 218; comments upon Tankerville's temper, 225; his compromising position in respect to the packets, 240; his emoluments, 240; his remark upon Bonnor's dilatory replies, 264; devotes himself to social amenities, 294; unknown to the postmasters-general, retains his shares in the packets, 327; his death, 327

Toll, mail-coaches exempt from, in England and Scotland but not in Ireland, 354; exemption withdrawn in Scotland, 359

Townshend, Horatio, Lord, 64

Townshend, Charles, deprecates alarm because a letter is sent by express, 182

Travellers, obtain use of post-horses under false pretences, 5; are not to be supplied with horses except at the post-houses, 6; paucity of travellers, 15; are not to be supplied with horses when the post is expected, 18; have to pay more for horses after the erection of milestones, 176; their restriction to post-houses for a supply of horses withdrawn, 205

Treasury, its relations to the Post Office, 57, 416; refuses the appointment of surveyors, 134; refuses a horse-post between Edinburgh and Glasgow, 136; experience of its ways a bar to the suggestion of improvements, 169; extorts blackmail, 325

Treves, Peregrine, the recipient of Carteret's bounty, 226

Tring, the postmaster of, opens a letter addressed to Sir John Sebright, 333

Tuke, Sir Brian, Master of the Posts to Henry the Eighth, his letter to Thomas Cromwell, 1; his duties, 2; explanation suggested of statement in his letter, 4

Tunbridge, salary of postmaster in 1792, 293

Tunbridge Wells, old-fashioned postmaster of, in 1823, 408

Turnpikes, condition of the trusts at the beginning of the nineteenth century, 353; number of Turnpike Acts passed between 1760 and 1809, 390

Twopenny post, a second penny charged by Dockwra on delivery of letters in the outskirts of London, 38; this second penny not legally sanctioned until 1730, 143; the twopenny post thus established in one direction established also in the other, 307; the penny post converted into a twopenny post, 331; and the twopenny post into a threepenny one, 340; the revenue of the twopenny post as compared with that of the penny post, 341; the crowded condition of the twopenny Post Office in Westminster, 410

Tyrconnel, Richard Talbot, Earl of, opens the mails at Dublin Castle, 53

Uniform, letter-carriers put into, 299

Urin, captain of packet, makes wrong port, 89

Vanderpoel, packet agent at the Brill, 92

Vansittart, Nicholas, Chancellor of the Exchequer, insists upon mail-coaches being withdrawn from the roads, 355; raises the rates of postage, 356; changes the route of the Holyhead coach, 390; refuses to get the terms of a hostile motion altered, 397

Van Vrybergh, Envoy Extraordinary from the States-General, 101

Venetian Ambassador, the, protests against the opening of his letters, 28

Vidler, his contract for the supply of mail-coaches terminated, 425

Village posts. _See_ Convention posts

Viner, Sir Robert, 70

Wade, General, 146

Wages and salaries, of Post Office servants in 1690, 49; of seamen on board the packets, 83; of certain postmasters in England, 50, 293, and in Scotland, 117; of mail-guards, 263

Waghorn, Thomas, 409

Wainwright, postmistress of Ferrybridge, her original mode of supplying an omission, 159

Walcot, John, secretary to the Post Office in Ireland, terms of his agreement with Barham, packet agent at Dover, 222

Walpole, Sir Robert, maintains an office for the opening of letters, 170

Walpole, Galfridus, postmaster-general from 1721 to 1725. _See_ Postmasters-General, Part IV.

Walpole, Horace, precautions taken by, to secure his correspondence against inspection, 172

Walsingham, Thomas, Lord, postmaster-general from July 1787 to July 1794. _See_ Postmasters-General, Parts VI. and VII.

Warwick, Robert, Earl of, acquires Witherings's patent and claims possession of the letter office, 21; attempts to obtain it by force, 22; continues to assert his claim, 23

Warwick, course of post to, altered in 1695, 57

Waterhouse, Benjamin, Secretary to the Post Office, 131 _note_

Watson, Sir Charles, 296

Way letter, meaning of term, 147

Weights to be attached to sea-borne mails, 82

Wellesley, Sir Arthur, sets aside objections to improving communication with Ireland, 390

West Indies, packets to the, established, 78; amount of correspondence in 1705, 80; service discontinued in 1711, 109; resumed in 1745, 173; improved arrangements for disposing of the West Indian mails, 310

Westmorland, John, Earl of, postmaster-general from September 1789 to March 1790, 266

Weston, Henry, secretary to the Post Office, harsh treatment of, 152

Weston brothers, trial of, 290

Wetherall, Robert, master of ship _Albinia_, proceedings against, for refusing to take mails on board, 362 _note_

Weymouth, constituted a packet station, 313

Whinnery, Thomas, postmaster of Belfast, his revolving "alphabet," 375; his mode of delivery, 375

Whitworth, Richard, 192

Wildman, Colonel John, postmaster-general from July 1689 to March 1690, 44

Willatt, Dame, postmistress of Manchester in 1792, 292; granted a pension, 301

Willes, Doctor, Dean of Lincoln, afterwards Bishop of St. Davids; the "chief Decypherer," 171

Willes, Mr. Justice, his judgment upon the question of free delivery, 200

William III., confers a pension upon Dockwra, 41; refuses to exempt postmasters from the quartering of soldiers, 51; is unwilling to prosecute for the illegal conveyance of letters, 54; his opinion as to the requirements of a mail packet, 75; the soundness of that opinion confirmed, 76

Williamson, Peter, sets up an office for the delivery of letters in Edinburgh, 300

Willimott, Receiver-General, 398 _note_

Wilson, mail-coach contractor, his exorbitant bill for horsing the King's coach, 251

Witherings, Thomas, succeeds De Quester as foreign postmaster, 14; is commissioned to examine into the inland posts, 14; suggests a scheme of reorganisation, 16; introduces postage, 17; contemplates posts being self-supporting, 17; but not, apparently, a source of revenue, 19; becomes postmaster for both inland and foreign letters, 20; his appointment is sequestered, 21; assigns his patent, 21

Wolters, Dirick, a suspected person, to be searched for at Harwich, 88

Worthing, course of post from London to, in 1666, 34

Wren, Sir Christopher, surveys the Post Office premises in Lombard Street, 71

York, salary of postmaster in 1792, 293

_J. D. & Co._

_Printed by R. & R. CLARK, Edinburgh._

* * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Page 339 "further period of eighteen months, viz. from the 10th of October 1892 to the 5th of April 1804" changed to October 1802 according to context.

Two changes were made according to the errata:

Page 324 "that the practice dated from 1713" changed to 1703.

Page 339 "further period of eighteen months, viz. from the 10th of October 1892 to the 5th of April 1804" changed to October 1802 according to context.