Her Majesty's Mails Part 5

6. The weight of any packet or letter to be sent by the London penny-post, or any of the new penny-posts to be established under this improved Act, must not now exceed _four ounces_.

In 1749, the Act restraining any other but officers of the Post-Office from letting out horses to hire for the purpose of riding post, is stated not to refer to cases where chaises, "calashes," or any other vehicles, are furnished. Vehicles to drive may be provided on either post-roads or elsewhere by any person choosing to engage in the trade.

In 1779, all Acts giving exclusive privileges to the Postmaster-General and his deputies as to the letting of post-_horses_ for hire are henceforth repealed.

In the year 1766 the first penny-post was established in Edinburgh by one Peter Williamson, a native of Aberdeen. He kept a coffee-shop in the hall of the Parliament House, and as he was frequently employed by gentlemen attending the courts in sending letters to different parts of the city, and as he had doubtless heard something of the English penny-posts, he began a regular post with hourly deliveries, and established agents at different parts of the city to collect letters. He employed four carriers, who appeared in uniform, to take the letters from the different agents, and then to deliver them as addressed. For both these purposes they were accustomed to ring a bell as they proceeded, in order to give due notice of their approach. The undertaking was so successful, that other speculators were induced to set up rival establishments, which, of course, led to great confusion.

The authorities saw the success of the undertaking, and, aware of its importance, they succeeded in inducing Williamson to take a pension for the good-will of his concern, and then merged it in the general establishment.

We cannot attempt more than a short _resume_ of the incidents in the previous history of the Scotch Post-Office, although the annals of the seventeenth century contain little of interest, and might, therefore, soon be presented to the reader. The first regular letter-post was established in the reign of James I. (of England). In 1642, owing to the sending of forces from Scotland to put down the Irish Rebellion, it was found that the post arrangements in the south-west of Scotland were defective in the extreme. The Scotch Council proposed to establish a line of posts between Edinburgh and Portpatrick, and Portpatrick and Carlisle, and the English, being more immediately concerned in the Rebellion, agreed to bear the whole expense.[46] In the Privy Council records of the period, we find a list of persons recommended by the Commissioners for appointment on the two lines of road as postmasters, "such persons being the only ones fit for that employment, as being innkeepers and of approved honesty." Seven years afterwards we find the Post-Office at Edinburgh was under the care of John Mean, husband of the woman who discharged her stool at the bishop's head when the service-book was introduced into St. Giles's in 1637. He seems to have himself borne the charges of attending to the office "without any reasonable allowance therefor;" and pet.i.tioning the Committee of Estates to that effect, they allowed him to retain the "eighth penny on all letters sent from Edinburgh to London (no great number), and the fourth penny upon all those coming from London to Edinburgh." At the Restoration the office was bestowed on Robert Main, and considerable improvements were made under his management, although only with existing posts. Little was done for other parts of Scotland. A traveller in Scotland so late as 1688, commenting on the absence of stage or other coaches on most Scotch roads, says,[47] that "this carriage of persons from place to place might be better spared, were there opportunities and means for the speedier conveyance of business by letters. They have no horse-posts besides those which ply between Berwick and Edinburgh, and Edinburgh and Portpatrick for the Irish packets.... From Edinburgh to Perth, and so on to other places, they use foot-posts and carriers, which, _though a slow way of communicating our concerns to one another, yet is such as they acquiesce in till they have a better_." Our traveller is somewhat wrong in his date, for in 1667 a horse-post to Aberdeen from Edinburgh, twice a week, was started, with the consent of Patrick Graham, of Inchbrakie, his Majesty's Postmaster-General, "for the _timous_ delivery of letters and receiving returns of the _samen_."

Two years afterwards Inverness got dissatisfied with the want of postal communication, when Robert Main, the Edinburgh postmaster, was commissioned to establish a constant foot-post between Edinburgh and Inverness, going once a week, "wind and weather serving."[48] "Wind and weather serving" is an amusing qualification, as pointed out by Mr.

Chambers, considering that there was only one ferry of six or seven miles, and another of two miles, to cross. In 1661, we find the Edinburgh postmaster useful in another capacity, for in that year the Privy Council grant a warrant to him "to put to print and publish _ane diurnal weekly_, for preventing false news which may be invented by evil and disaffected persons."

We must now pa.s.s over many years, as not offering any incidents of any moment. In the year 1730 we find that the Scotch establishment yielded the sum of 1,194_l._ as the whole gross revenue. From about the year 1750, the mails began to be carried from stage to stage, as in England, by relays of fresh horses and different post-boys, though not entirely to the exclusion of the post-runners, of whom we have previously spoken.

In 1723, the Edinburgh Post-Office occupied the first-floor of a house near the cross, above an alley which still bears the name of the Post-Office Close. It was afterwards removed to a floor on the south side of the Parliament Square, which was fitted up shop-fashion, and where the letters were given out from behind an ordinary shop counter, one letter-carrier doing all the out-door work. The Post-Office was removed to its present situation in 1821. Towards the close of 1865, it is expected, the handsome building now rising up near the old office will be finished and opened for postal purposes.[49]

Even less interest attaches to the early annals of the Irish Post-Office. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was certainly more remunerative than the Scotch, though much less remunerative than the English departments. Previous to the introduction of mail-coaches, all mails were conveyed, or supposed to be conveyed, by the postmasters, to whom certain special allowances were made for each particular service. "There were no contracts, and no fixed rules as to time. Three miles and a half (per hour) seems to have been the pace acknowledged to have been sufficient. The bags were usually conveyed by boys. In the immediate neighbourhood of the metropolis, some sort of cart was used, but with this exception the bags were carried either on ponies or mules, or on foot."[50] The same authority tells us further that, "at this time, the bags were carried to Cork, Belfast, Limerick, and Waterford, six days a week; and three days a week to Galway, Wexford, and Enniskillen. There were three posts to Killarney; but for this the Government refused to pay anything. The postmaster had a salary of 3_l._ a-year, but the mail was carried by foot-messengers, who were maintained at the cost of the inhabitants and of the news-printers in Cork. Carrick-on-Shannon was the only town in county Leitrim receiving a mail, and this it did twice a week. Now it has two every day. Except at the county-town, there was no post-office in the whole county of Sligo; and there were but sixteen in the province of Connaught, where there are now one hundred and seventy-one."

FOOTNOTES:

[34] These exceptions were again made in the Act 1 Vic. c. 33. s. 2, and still remain the law.

[35] This clause was repealed in the reign of George II.

[36] The office of Post-Office Surveyor, of which we here see the origin, still exists (though the officers now so designated have very different duties) among the most responsible and lucrative appointments in the Department.

[37] "There cannot be devised," says Blackstone, "a more eligible method than this of raising money upon the subject; for therein both the Government and the people find a mutual benefit. The Government requires a large revenue, and the people do their business with greater ease, expedition, and cheapness than they would be able to do if no such tax existed."--_Com._ vol. i. p. 324.

[38] At this time, and for some years subsequently, the mails were carried on horseback in charge of post-boys. Some of these post-boys were sad rogues, who, besides taking advantage of confusion in the two posts, were accustomed to carry letters themselves concealed upon them and for charges of course quite unorthodox. In old records of the Post-Office, princ.i.p.ally the Surveyor's Book, referring to country post-offices from the year 1735, there are long complaints from the surveyor on this head. The following, "exhibiting more malice than good grammar," may be taken as a specimen, and will suffice to show the way things were managed at that date:--"At this place (Salisbury) found the post-boys to have carried on vile practices in taking the _bye-letters_, delivering them in this cittye and taking back answers, especially the _Andover_ riders. On the 15th found on Richard Kent, one of the Andover riders, 5 bye-letters, all for this cittye. Upon examining the fellow, he confessed he had made it a practice, _and persisted to continue in it_, saying he had noe wages from his master. I took the fellow before the Magistrate, proved the facts, and he was committed, but pleading to have no money or friends, desired a punishment to be whipped, which accordingly _he was to the purpose_. Wrote the case to Andover and ordered the fellow to be dismissed, but no regard was had thereto, but the next day the same rider came post, ran about the cittye for letters _and was insolent_. Again he came post with two gentlemen, made it his business to take up letters; the fellow, however, instead of returning to Andover, gets two idle fellows and rides off with three horses, which was a return for his master not obeying my instructions." Our shrewd surveyor thus amply got his revenge, and the Post-Office and Mr. Allen suffer no more from the delinquencies of Richard Kent.--_From Mr.

Scudamore's Notes._

[39] _Gentleman's Magazine_, August, 1760.

[40] Mr. Scudamore, of the General Post-Office, to whom we are indebted for much of the _minutiae_ in question, has been successful in his efforts to preserve permanently some of the old records of the Post-Office; and the result of his labours may be found in the Appendix to the Postmaster-General's First Report.

[41] Son of the James Craggs who succeeded Addison as Secretary of State, and who obtained such an unusual portion of the poetical praise of Pope. The son came in for a share also, as, for example:--

"Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere, In action faithful, and in honour clear."

[42] Campbell, in his _Tales of the Highlands_, relates two or three incidents which show that little improvement had taken place in post communications in some part of Scotland even a hundred years later. The English order of posts and express posts seem there to have been reversed, express work being done the worst. For instance: "Near Inverary, we regained a spot of comparative civilization, and came up with the post-boy, whose horse was quietly grazing at some distance, whilst Red Jacket himself was immersed in play with other lads. 'You rascal,' I said to him, 'are you the post-boy and thus spending your time?' 'Nae, nae, sir,' he answered, 'I'm no the post, I'm only an Express!'"

[43] What the Right Hon. John Methuen wanted with two bales of stockings is, of course, a mystery, if he was not embarking in the haberdashery line. It may be he was desirous of regaining the favour of the Portuguese Court, by supplying the whole with English stockings. This was the Methuen who gave his name to a well-known treaty, which, by the way, was found so distasteful to the Portuguese that when, in 1701, he carried it to Pedro II. for his signature, that monarch gave vent to his displeasure by kicking it about the room.--_Marlborough Despatches_, vol. v. p. 625.

[44] At the investigation in 1763 it was related that "one man had, in the course of five months, counterfeited 1,200 dozens of franks of different members of Parliament."

[45] As an example of the summary proceedings of those days, we may here just note the remarks which Mr. Pitt made in his place in Parliament when he proposed this increase, calculating that the change would produce at least 120,000_l._ additional revenue out of the Post-Office.

The tax upon letters, said he, could be calculated with a great degree of certainty, and the changes he had to propose would _by no means reduce the number sent. It was idle to suppose that the public would grumble in having to pay just one penny additional for valuable letters safely and expeditiously conveyed._ He proposed "to charge all letters that went one stage and which now paid one penny in future the sum of 2_d._, and this would bring in the sum of 6,230_l._ All that now pay 2_d._ paying an additional penny would yield 8,923_l._ Threepenny letters paying another penny would produce 33,963_l._ The increase of fourpenny letters would produce 34,248_l._" The cross-roads he could not speak of with great certainty, but he thought they might calculate on at least 20,000_l._ from that source, and so on, till the estimated sum was reached.

[46] _Domestic Annals of Scotland._ By Mr. R. Chambers. Vol. ii. p. 142.

[47] _A Short Account of Scotland_, published in London in 1702.

[48] The wording of the qualifying clauses in the proclamations of stage-coaches, &c. are very various, and sometimes exceedingly amusing.

In England the Divine Hand was generally recognised in the formula of "G.o.d willing," or, "If G.o.d should permit." On the contrary, the human element certainly preponderated--whether it was meant so or not--in the announcement made by a carrying communication between Edinburgh and a northern burgh, when it was given out that "a waggon would leave the Gra.s.s market for Inverness every Tuesday, G.o.d willing, but on Wednesday _whether or no_."

[49] It will be remembered that the late lamented Prince Consort laid the foundation-stone of this structure in 1862, being the last occasion on which he a.s.sisted at any public ceremony. For further information of the Scotch Office, see Mr. Lang's _Historical Summary of the Post-Office in Scotland_.

[50] Appendix to Postmaster-General's Third Report, supplied by Mr.

Anthony Trollope, then one of the Post-Office Surveyors for Ireland.

CHAPTER V.

PALMER AND THE MAIL-COACH ERA.

We have now arrived at a most important epoch in the history of the English Post-Office. Fifteen years after the death of Mr. Allen, John Palmer, one of the greatest of the early post-reformers rose into notice. To give anything approaching to a proper account of the eminent services that Palmer rendered towards the development of the resources of the Post-Office, it is requisite that we notice the improvements which had been made up to his time in the internal communications of the country. Trade and commerce, more than ever active, were the means of opening out the country in all directions. Civil engineering had now acquired the importance and dignity of a profession. This was the age of Brindley and Smeaton, Rennie and Telford, Watt and Boulton. Roads were being made in even the comparatively remote districts of England; bridges were built in all parts of the country; the Bridgewater and other ca.n.a.ls were opened for traffic, whilst many more were laid out.

And what is perhaps more germane to our special subject, many improvements were apparent in the means of conveyance during the same period.[51] While, on the one hand, the ordinary stage-coach had found its way on to every considerable road, and was still equal to the usual requirements, the speed at which it travelled did not at all satisfy the enterprising merchants of Lancashire and Yorkshire. So early as 1754, a company of merchants in Manchester started a new vehicle, called the "Flying Coach," which seems to have owed its designation to the fact that the proprietors contemplated an acceleration in the speed of the new conveyance to four or five miles an hour. It started with the following remarkable prospectus:--"However incredible it may appear, this coach will actually (barring accidents) arrive in London in four days and a half after leaving Manchester." In the same year a new coach was brought out in Edinburgh, but the speed at which it travelled was no improvement on the old rate. It was of better appearance, however; and the announcement heralding its introduction to the Edinburgh public sought for it general support on the ground of the extra comfort it would offer to travellers. "The Edinburgh stage-coach," says the prospectus, "for the better accommodation of pa.s.sengers, will be altered to a new genteel two-end gla.s.s machine, hung on steel springs, exceedingly light and easy, to go (to London) in ten days in summer and twelve in winter."[52] Three years afterwards, the Liverpool merchants established another "flying machine on steel springs," which was designed to, and which really did, eclipse the Manchester one in the matter of speed.[53] Three days only were allowed for the journey between Liverpool and London. Sheffield and Leeds followed with their respective "fly-coaches," and by the year 1784 they had not only become quite common, but most of them had acquired the respectable velocity of eight miles an hour.

The post-boy on horseback travelling at the rate of three or four miles an hour, had been an inst.i.tution since the days of Charles II., and now, towards the close of the eighteenth century, the Post-Office was still clinging to the old system. It was destined, however, that Mr. Palmer should bring about a grand change. Originally a brewer, Mr. Palmer was, in 1784, the manager of the Bath and Bristol theatres. He seems to have known Mr. Allen, and to have been fully acquainted with his fortunate Post-Office speculations. In this way, to some extent, but much more, doubtless, through his public capacity as manager of two large theatres, he became acquainted with the crude postal arrangements of the period.

Having frequently to correspond with the theatrical stars of the metropolis, and also to journey between London and the then centres of trade and fashion, he noticed how superior the arrangements were for travelling to those under which the Post-Office work was done, and he conceived the idea of improvements.

Palmer found that letters, for instance, which left Bath on Monday night were not delivered in London until Wednesday afternoon or night; but the stage-coach which left through the day on Monday, arrived in London on the following morning.[54] Not only did the existing system of mail conveyance strike him as being exceedingly slow, but insecure and otherwise defective. As he afterwards pointed out, he noticed that when tradesmen were particularly anxious to have a valuable letter conveyed with speed and safety, they never thought of giving it into the safe keeping of the Post-Office, but were in the habit of enclosing it in a brown paper parcel and sending it by the coach: nor were they deterred from this practice by having to pay a rate of carriage for it far higher than that charged for a post-letter. Robberies of the mails were so frequent, that even to adopt the precaution recommended by the Post-Office authorities, and send valuable remittances such as a bank note, bills of exchange, &c. _at twice_, was a source of endless trouble and annoyance, if it did not prove entirely ineffective. Who can wonder at the Post-Office robberies when the carelessness and incompetency of the servants of the Post-Office were taken into account? A curious robbery of the Portsmouth mail in 1757 ill.u.s.trates the careless manner in which the duty was done. The boy who carried the mail had dismounted at Hammersmith, about three miles from Hyde Park Corner, and called for beer, when some thieves took the opportunity to cut the mail-bags from off the horse's crupper, and got away undiscovered. The French mail on its outward-bound pa.s.sage _via_ Dover was more than once stopped and rifled before it had got clear of London. A string stretched across a street in the borough through which the mail would pa.s.s has been known to throw the post-boy from his horse, who, without more ado, would coolly retrace his steps, empty-handed, to the chief office, and report the loss of his bags. What could be expected, however, in the case of raw, unarmed post-boys, when carriages were stopped in broad daylight in Hyde Park, and even in Piccadilly itself, and pistols pointed at the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the n.o.bility and gentry _living close at hand_? Horace Walpole relates that he himself was robbed in Hyde Park in broad daylight, in a carriage with Lord Eglinton and Lady Albemarle.

Mr. Palmer, however, was ready with a remedy for robbery, as well as for the other countless defects in the existing postal arrangements. He began his work of reform in 1783, by submitting a full scheme in a lengthy report to Mr. Pitt, who was at that time Prime Minister. He commenced by describing the then existing system of mail transmission.

"The post," he says, "at present, instead of being the quickest, is almost the slowest conveyance in the country; and although, from the great improvements in our roads, other carriers have proportionately mended their speed, the post is as slow as ever." The system is also unsafe; robberies are frequent, and he saw not how it could be otherwise if there were no changes. "The mails," continued Palmer, "are generally intrusted to some idle boy without character, mounted on a worn-out hack, and who, so far from being able to defend himself, or escape from a robber, is more likely to be in league with him." If robberies were not so frequent as the circ.u.mstances might lead people to suppose, it was simply because thieves had found, by long practice, that the mails were scarcely worth robbing--the booty to be obtained being comparatively worthless, inasmuch as the public found other means of sending letters of value. Mr. Palmer, as we have before stated, knew of tradesmen who sent letters by stage-coach. Why, therefore, "should not the stage-coach, well protected by armed guards, under certain conditions to be specified, carry the mail-bags?" Though by no means the only recommendation which Mr. Palmer made to the Prime Minister, this subst.i.tution of a string of mail-coaches for the "worn-out hacks" was the leading feature of his plans. Evincing a thorough knowledge of his subject (however he may have attained that knowledge), and devised with great skill, the measures he proposed promised to advance the postal communication to as high a pitch of excellence as was possible. To lend to the scheme the prospect of _financial_ success, he laboured to show that his proposals, if adopted, would secure a larger revenue to the Post-Office than it had ever yet yielded; whilst, as far as the public were concerned, it was evident that they would gladly pay higher for a service which was performed so much more efficiently. Mr. Pitt, who always lent a ready ear to proposals which would have the effect of increasing the revenue, saw and acknowledged the merits of the scheme very early. But, first of all, the Post-Office officials must be consulted; and from accounts[55] which survive, we learn how bitterly they resented proposals not coming from themselves. They made many and vehement objections to the sweeping changes which Palmer's plans would necessitate. "The oldest and ablest officers in the service" represented them "not only to be impracticable, but dangerous to commerce and the revenue."[56] The accounts of the way in which they met some of his proposals is most amusing and instructive. Thus, Palmer recommended Mr.

Pitt to take some commercial men into his councils, and they would not fail to convince him of the great need there was for change. He also submitted that the suggestions of commercial men should be listened to more frequently, when postal arrangements for their respective districts should be made. Mr. Hodgson, one of the prominent officers of the Post-Office, indignantly answered that "it was not possible that any set of gentlemen, merchants, or outriders (commercial travellers, we suppose), could instruct officers brought up in the business of the Post-Office. And it is particularly to be hoped," said this gentlemen, with a spice of malice, "if not presumed, that the surveyors need no such information." He "ventured to say, that the post as then managed was admirably connected in all its parts, well-regulated, carefully attended to, and not to be improved by any person unacquainted with the whole. It is a pity," he sarcastically added, "that Mr. Palmer should not first have been informed of the nature of the business in question, to make him understand how very differently the post and post-offices are conducted to what he apprehends."

Mr. Palmer might not be, and really was not, acquainted with all the working arrangements of the office he was seeking to improve: yet it was quite patent to all outside the Post-Office that the entire establishment needed remodelling. Mr. Hodgson, however, and his _confreres_ "were amazed," they said, "that any dissatisfaction, any desire for change, should exist." The Post-Office was already perfect in their eyes. It was, at least, "almost as perfect as it can be, without exhausting the revenue arising therefrom." They could not help, therefore, making a united stand against any such new-fangled scheme, which they predict "will fling the commercial correspondence of the country into the utmost confusion, and which will justly raise such a clamour as the Postmaster-General will not be able to appease." Another of the princ.i.p.al officers, a Mr. Allen, who seems to have been more temperate in his abuse of the new proposals, gave it as his opinion, "that the more Mr. Palmer's plan was considered, the greater number of difficulties and objections started to its ever being carried completely into execution."

From arguing on the general principles involved, they then descend to combat the working arrangements of the theatre-manager with even less success. Mr. Palmer complains that the post is slow, and states that it ought to outstrip all other conveyances. Mr. Hodgson "could not see _why_ the post should be the swiftest conveyance in England. Personal conveyances, I apprehend, should be much more, and particularly with people travelling on business." Then followed Mr. Draper, another official, who objected to the coaches as travelling too fast. "The post," he said, "cannot travel with the expedition of stage-coaches, on account of the business necessary to be done in each town through which it pa.s.ses, and without which correspondence would be thrown into the utmost confusion." Mr. Palmer had proposed that the coaches should remain fifteen minutes in each town through which they pa.s.sed, to give time to transact the necessary business of sorting the letters. Mr.

Draper said that half an hour was not enough, as was well enough known to persons at all conversant with Post-Office business. Living in this age of railways and steam, we have just reason to smile at such objections. Then, as to the appointment of mail-guards, Mr. Palmer might, but Mr. Hodgson could, see no security, though he could see endless trouble, expense, and annoyance in such a provision. "The man would doubtless have to be waited for at every alehouse the coach pa.s.sed." He might have added that such had been the experience with the post-boys under the _regime_ which he was endeavouring to perpetuate.

Mr. Palmer stipulated, that the mail-guards should in all cases be well armed and accoutred, and such officers "as could be depended upon as trustworthy." But the Post-Office gentlemen objected even to this arrangement. "There were no means of preventing robbery with effect,[57]

as the strongest cart or coach that could be made, lined and bound with iron, might easily be broken into by determined robbers," and the employment of armed mail-guards would only make matters worse. Instead of affording protection to the mails, the following precious doctrine was inculcated, that the crime of murder would be added to that of robbery; "for," said the wonderful Mr. Hodgson, "when once desperate fellows had determined upon robbery, resistance would lead to murder"!

These were peace and non-resistance principles with a vengeance, but principles which in England, during the later years of Pitt's administration, would seldom be heard, except in furtherance of some such selfish views as those which the Post-Office authorities held in opposition to Mr. Palmer's so-called innovations.

Mr. Palmer's propositions also included the timing of the mails at each successive stage, and their departure from the country properly regulated; they would thus be enabled to arrive in London at regular specified times, and not at any hour of the day or night, and might, to some extent, be delivered simultaneously. Again: instead of _leaving_ London at all hours of the night, he suggested that all the coaches for the different roads should leave the General Post-Office at the same time; and thus it was that Palmer established what was, to the stranger in London for many years, one of the first of City sights. Finally, Mr.

Palmer's plans were p.r.o.nounced impossible. "It was an impossibility,"

his opponents declared, "that the Bath mail could be brought to London in sixteen or eighteen hours."

Mr. Pitt was less conservative than the Post-Office authorities. He clearly inherited, as an eloquent writer[58] has pointed out, his father's contempt for impossibilities. He saw, with the clear vision for which he was so remarkable, that Mr. Palmer's scheme would be as profitable as it was practicable, and he resolved, in spite of the short-sighted opposition of the authorities, that it should be adopted.

The Lords of the Treasury lost no more time in decreeing that the plan should be tried, and a trial and complete success was the result. On the 24th of July, 1784, the Post-Office Secretary (Mr. Anthony Todd) issued the following order:--"His Majesty's Postmasters-General, being inclined to make an experiment for the more expeditious conveyance of mails of letters by stage-coaches, machines, &c., have been pleased to order that a trial shall be made upon the road between London and Bristol, to commence at each place on Monday, the 2d of August next." Then follows a list of places, letters for which can be sent by these mail-coaches, and thus concludes: "All persons are therefore to take notice, that the letters put into any receiving-house before six of the evening, or seven at this chief office, will be forwarded by these new conveyances; all others for the said post-towns and their districts put in afterwards, or given to the bellmen, must remain until the following post at the same hour of seven."

The mail-coaches commenced running according to the above advertis.e.m.e.nt, not, however, on the 2d, but on the 8th of August. One coach left London at eight in the morning, reaching Bristol about eleven the same night.

_The distance between London and Bath was accomplished in fourteen hours._ The other coach was started from Bristol at four in the afternoon on the same day, reaching London in sixteen hours.

Mr. Palmer was installed at the Post-Office on the day of the change, under the t.i.tle of Controller-General. It was arranged that his salary should be 1,500_l._ a-year, together with a commission of two and a half per cent. upon any excess of net revenue over 240,000_l._--the sum at which the annual proceeds of the Post-Office stood at the date of his appointment.