Her Majesty's Mails Part 2

The officers and messengers under his control memorialized the Commissioners of the Treasury, alleging that the "Controller doth what in him lyes to lessen the revenue of the Penny Post-Office, that he may farm it and get it into his own hands;" also, that "he had removed the Post-Office to an inconvenient place to forward his ends." There appears to have been no limit as to the weight or size of parcels transmitted through the district-post during Docwray's time, but the memorial goes on to say that "he forbids the taking in of any band-boxes (except very small) and all parcels above a pound; which, when they were taken in, did bring a considerable advantage to the Post-Office;" that these same parcels are taken by porters and watermen at a far greater charge, "which is a loss to the public," as the penny-post messengers did the work "much cheaper and more satisfactory." Nor is this all. It is further stated that "he stops, under spetious pretences, most parcells that are taken in, which is great damage to tradesmen by loosing their customers, or spoiling their goods, and many times hazard the life of the patient when physick is sent by a doctor or an apothecary."[22] It was hinted that the parcels were not only delayed, but misappropriated; that letters were opened and otherwise tampered with: and these charges being partially substantiated, Docwray, who deserved better treatment, was removed from all connexion with the department.

It was only towards the close of the seventeenth century, that the Scotch and Irish post establishments come at all into notice. The first legislative enactments for the establishment of a Scotch post-office were made in the reign of William and Mary. The Scotch Parliament pa.s.sed such an act in the year 1695. Of course the proclamations of King James I. provided for the conveyance of letters between the capitals of the two countries; and although posts had been heard of in one or two of the princ.i.p.al roads leading out of Edinburgh, even before James VI. of Scotland became the first English king of that name, it was only after the Revolution that they became permanent and legalized. Judging by the success which had followed the English establishment, it was expected that a Scotch post would soon pay all its expenses. However, to begin, the King decided upon making a grant of the whole revenue of the Scotch office, as well as a salary of 300_l._ a year, to Sir Robert Sinclair, of Stevenson, on condition that he would keep up the establishment.[23]

In a year from that date, Sir Robert Sinclair gave up the grant as unprofitable and disadvantageous. It was long before the Scotch office gave signs of emulating the successes of the English post, for, even forty years afterwards, the whole yearly revenue of the former was only a little over a thousand pounds. About 1700, the posts between London and Edinburgh were so frequently robbed, especially in the neighbourhood of the borders, that the two Parliaments of England and Scotland jointly pa.s.sed acts, making the robbery or seizure of the public post "punishable with death and confiscation of moveables."

Little is known of the earlier postal arrangements of Ireland. Before any legislative enactments were made in the reign, it is said, of Charles I., the letters of the country were transmitted in much the same way as we have seen they were forwarded in the sister country. The Viceroy of Ireland usually adopted the course common in England when the letters of the King and his Council had to be delivered abroad. The subject is seldom mentioned in contemporary records, and we can only picture in imagination the way in which correspondence was then transmitted. In the sixteenth century, mounted messengers were employed carrying official letters and despatches to different parts of Ireland.

Private n.o.blemen also employed these "intelligencers," as they were then and for some time afterwards called, to carry their letters to other chiefs or their dependents. The Earl of Ormond was captured in 1600, owing to the faithlessness of Tyrone's "intelligencer," who first took his letters to the Earl of Desmond and let him privately read them, and afterwards demurely delivered them according to their addresses.[24]

Charles I. ordered that packets should ply weekly between Dublin and Chester, and also between Milford Haven and Waterford, as a means of insuring quick transmission of news and orders between the English Government and Dublin Castle. We have seen that packets sailed between Holyhead and Dublin, and Liverpool and Dublin, as early as the reign of Elizabeth. Cromwell kept up both lines of packets established by Charles. At the Restoration, only one--namely, that between Chester and Dublin--was retained, this being applied to the purposes of a general letter-post. The postage between London and Dublin was 6_d._, fresh rates being imposed for towns in the interior of Ireland. A new line of packets was established to make up for that discontinued,[25] to sail between Port Patrick and Donaghadee, forming an easy and short route between Scotland and the north of Ireland. For many years this mail was conveyed in an open boat, each trip across the narrow channel costing the Post-Office a guinea. Subsequently, a grant of 200_l._ was made by the Post-Office in order that a larger boat might be built for the service. This small mail is still continued.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] The special messenger who informed James of Queen Elizabeth's death accomplished a great feat in those days. Sir Robert Carey rode post, with sealed lips, from Richmond in Surrey to Edinburgh in less than three days.

[11] _Notes and Queries_, 1853.

[12] This instance, showing the usage, gives us an insight into the amount of control under which these public servants were held. Sir Cornelius was in the bad grace of the people of the district through which he had to pa.s.s, on account of being a foreigner; so at Royston Edward Whitehead refused to provide any horses, and on being told he should answer for his neglect, replied, "Tush! Do your worst. You shall have none of my horses, in spite of your teeth."--_Smiles._

[13] Blackstone, in speaking of the monopoly in letter traffic, states that it is a "provision which is absolutely necessary, for nothing but an exclusive right can support an office of this sort; many rival independent offices would only serve to ruin one another."--_Com._ vol.

i. p. 324.

[14] Journals of the House of Commons, 1644.

[15] Journals of the House of Commons, 21st March, 1649.

[16] In Burton's _Diary_ of the Parliament of Cromwell, an account is given of the third reading of the new Act, which is important and interesting enough to be here partly quoted. "The bill being brought up for the last reading--

SIR THOMAS WROTH said: 'This bill has bred much talk abroad since yesterday. The design is very good and specious; but I would have some few words added for general satisfaction: to know how the monies shall be disposed of; and that our letters should pa.s.s free as well in this Parliament as formerly.'

LORD STRICKLAND said: 'When the report was made, it was told you that it (the Post-Office) would raise a revenue. It matters not what reports be abroad, _nothing can more a.s.sist trade and commerce than this intercourse_. Our letters pa.s.s better than in any part whatsoever. In France and Holland, and other parts, letters are often laid open to public view, as occasion is.'

SIR CHRISTOPHER PACK was also of opinion, 'That the design of the bill is very good for trading and commerce; and it matters not what is said abroad about it. As to letters pa.s.sing free for members, _it is not worth putting in any act_.'

COLONEL SYDENHAM said: 'I move that it may be committed to be made but probationary; _it being never a law before_.'" The bill was referred to a Committee, and subsequently pa.s.sed nearly unanimously.

[17] Lord Macaulay states that there was an exceptional clause in this act, to the effect, that "if a traveller had waited half an hour without being supplied, he might hire a horse wherever he could."--_History of England_, vol, i.

[18] Cobbett's Parliamentary History, vol. ix.

[19] Macaulay's History of England, vol. i. pp. 387-8.

[20] Under William and Mary, Docwray was allowed a pension, differently stated by different authorities, of 500_l._ and 200_l._ a year.

[21] Amongst the Post-Office pensions granted in subsequent reigns, Queen Anne gave one, in 1707, to the Duke of Marlborough and his heirs of 5,000_l._ The heirs of the Duke of Schomberg were paid by the Post-Office till 1856, when about 20,000_l._ were paid to redeem a fourth part of the pension, the burden of the remaining part being then transferred to the Consolidated Fund.

[22] Stowe's Survey of London.

[23] Stark's Picture of Edinburgh, p. 144.

[24] "Letters and Despatches relative to the taking of the Earl of Ormond, by O'More. A.D. 1600."

[25] In 1784, the line of Milford Haven packets was re-established, the rates of postage between London and Waterford to be the same as between London and Dublin, _via_ Holyhead. The packets were, however, soon withdrawn.

CHAPTER III.

ON OLD ROADS AND SLOW COACHES.

If we seem in this chapter to make a divergence from the stream of postal history, it is only to make pa.s.sing reference to the tributaries which helped to feed the main stream. The condition of the roads, and no less the modes of travelling, bore a most intimate relationship, at all the points in its history, to the development of the post-office system and its communications throughout the kingdom. The seventeenth century, as we have seen, was eventful in important postal improvements; the period was, comparatively speaking, very fruitful also in great changes and improvements in the internal character of the country. No question that the progress of the former depended greatly on the state of the latter. James the First, whatever might be his character in other respects, was indefatigable in his exertions to open out the resources of his kingdom. The fathers of civil engineering, such as Vermuyden and Sir Hugh Myddleton, lived during his reign, and both these eminent men were employed under his auspices, either in making roads, draining the fen country, improving the metropolis, or in some other equally useful scheme. The troubles of the succeeding reign had the effect of frustrating the development of various schemes of public utility proposed and eagerly sanctioned by James. Under the Commonwealth, and at intervals during the two succeeding reigns, many useful improvements of no ordinary moment were carried out.

In the provinces, though considerable advances had been made in this respect during the century, travelling was still exceedingly difficult.

In 1640, perhaps the Dover Road, owing to the great extent of continental traffic constantly kept up, was the best in England; yet three or four days were usually taken to travel it. In that year, Queen Henrietta and household were brought "with expedition" over that short distance in four long days. Short journeys were accomplished in a reasonable time, inasmuch as little entertainment was required. It was different when a long journey was contemplated, seeing how generally wretched were the hostelries of the period.[26] So bad, again, were some of the roads, that it was not at all uncommon, when a family intended to travel, for servants to be sent on beforehand to investigate the country and report upon the most promising track. Fuller tells us that during his time he frequently saw as many as six oxen employed in dragging slowly a single person to church. Waylen says that 800 horses were taken prisoners at one time during the civil wars by Cromwell's forces, "while sticking in the mud."

Many improvements were made in modes of conveyance during the century. A kind of stage-coach was first used in London about 1608; towards the middle of the century they were gradually adopted in the metropolis, and on the better highways around London. In no case, however, did they attempt to travel at a greater speed than three miles an hour. Before the century closed, stage-coaches were placed on three of the princ.i.p.al roads in the kingdom, namely those between London and York, Chester, and Exeter. This was only for the summer season; "during winter," in the words of Mr. Smiles, "they did not run at all, but were laid up for the season, like ships during Arctic frosts." Sometimes the roads were so bad, even in summer, that it was all the horses could do to drag the coach along, the pa.s.sengers, _per force_, having to walk for miles together. With the York coach especially the difficulties were really formidable. Not only were the roads bad, but the low midland counties were particularly liable to floods, when, during their prevalence, it was nothing unusual for pa.s.sengers to remain at some town _en route_ for days together, until the roads were dry.

Public opinion was divided as to the merits of stage-coach travelling.

When the new threatened altogether to supersede the old mode of travelling on horseback, great opposition was manifested to it, and the organs of public opinion (the pamphlet) began to revile it. In 1673, for instance, a pamphlet[27] was written which went so far as to denounce the introduction of stage-coaches as the greatest evil "that had happened of late years to these kingdoms." Curious to know how these sad consequences had been brought about, we read on and find it stated that "those who travel in these coaches contracted an idle habit of body; became weary and listless when they had rode a few miles, and were then unable to travel on horseback, and not able to endure frost, snow, or rain, _or to lodge in the fields_." In the very same year another writer, descanting on the improvements which had been introduced into the Post-Office, goes on to say, that "besides the excellent arrangement of conveying men and letters on horseback, there is of late such an _admirable commodiousness_, both for men and women to travel from London to the princ.i.p.al towns in the country, _that the like hath not been known in the world_, and that is by _stage-coaches_, wherein any one may be transported to any place, sheltered from foul weather and foul ways; free from endamaging of one's health and one's body by hard jogging or over violent motion; and this not only at a low price (about a shilling for every five miles), but with such velocity and speed in one hour as that the posts in some foreign countreys cannot make in a day."[28] M.

Soubriere, a Frenchman of letters who landed at Dover in the reign of Charles II., alludes to stage-coaches, but seems to have thought less of their charms than the author we have just quoted. "That I might not take post," says he, "or again be obliged to use the stage-coach, I went from Dover to London in a wagon. I was drawn by six horses placed one after another, and driven by a wagoner who walked by the side of them. He was clothed in black and appointed in all things like another St. George. He had a brave monteror on his head, and was a merry fellow, fancied he made a figure, and seemed mightily pleased with himself."

The stage-wagon here referred to was almost exclusively used for the conveyance of merchandise. On the princ.i.p.al roads strings of stage-wagons travelled together. A string of stage-wagons travelled between London and Liverpool, starting from the Axe Inn, Aldermanbury, every Monday and Thursday, and occupying _ten_ days on the road during summer and generally about _twelve_ in the winter season. Beside these conveyances, there were "strings of horses," travelling somewhat quicker, for the carriage of light goods and pa.s.sengers. The stage-wagon, as may be supposed, travelled much slower on other roads than they did between London and Liverpool. On most roads, in fact, the carriers never changed horses, but employed the same cattle throughout, however long the journey might be. It was, indeed, so proverbially slow in the north of England, that the publicans of Furness, in Lancashire, when they saw the conductors of the travelling merchandise trains appear in sight on the summit of Wrynose Hill, on their journey between Whitehaven and Kendal, were jocularly said to begin to brew their beer, always having a stock of good drink manufactured by the time the travellers reached the village![29]

Whilst communication between different large towns was comparatively easy--pa.s.sengers travelling from London to York in less than a week before the close of the century--there were towns situated in the same county, in the year 1700, more widely separated for all practical purposes than London and Inverness are at the present day. If a stranger penetrated into some remote districts about this period, his appearance would call forth, as one writer remarks, as much excitement as would the arrival of a white man in some unknown African village. So it was with Camden in his famous seventeenth-century tour. Camden acknowledges that he approached Lancashire from Yorkshire, "that part of the country lying beyond the mountains towards the western ocean," with a "_kind of dread_," but trusted to Divine Providence, which, he said, "had gone with him hitherto," to help him in the attempt. Country people still knew little except of their narrow district, all but a small circle of territory being like a closed book to them. They still received but few letters. Now and then, a necessity would be laid upon them to write, and thereupon they would hurry off to secure the services of the country parson, or some one attached to the great house of the neighbourhood, who generally took the request kindly.[30] Almost the only intelligence of general affairs was communicated by pedlars and packmen, who were accustomed to retail news with their wares. The wandering beggar who came to the farmer's house craving a supper and bed was the princ.i.p.al intelligencer of the rural population of Scotland so late as 1780.[31]

The introduction of newspapers formed quite an era in this respect to the gentlefolk of the country, and to some extent the poorer cla.s.ses shared in the benefit. The first English newspaper published bears the date of 1622. Still earlier than this, the News Letter, copied by the hand, often found its way into the country, and, when well read at the great house of the district, would be sent amongst the princ.i.p.al villagers till its contents became diffused throughout the entire community. When any intelligence unusually interesting was received either in the news letter or the more modern newspaper, the princ.i.p.al proprietor would sometimes cause the villagers and his immediate dependants to be summoned at once, and would read to them the princ.i.p.al paragraphs from his porch. The reader of English history will have an imperfect comprehension of the facts of our past national life if he does not know, or remember, how very slowly and imperfectly intelligence of public matters was conveyed during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and what a bearing--very difficult to understand in these days--such circ.u.mstances had upon the facts themselves. Thus, a rebellion in one part of the country, which was popular throughout the kingdom, might be quelled before the news of the rising reached another part of the country. Remote districts waited for weeks and months to learn the most important intelligence. Lord Macaulay relates that the news of Queen Elizabeth's death, which was known to King James in three days, was not heard of in some parts of Devonshire and Cornwall till the court of her successor had ceased to wear mourning for her. The news of Cromwell having been made Protector only reached Bridgewater nineteen days after the event, when the church bells were set a-ringing. In some parts of Wales the news of the death of King Charles I. was not known for two months after its occurrence. The churches in the Orkneys continued to put up the usual prayers for him for months after he was beheaded; whilst their descendants did the same for King James long after he had taken up his abode at St. Germains.

In Scotland, all the difficulties in travelling were felt to even a greater degree than in England. There were no regular posts to the extreme north of Scotland, letters going as best they could by occasional travellers and different routes. Nothing could better show the difficulties attendant on locomotion of any sort in Scotland, than the fact that an agreement was entered into in 1678 to run a coach between Edinburgh and Glasgow, to be drawn by six horses, the journey, there and back, to be performed in six days. The distance was only forty-four miles, and the coach travelled over the princ.i.p.al post-road in the country!

The reader has thus some idea of the difficulties which stood in the way of efficient postal communication during the seventeenth century.

However much the work of the Post-Office, and the slow and unequal manner in which correspondence was distributed, may excite the scorn of the present generation, living in the days of cheap and quick postage, they must nevertheless agree with Lord Macaulay in considering that the postal system of the Stuarts was such as might have moved the envy and admiration of the polished nations of antiquity, or even of the contemporaries of our own Shakespeare or Raleigh. In Cornwall, Lincolnshire, some parts of Wales, and amongst the hills and dales of c.u.mberland, Westmoreland, and Yorkshire, letters, it is true, were only received once a week, if then; but in numbers of large towns they were delivered two and three times a week. There was _daily_ communication between London and the Downs, and the same privileges were extended to Tunbridge Wells and Bath, at the season when those places were crowded with pleasure-seekers.[32]

Accounts survive of the Post-Office as it existed towards the close of the seventeenth century, an outline of which, contributed to the _Gentleman's Magazine_ by a correspondent in the early part of the present century, we must be excused for here presenting to the reader.

The Postmaster-General of the period, under the Duke of York, was at that time the Earl of Arlington. The letters, it would seem, were forwarded from London to different parts on different days. For instance: Every Monday and Tuesday the Continental mails were despatched, part on the former day, the remainder on the latter. Every Sat.u.r.day letters were sent to all parts of England, Scotland, and Ireland. On other days posts were despatched to the Downs, also to one or two important towns and other smaller places within short distances of London. The London Post-Office was managed by the Postmaster-General and a staff of twenty-seven clerks.[33] In the provinces of the three countries, there were 182 deputy-postmasters. Two packet-boats sailed between England and France; two were appointed for Flanders, three for Holland, three for Ireland, and at Deal two were engaged for the Downs.

"As the masterpiece," so our authority winds up, "of all these grand arrangements, established by the present Postmaster-General, he hath annexed (_sic_) and appropriated the market-towns of England so well to the respective postages, that there is no considerable one of them which hath not an easy and certain conveyance for the letters thereof _once a week_. Further, though the number of letters missive was not at all considerable in our ancestors' day, yet it is now so prodigiously great (_and the meanest of people are so beginning to write in consequence_) that this office produces in money 60,000_l._ a year. Besides, letters are forwarded with more expedition, and at less charges, than in any other foreign country. A whole sheet of paper goes 80 miles for twopence, two sheets for fourpence, and _an ounce of letter_ for but eightpence, and that in so short a time, by night as well as day, that every twenty-four hours the post goes one hundred and twenty miles, and in _five_ days an answer to a letter may be had from a place distant 200 miles from the writer!"

FOOTNOTES:

[26] There were many exceptions, of course. Numbers of innkeepers were also the postmasters of the period. Taylor, the water-poet, travelling from London into Scotland in the early part of the century, has described one of these men, in his _Penniless Pilgrimage_, as a model Boniface.

[27] "The Grand Concern of England explained in several Proposals to Parliament."--Harl. MSS. 1673.

[28] Chamberlayne's Present History of Great Britain. 1673.

[29] Private coaches were started in London at the time when the stage- or hackney-coaches were introduced, and Mr. Pepys secured one of the first. Mightily proud was he of it, as any reader of his _Diary_ will have learnt to his great amus.e.m.e.nt.

[30] There are few traces in this country, at any time, of _public_ letter-writers. This is somewhat remarkable, inasmuch as then, and still in some of the southern states of Europe, the profession of public letter-writer has long been an inst.i.tution. In England it has never flourished. Some years ago there might have been seen at Wapping, Shadwell, and other localities in London where sailors resorted, announcements in small shop-windows to the effect that letters were written there "to all parts of the world." In one shop a placard was exhibited intimating that a "large a.s.sortment of letters _on all sorts of subjects_" were kept on hand. There were never many, and now very few, traces of the custom.