The New Monthly Magazine
The following account of how the post-office service was conducted in olden times will be read with interest. It is founded upon a recently printed report of the Postmaster-General on the post-office : — '
‟Blue-books consist, in general, of heavy matériel, but among some exceptions issued of late from her Majesty’s printers, we must except a thin volume of about 100 pages, containing ‛The First Report of the Postmaster-General on the Post-office.’ The contrasts presented at different periods in the mode of conveying and distributing letters are very curious. It is pleasant to observe the position of the present chief functionary of the post-office, having at his command every facility that science and convenience can suggest, for the rapid transmission of his instructions, and then to glance at the cumbrous and complicated machinery of old, which impelled the communicating medium to our patient forefathers, at a rate which we should now term intolerably sluggish.
‟To supply the particulars contained in this report, the early records of the post-office, deposited in the vaults of that building, have been carefully examined by Mr. Scudamore, of the Accountant-General’s office, and much interesting information has been collected from them.
‟We are indebted to foreigners for the earliest postal arrangements of any consequence in our country, for we are told that so early as 1514 the alien merchants residing in London had established a post-office of their own from the metropolis to the outports, appointing from time to time their own postmaster. In consequence of complaints from English merchants that this post acted unfairly towards them by keeping back their letters, &c, the Government of James I. set on foot a post-office for letters to foreign countries; and in the reign of Charles I. inland letters were also conveyed, and a post or two settled to run night and day between London and Edinburgh, ‛to go thither and come back again in six days,’ a distance now accomplished in less than 15 hours!
‟The first rates of postage for this inland conveyance were not excessive, considering the difficulties and the expenses of transit. Twopence was the charge on a single letter for any distance under 80 miles ; 4d. up to 140 miles; 6d. for any longer distance in England ; and 8d. to any place in Scotland.
‟The impediments to expedition at this time were numerous. One complaint states that the gentry ‛doe give much money to the riders, whereby they be very subject to get in liquor, which stopes the mailes.’ The surveyor, whose office it was to visit annually every postmaster in England, describes the abuses of which he was the witness. At Petersfield ‛he found the deputy so unhappy in his circumstances that he cannot appear but of Sundays.’ At Chester the surveyor encounters another deputy ‛uneasy in his mind.’ On inquiring the reason, ‛the deputy charged the clarke with being frequently out, and keeping company thought to be more expensive than the wages allowed him, and several other little articles, which appeared more in malice than else.’
‟About the middle of the seventeenth century the office of postmaster was formed, and continued, as regards the bye-posts, almost to the close of the eighteenth century. The most vexatious part of the duties of the surveyors was to establish the difference of postage accruing to the former from bye-letters, and those chargeable to the revenue. A surveyor, in one of his reports, says:— ‛At this place (Salisbury) found the postboys to have carried on vile practices in taking the bye-letters, delivering them in this city, and taking back the answers, and specially the Andover riders. Between the 14th and 15th instant, found on Richard Kent, one of the Andover riders, five bye-letters, all for this cittye. Upon examination of the fellow, he confessed that he had made it a practice, and persisted to continue in it, saying that he had noe wages from his master. I took the fellow before the magistrate, proved the facts, and, as the fellow could not get bail, he was committed, but pleading to have no friends nor money, desired a punishment to be whipped, and accordingly he was to the purpose. Wrote the case to Andover, and ordered that the fellow should be discharged, but no regard was had thereto ; but the next day the same rider came post, ran about the cittye for letters, and was insolent. The second time the said Richard Kent came post with two gentlemen, made it his business to take up letters, the fellow, instead of returning to Andover, gets two idle fellows and rides away with three horses, which was a return for his master’s not obeying instructions, as he ought not to have been suffered to ride after the said facts were proved against him.’
‟Some strange notions appear to have prevailed among the postmasters-general with regard to the convenience of the public and their own profit; for it is stated that ‛some gentlemen of Warwick had requested that the London letters should be sent direct to Warwick, instead of through Coventry, by which route much time was lost.’ ‛Nay,’ said our postmaster-general, ‛from London through Coventry to Warwick is more than 80 miles, so that we can charge 3d. per letter going that way, whereas we could only charge 2d. per letter if they went direct.’ ‛But,’ they add, ‛perhaps we may get more letters at the cheaper rate!’
‟In the time of Cromwell, the establishment of posts was described ‛as the best means to discover and prevent any dangerous and wicked designs against the Commonwealth.’ A shrewd, however unscrupulous, mode of dealing with sedition, of which we are not without examples in our own time.
‟To an upholsterer named Robert Murray belongs the credit of establishing a penny post in 1683, for the conveyance of letters and small parcels, but this speculation was denounced in unmeasured terms by the ultra-Protestant party as an invention of the Jesuits, and it was alleged that if the bags were examined they would be found full of Popish plots. Murray assigned the benefits of his undertaking to a William Dockwra, who made it so profitable, that the Government, jealous of his success, took possession of the penny post, on the plea that the Crown rights had been infringed. By way of compensation, Dockwra was allowed a pension of £200 a year, and the controllership of the penny post. It is interesting to observe, that the London district post existed until last year as a separate department of the General Post-office. A halfpenny post was attempted, in 1708, by a person named Povey ; but this was suppressed by a lawsuit, and at length, during the reign of Queen Anne, a General Post-office for the three kingdoms and the colonies was established under one head.
‟According to Mr. Scudamore, the general accounts of the Post-office, from 1685 to the present time, are preserved in an unbroken series, and much curious matter is contained in them. Thus, we learn that in 1763 there were sundry officers in the inland office called ‛facers of letters;’ and there was also an ‛alphabet-keeper,’ who had £40 per annum for instructing young officers in their relative duties— not, we presume, including their earliest efforts in knowledge.
‟There are also entries in these books for ‛drink money and feast money to the clerks, amounting in all to £100 per annum.’ A Mr. Henry Porter had £50 per annum for taking care of the candles, but it appears they were wax- candles, and cost nearly £900 per annum, and thus certainly deserved some care.
The office of Postmaster-General in former times was anything but a sinecure; indeed, when we read the extracts furnished by Mr. Scudamore from the various letter-books in which their operations were recorded, we cannot but feel surprise at the patient perseverance with which they combated the difficulties in their way. These obstacles were multifarious. The mail-packets, especially during war-time, were fertile subjects for anxiety. The orders of the Postmaster-General to the captains of such vessels are urgent—‛That they shall run while they can, fight when they can no longer run, and throw the mails overboard when fighting will no longer avail.’ In 1693 there are frequent rescripts from Queen Mary— the king being absent— ordering her master-gunner ‛to provide the Diligence packet of 85 tons and 14 guns (or some other powerful man-of-war) with powder, shot, fire-arms, and all other munitions of war.’
‟From the frequency of accidents to the vessels, either from stress of weather, or falling into the enemy’s hands, the postmasters, towards the close of the 17th century, re-solved upon building swift packet-boats to escape the enemy ; but these were built so low in the water that shortly afterwards, the report states, ‛We doe find that in blowing weather they take in soe much water that the men are constantly wet all through, and can noe ways goe below to change themselves, being obliged to keep the hatches shut to save the vessels from sinking, which is such a discouragement of the sailors, that it will be of the greatest difficulty to get any to endure such hardships in the winter season.’
‟Fresh vessels were accordingly built, and the freight of passengers from Harwich to Holland was increased, but ‛recruits and indigent persons might still have their passage free.’
‟Being armed for resistance, and of superior tonnage, these packet-boats, it may be presumed, performed the foreign postal service more efficiently, but the encounters with the enemy were frequent, and our postmasters had to encourage the men and bribe them to fight. The capture of prizes en route was allowed, and pensions for wounds, which are detailed with circumstantial minuteness, were granted. Edward James received a donation of £5, after an engagement in February, 1705, ‛because a musket-shot had grazed on the tibia of his left leg.’ Gabriel Treluda was paid £12, ‛because a shot had divided his frontal muscles, and fractured his skull.’ A like sum was given to Thomas Williams, ‛a Granada shell having stuck fast in his left foot.’ A donation of £6 13s. 4d. was granted to John Cook, ‛who received a shot in the hinder part of his head, whereby a large division of the scalp was made.’ And Benjamin Lillycross, for ‛losing the forefinger of his left hand, had £2 for present relief, and a yearly pension of the same amount.’
‟The desperate character of the foreign postal service is further explained in a letter from the Postmasters-General to their agent at Falmouth, on the subject of pensions for wounds, which are thus described :—‛Each arm or leg amputated above the elbow or knee is £8 per annum; below the knee is 20 nobles. Loss of the sight of one eye is £4; of the pupil of the eye, £5; of the sight of both eyes, £12; of the pupils of both eyes, £14; and,’ it is added, ‛according to these rules we consider also how much the hurts affect the body, and make the allowances accordingly.
‟To increase the difficulties and the duties of the post-office authorities in those days, they were carriers on a large scale ; indeed, from the earliest periods, carriers were the messengers of the public, conveying notes and goods throughout the country. Common carriers were employed thus about the time of the wars of the Roses. In the records or the city of Bristol there is an entry of ‛a penny paid to the carrier for conveying a letter to London;’ and it may also be observed that Shakespeare uses the words ‛post’ and ‛carrier’ as synonymous.
‟This practice of conveying goods with the letters prevailed to a much later period, for one of the complaints against the controller of the posts, William Dockwra, in 1698, alleges that ‛he forbids the taking in any bandboxes (except very small), and all parcells above a pound, which, when they were taken, did bring in considerable advantage to the office, they being now, at great charge, sent by porters into the city, and coaches and watermen into the country, which formerly went by penny post messengers, much cheaper and more satisfactory.’ No doubt William Dockwra the object of this and other complaints, felt the dignity of his office compromised by the inroads of the public on his time and convenience; but what shall we say of the following consignments of goods and human freight noted, among other items, in the agents’ letter-book, between the years 1690 and 1720, Sir Robert Cotton and Sir Thomas Frankland being postmasters-general at that time :—
‟Imprimis. —‛15 couple of hounds going to the King of the Romans with a free pass.’
‟Item. —Some parcels of cloath for the cloathing colonels (sic) in my Lord North’s and my Lord Grey’s regiments.’
‟Item. —‛Two servant maids going as laundresses to my Lord Ambassador Methuen.’
‟Item. —Doctor Crichton, carrying with him a cow and divers other necessaries.’
‟Item. —‛Three suits of cloaths for some nobleman’s lady at the Court of Portugal.’
‟Item. —‛A box containing three pounds of tea, sent as a present by my Lady Arlington to the Queen Dowager of England at Lisbon.’
‟(A quantity of tea was brought over from Holland by Lord Arlington and Lord Ossory, about the year 1666, at which time it was sold for £3 per pound. The value of such a present as that by ‛my Lady Arlington’ may, therefore, be well understood.)
‟Item. —‛Eleven couple of houndes for Major-General Hompesch.’
‟Item. —‛A case of knives and forks for Mr. Stepney, her Majesty’s envoy to the King of Holland.’
‟Item. —‛One little parcell of lace to be made use of in cloathing Duke Schomberg’s regiment.’
‟Item. —‛Two bales of stockings for the use of the ambassador of the Crown of Portugal.’
‟Item. —‛A box of medicines for my Lord Galway in Portugal.’
‟Item.—‛A deal case with four flitches of bacon for Mr. Pennington, of Rotterdam.’
‟Conceive the perplexities of our worthy postmasters-general with such cargoes and freight as the above! and what an addition to their cares do we find in the following extract from one of their letters:— ‛We eare concerned to find the letters brought by your boat from the West Indies to be so consumed by the ratts that we cannot find out to whom they belong.’ Who can wonder that such anxieties should provoke the spleen, the gout, and a variety of other evils? Sir Thomas Frankland was occasionally laid up with the gout, for he had the most troublesome department to deal with—that of the packets; and whenever anything went amiss, we are not surprised at meeting with such an entry as the following :—‛Your business cannot be settled until Sir Thomas Frankland, who hath a fitte of the gout, shall be somewhat recovered.’
‟This shows, however, that the two functionaries of whom we have treated did not leave their work to deputies. Nothing seems to have escaped their vigilance. We find them answering complaints of every kind, and dealing with commendable spirit and patience with intractable captains and unscrupulous agents. One of the latter obtains their censure because ‛he had not provided a sufficiency of pork and beef for the prince.’ Another, ‛for breaking open the portmanteau of Mons. Raoul (a gentleman passenger), and spoiling him of a parcel of snuff.’ Many of their letters, observes Mr. Scudamore, are dated in the middle of the night, and at other extraordinary hours; all are remarkable for clearness, compactness, and precision.
‟Such is a brief sketch of letter-carrying in the olden time, which is amusing from the contrast it affords to the present modus operandi of the post-office. The ‛Haste ! post haste!’ which is found written on the backs of private letters at the close of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th centuries, would be regarded as a capital joke in the present day, or excite a smile of wondering pity from the red-coated postman at so much simplicity and ignorance.”
The United Service Magazine is full of interesting information with respect to all matters relating to the war and the two services. A very able article entitled ‟Military Operations in Turkey” will re-pay perusal.