The History of the Post Office Part 10

When Cornwallis and Craggs a.s.sumed the direction of the Post Office, their first step was to dismiss the secretary, Henry Weston. The circ.u.mstances were peculiarly hard. Weston's father had been receiver-general for the county of Surrey, and in this capacity he had contracted a heavy debt to the Crown. It was the son's ambition to pay off this debt and to provide a home for his mother and sisters. By force of industry and self-denial he had just succeeded in securing both objects when a change of postmasters-general resulted in his summary dismissal. Weston naturally appealed against so arbitrary an act.

Cornwallis and Craggs, to whom his antecedents were well known, while commending the young man as an object worthy of the royal benevolence, resented as unreasonable and little short of impertinent his reluctance to give up a situation which they desired for a nominee of their own.

Far different was the treatment accorded by Carteret and Walpole to those who were committed to their charge. Mary Lovell had for more than thirty years kept the receiving office in St. James's Street. On the 11th of March 1725 the Earl of Abercorn entered this office, holding in his hand a letter addressed to his son at Cambray, and inquired what postage had to be paid upon it. The woman replied that there was only 1d. to pay, this being the charge by the penny post, and that the remaining postage of 3s. would be payable on delivery. Abercorn questioned the accuracy of this information, and insisted on paying the entire sum at once. Lovell, feeling sure that a mistake had been committed, and anxious about the consequences, hurried to the Post Office, and having there ascertained that she should have received only 1d., called at Abercorn's residence, and with a humble apology refunded the difference.

Nothing more was heard of the matter until the following July, when a second very similar mistake appears to have revived the recollection of the first. Abercorn, who was then at Tunbridge Wells, took to the Post Office there a letter addressed to his son at Luneville and handed it to Comer, the postmaster, impressing upon him the importance of its prompt despatch, and desiring him to pay whatever postage might be required. It should be explained that at that time letters for Germany had to be prepaid, or else they were returned to the writers, whereas letters for France could not be paid except on delivery. Comer, jumping to the conclusion that Luneville was in France, paid no more than the inland postage of 6d., the consequence being that three or four days afterwards the letter, after being opened in London, was returned as insufficiently paid. Abercorn, naturally enough, was very angry, and, as is apt to be the case with angry persons, was not altogether reasonable. Luneville, without the addition of Lorraine or Germany, was an incomplete address.

For this he would make no allowance; neither would he admit that it was necessary to open the letter in order to return it, and that the impression on the seal, a coronet and coat of arms, was not sufficient indication of the writer.

All this was natural enough; but it was strange that he should have reverted to the earlier of the two mistakes, and directed his resentment less against Comer than against Mary Lovell. He now charged her with insolence and an attempt at imposition, and declared that nothing would satisfy him except her dismissal. In pursuance of this object Abercorn proceeded to the Post Office, where he was received by Carteret and Walpole. Walpole said little, and what little he said was said courteously. Carteret spoke in both their names. He expressed surprise that the return of the amount overcharged on the letter to Cambray, accompanied as it had been by Lovell's humble apology, had not been considered satisfactory, and inquired what further satisfaction could be expected. Abercorn replied that he expected her to be turned out of her office as a person unfit to retain it. Carteret expostulated. Such a step, he said, would not be in accordance with Post Office usage; she was a poor and unprotected woman, no previous complaint had been made against her during the thirty years she had held the office; he had seen her himself, and felt sure that her professions of regret that she had given offence to his lordship were sincere. Impatient of what he afterwards described as an irksome expostulation, Abercorn rose to leave. Carteret and Walpole rose also, and accompanied him to the door.

"I owe it to the North British peers," said Abercorn, turning on the threshold, "to acquaint some of their representatives with the treatment that I, their peer, have met with." "And I," haughtily retorted Carteret, "should care not if all the sixteen North British representing peers were present at this moment."

Allen's plan consisted in a system of vouchers and what he called post-bills, by means of which the postmasters might act as a check upon each other. The post-bill which accompanied the letters throughout their course was designed to distinguish the bye-letters from others, and to shew the total amount of postage to be collected; the voucher appears to have been nothing more than the acknowledgment which each postmaster gave of the amount to be collected by himself; and these two doc.u.ments were sent periodically, once a month or once a quarter, to Allen's office in Bath, where they underwent a rigid scrutiny. Simple as this check was, it was only by ceaseless vigilance on Allen's part that he could get it carried out. To make in the post-bills entries which should have been made in the vouchers, to omit to send the vouchers to headquarters, to confound the bye-letters with the London and country letters--these were only some of the devices to which recourse was had in order to defeat the check.

Allen was better qualified probably than any other man living for the task he had set himself to perform. Of a temper which nothing could ruffle, with ample means at his command, and accountable to no one but himself for their disposal, and possessed of an amount of local knowledge which even at the present day is perhaps unrivalled, he enjoyed a combination of advantages which might have been sought elsewhere in vain. His patience indeed was inexhaustible. No subterfuge, not even a transparent attempt at imposition, would call forth more than a pa.s.sing rebuke. "'Tis faulty," he would write, "'tis blameable"; and then, perhaps, from the following words would peep out, in spite of himself, a gleam of merriment at the clumsiness of the contrivance.

To a man of less easy temperament even the conditions under which he worked would have been intolerable. Under the terms of his contract Allen's surveyors were to be the officers of the postmasters-general, and to do as the postmasters-general bid them. This was no mere nominal condition. When Allen wanted something done, it may be in the extreme north or the extreme west of England, he might find that the surveyor whose business it would have been to do it had been summoned to London to wait upon the postmasters-general in Lombard Street. Hardly less provoking must have been the condition that the surveyors, though Allen's servants, were not to receive from him any instructions which the postmasters-general had not first approved. Ordinarily Allen was at Bath, and it was there that the instructions were prepared; yet they had to be sent to London for approval, and were seldom despatched thence to their destination until seven or eight days after the dates they bore.

But to any one of less modest and retiring disposition the severest trial would have been the manner in which the postmasters-general took credit to themselves for improvements which were exclusively his own. It was always "our" surveyors who had been instructed to do this, that, and the other, without the slightest acknowledgment that the instruction had come from Allen, and that it was he who supplied the money to pay and the wit to direct them. Only when the cost of some new arrangement had to be stated to the Treasury did his name appear, and then it was put prominently forward. "Your Lordships," the postmasters-general would write, with a confidence which must have possessed all the pleasure of a new sensation, "will of course approve our proposals. It is true that the cost they involve is considerable, but the whole of this will fall upon Mr. Allen, the farmer." But so placid was Allen's temper that these petty annoyances, irritating as they might have been to some men, pa.s.sed unheeded.

As a qualification for the task he had undertaken, hardly less important than placidity of temper was the possession of ample means and his unaccountability to others for their disposal. With no one to please but himself, he enjoyed facilities in dealing with postmasters which the Post Office, under the most favourable circ.u.mstances, could never hope to possess. To one he would give what he called a complimentary salary; to another he would give, over and above his salary, a certain proportion of the postage; and a third would receive a substantial increase, not for what he had done or was doing, but for what he might do in the future. All, in short, who could control the actions of others Allen bound to himself by a community of interest.

But it was the extent of his local knowledge that const.i.tuted Allen's chief qualification for the task he had set himself to perform. This knowledge, acquired probably during the struggle to introduce his plan, may appear almost marvellous. There was hardly a town in England, and certainly no town of importance, with the trade and manufactures of which, and even with the character and disposition of its postmaster, he was not acquainted. At the present day it is the district surveyor who in Post Office matters affecting the provinces takes the initiative. In Allen's time the initiative came from Bath. In a single letter he would treat of some thirty or forty towns, and not only prescribe the order in which they were to be taken and the roads by which they were to be reached, but give the minutest instructions as to what was to be said and done on arrival there. In respect to only one town, a town without a Post Office, does Allen appear to have been uninformed, and that was Stowmarket. "When in that neighbourhood," he wrote to one of his surveyors, as though half ashamed of his own ignorance, "go over to Stowmarket and ascertain and let me know the distance of that town from Ipswich and from Eye, and also the nature and extent of its trade."

Lest we should be thought to exaggerate the difficulties with which Allen had to contend, Allen himself shall be our witness. The postmasters were strictly enjoined to stamp the bye and cross-post letters. This was their first duty, for without stamping no check was possible. "I need not tell you," Allen writes to one of his surveyors, "the mischief which has already attended the omission of this necessary part of their duty, nor the difficulty which I have hitherto met with to get this order observed; but when they find that their neglect will for the future hurt themselves, this evil will be stopped."

Hardly less difficult did he find it to make the postmasters send in their vouchers with even decent regularity. We will give a few instances out of many. Of Bodmin and St. Columb he writes, "Both these deputies are exceeding backward in transmitting their vouchers. Order them strictly to send them hither for the future within a week after every quarter." Richmond, Yorkshire, "instead of sending me his vouchers at the end of every month sends them considerably over the quarter and then in so great disorder as to be of little use to me in fixing my cheque account." Gosport, again, "persistently neglects to send his vouchers, without which, as you know, it is not in my power to state an exact account nor to fix the cheques which are necessary to prevent abuses."

Grantham is little better, and as for Wolverhampton, Allen writing in April says, "He has sent me no vouchers since last Michaelmas, and by this obstinacy destroys my cheque and puts my affairs into great disorder."

The dead and missent letters were a source of continual trouble. How to dispose of dead letters and how to get back into their proper channel letters that had been missent were questions which not seldom perplexed even Allen himself. But it is not of this particular difficulty that we propose now to speak. Our present concern is with these two cla.s.ses of letters only so far as they affected the relations between Allen and the postmasters. According to his instructions a postmaster who should find himself in possession of a dead or missent letter was to send it to Bath in order that allowance might be made for the postage with which, otherwise, he would stand charged. Hence arose various attempts at imposition, attempts to palm off, as though they were dead or missent, letters which were neither the one nor the other. But let Allen again speak for himself. "From Lancaster," he writes, "go through Kendal and Penrith to Carlisle, where I believe you will meet with a very great abuse. 'Tis thus: His dead letters for a good while since much exceed what can be rationally accounted for at that stage, and upon enquiry the greatest number of those letters appear to be sham letters all written by one hand and sent from different parts of the kingdom, which plainly shews it to be only a blameable contrivance by some people in that office to expect money from me for bits of paper never sent by the post but made by themselves. Some instances you will receive with these instructions. Be sure to suppress this dangerous abuse. Cause me a redress for the injury I have received and leave with Mr. Pattison a copy of my letter relating to stamps, which is the only method I can think of for an effectual cure of this evil."

The method to which Allen here refers afterwards became a rule of the office. It was to the effect that no allowance would be made in respect to any dead or missent letters which should not bear on their covers the name of the office whence the postmaster by whom the allowance was claimed had received them. If at that office they had been stamped, that was enough; but if they had been forwarded unstamped--and the stamping was as often omitted as not--the postmaster who received the letters was to write the name upon them. Allen's first experience of the working of this rule was a little singular. Mrs. Wainwright, the old postmistress of Ferrybridge, had sent up for allowance a number of unstamped letters without shewing whence she had received them. Allen returned the letters, explaining that as such information had not been given no allowance could be made. If Mrs. Wainwright felt any impatience at what she no doubt regarded as new-fangled ways, no evidence of it was allowed to appear. She simply sent the letters back with the name of the office whence they had reached her neatly written upon each. To Allen's dismay, the letters had all been opened and the information obtained from the inside.

The new rule, though good as far as it went, proved insufficient to check imposition; and Allen felt constrained to add an additional safeguard. For the future no postmaster was to have his claim allowed unless he should verify it on oath. This obligation brought its own troubles. By one the oath was omitted, by another it was objected to on conscientious grounds, a third would treat it as of small account, and all this meant additional work for Allen. "This officer," he writes of the postmaster of Salisbury, "constantly makes large deductions for missent letters" and on other grounds "without sending me the particulars of his demand or the office oath to the truth of his claim."

The postmaster of Newark had conscientious scruples and objected to the oath in any form. "You have already," writes Allen, "been fully acquainted how tender I am in this respect; but if he still refuses to claim his demand for allowances by an oath framed in any shape, 'tis directly necessary to appoint an officer in that place who will obey their Honours' commands, for if his obstinacy should be suffered the rest of the kingdom who have readily complyed may raise new objections."

No such scruples afflicted the postmaster of Stone in Staffordshire.

Until lately "the errors made to my injury considerably exceeded those made to the hurt of that deputy"; but now "the articles to my hurt are dwindled to a trifle and the others much augmented, which causes Mr.

Barbor to make constant and large claims on me for the difference. Only lately I received from him a statement of his demands on this head, with an oath at the bottom of it that the several articles to his prejudice were all true. But if it be the case, as I have always understood, that he never concerns himself with the bye-letters but leaves this business to his uncle, pray enquire of him how he came to send me such an oath."

The postmasters had been allowed to receive their correspondence free of postage; but Allen soon found that the privilege was being abused. The covers addressed to them would contain letters not for themselves alone but also for their neighbours in trade. Indeed the neighbours' letters would predominate, and, ordinarily, the address was a mere subterfuge.

To check this abuse Allen established a rule that when addressed to postmasters none but single letters--letters without enclosures, were to pa.s.s free, and that all others were to be charged with full postage. The postage, however, was to be afterwards remitted in the case of any postmaster who should make oath that the letters in respect to which he claimed remission were on his private business. Here again Allen's belief in the efficacy of an oath was rudely shaken. The number and magnitude of the claims made upon him from Lancaster had arrested his attention, and he had laid them aside to be examined at leisure.

Meanwhile the explanation came in a curious manner. He received a circular from a man of the name of Bracken asking him to subscribe towards the publication of a book relating to the treatment of horses.[46] This circular, as announced in the doc.u.ment itself, was being issued to all the postmasters in the kingdom; and it was in his capacity of postmaster of Bath that Allen received it. It further announced that answers should be sent under cover to the postmistress of Lancaster, the reason given being that they would thus escape postage.

[46] The book was afterwards published--_The Gentleman's Pocket-Farrier_, by Doctor Henry Bracken of Lancaster, 1735.

Other malpractices were less easy of detection. All the claims, before they were pa.s.sed, came under Allen's personal inspection; and to determine whether these were fraudulent or not needed no special apt.i.tude. But whether at some distant part of the country two or more postmasters were in collusion, or whether without collusion they were bringing to account less postage than they collected, were questions the solution of which demanded qualifications of a different order. As the result of reflection or observation, or more probably of both combined, Allen laid down for his own guidance certain propositions as simple as they were no doubt sound. Of these one was that the correspondence pa.s.sing between two given places, far from being liable to violent fluctuations, might be relied on to maintain a nearly uniform level. It is certain that in our own days, when locomotion is easy and the movements of large parts of the population are influenced by the weather and other considerations, the principle which this proposition embodies would not hold good; but in the earlier half of the eighteenth century Allen regarded it, and probably not without reason, as a safe guide.

When, therefore, the correspondence pa.s.sing between two places during a certain period had once been ascertained, he adopted this as a standard, and any variation of the amount immediately excited his suspicions. "At Christchurch and Ringwood," he writes, "fully inform yourself why the letters which formerly were sent between those places and Salisbury are now almost entirely sunk." At York, during the quarter ending Midsummer 1734, the postage on bye-letters amounted to 165, as against 176 during the corresponding quarter of the previous year. This he affirms must proceed, not from "deadness in trade," but from "some mismanagement in the office." Between Appleby and Brough the letters pa.s.sing in December were fifteen, whereas in the two preceding months they had been only three. "Let me know at once," he writes, "the cause of the difference."

Another proposition which Allen established as a rule of conduct was that between two trading towns in the same neighbourhood there must almost of necessity be correspondence. He noticed with surprise that between Stone and Coventry, according to the vouchers sent him, not a single letter had pa.s.sed during a whole quarter. "I will not say it is impossible," he writes to the surveyor, "that no letters should during this time pa.s.s between such trading places, but during your stay at Stone I must in a particular manner desire you will examine whether you receive none."

A third proposition was that there could not be what, if it be not a contradiction in terms, we will call a one-sided correspondence. He regarded it as an absolute certainty, amounting almost to an axiom, that whatever number of letters a town might receive, it would send the same or nearly the same number in reply. If, therefore, as between two towns, he found from his vouchers that one was sending to the other more letters than the other sent in return, he immediately concluded that something was wrong. It is interesting to note how his views on this point were confirmed by experience. During the year 1732 the postage on letters sent from Nottingham to Newark amounted to 25, whereas on those sent from Newark to Nottingham it amounted to only 13. Surely, writes Allen, the amounts should be nearly equal. Ascertain whether this comes "from faults, errors, or a real deadness in the correspondence," and to enable him to do this the surveyor was to take the Newark office under his care for a week or a fortnight. Here Allen speaks with confidence indeed, and yet as though some doubt might exist; but a few years later there is no doubt at all. "In the Chipping Norton vouchers," he writes, "another remarkable oddness is that the letters received by that deputy appear to be double the number sent from that office, which is not only different from any other well-managed office, but 'tis out of all rules of proportion with respect to correspondence." And again, "The receipt of Chipping Norton's letters are still double the number of what Mr.

Mackerness in his vouchers enters as sent from his stage. I can't conceive how 'tis possible for this difference to arise where an office is justly managed. Fully examine into the cause of it."

But there were other irregularities which, as being further removed from observation, were still more difficult to check. Between Worcester and Bewdley there had been great delay. "The account sent me," writes Allen, "is that, tho' both these deputys are paid for riding their whole stages, by a private arrangement between themselves they exchange the mails at an alehouse on the road, and neither of them will ride beyond that place, tho' one of them should happen to arrive there several hours before the other can reach it." The postmaster of Lynn, in Norfolk, who was paid by Allen to keep a check upon other postmasters in the neighbourhood, calls his attention to their remissness in delivering letters. Sometimes, he states, they keep letters several days. On this account letters that would otherwise go by post are sent by friend or carrier. "I am perfectly ashamed," he adds, and when I remonstrate and "set forth the complaints of our gentlemen," the postmasters plead that they are not paid for delivery, "and therefore think themselves not obliged to send out their letters even to persons inhabiting within their own towns."

The post-boys were a constant source of trouble. "By the enclosed letter from Mr. Floyer of Worcester," Allen writes to his surveyor, "you will find that the post-boys on the cross-road convey letters between that city and Bristol by exchanging them from one hand to another without ever suffering them to be put into the mayl or baggs. Pray thank Mr.

Floyer for his letter, diligently search the boys, and make whatever other inspection you find to be necessary. Mr. Lumley by the last post writ me that at Exeter he had made another new and great discovery of this kind, having found nineteen letters on the Oakhampton rider." "At Plymouth," he writes on another occasion, "formerly there was a particular house where the post-boys frequently met to exchange their letters, which they collected throughout the country from Exon to Truro.

Inquire if this is still going on, and, if so, endeavour to detect them." On the cross-road between Bristol and Tiverton "several of the letters have been actually taken out of the baggs and delivered in some of the trading towns by the post-boys instead of the proper officers.

This could not be if, according to instructions, these bags were always chained and sealed." At Wells, in Somersetshire, the postmaster has deprived the Bristol riding-boys of their perquisite of 1d. a letter "for dropping of letters" at the towns and villages through which they pa.s.s; and as to his own boys, he allows them no wages. This "must drive those unhappy boys to almost a necessity to rob the mails for their subsistence." "Then proceed to Rawcliff, in Yorkshire, where Mr.

Carrack, the deputy of that place, will tell you that the riders of the branch between Doncaster and Hull embezzle great numbers of the bye-letters. Take his a.s.sistance to detect and then punish those fellows."

Heretofore we have spoken only of the difficulties with which Allen had to contend in dealing with persons more or less under his own control.

But he had troubles from without as well as within. "Everywhere," he writes, "endeavour to inform yourself of and suppress all illegal conveyance of letters." "At Birmingham," he writes again, "endeavour to detect the carriers who, I am told, in the most open manner convey letters from that place to all the trading towns in that country." "Use your utmost vigilance to suppress the illegal collection of letters which, I am informed, is now carried on by one Twopotts and other persons, to the injury of the revenue, between Derby and Nottingham."

Between Cowes and Southampton the illegal conveyance of letters "is now such a custom that we have seldom any go in the bag." "At every stage which you pa.s.s through cause to be fixed to the most public places some of the printed advertizements against the carriers and wherrymen, and take every other reasonable methode to surprize all private, illegal, conveyances of letters, and always have a particular regard of the followers employed in the dispersing of news from the country presses."

This last injunction is best explained by another given a year or two later. A printer at Northampton was employing a large number of persons ostensibly to disperse newspapers, but really, as Allen affirmed, to collect letters. These persons, he wrote, no longer confine their operations to short distances, but "by meeting at the extremity of their divisions the servants of other printers exchange their letters." "Pray, therefore," he adds, "wherever country presses are erected, do your best to suppress this evil."

Allen when dealing with the posts displayed a degree of self-reliance which was hardly to be expected from one of his modest and retiring disposition. We will give an instance, and with the less hesitation because it will serve to shew his general way of transacting business.

In 1736 the Duke of Devonshire, who had been spending the summer at Chatsworth, was much struck with the length of time which letters took to pa.s.s between Chesterfield and Manchester, and he begged the postmasters-general to apply a remedy. These two towns are about forty-six miles apart, and in 1736 there was no post between them. Not very long before, indeed, letters from one to the other would have had to pa.s.s through London, and even now they were taking a circuitous course by Ferribridge, Doncaster, and Rotherham. The Duke's application was referred to Allen; and Allen, without waiting to consult the local surveyor, proceeded at once to give his instructions. Between Manchester and Chesterfield there should certainly be a post; but this would not be enough. Derby must also share the benefit; and this could not be compa.s.sed without erecting a stage between that town and Nottingham, Nottingham being already in direct communication with Chesterfield.

Lincolnshire must also be considered. True, there was a post from Nottingham to Newark; but between Newark and Lincoln, though only about seventeen miles apart, there was no communication except through Grantham, nor between Newark and Horncastle and Boston except through Stilton. The letters, moreover, on reaching the Great North Road had to await the arrival of the London mail. Not only did Allen determine that all this must be altered, but he sketched out the particular alterations that were to be made, and merely referred to the district surveyor with a view to ascertain what their effect upon the correspondence was likely to be.

The particulars which this officer furnished were curious. At Chesterfield, he reported, not a letter was delivered except on payment of a fee of 2d. or 3d., and sometimes even of 4d., over and above the postage. On each letter sent to the post it was the custom to pay 1d.

The entire district, including not Chesterfield alone, but Sheffield, Nottingham, and Mansfield, was doing a very considerable trade in Manchester wares; but the letters which pa.s.sed between these towns and Manchester were chiefly sent with the goods by carrier. Of post letters there were few, the postage for a whole year amounting to only 23. The correspondence might possibly increase by as much as one-third or 7:13:4 a year, if a post were put on between Manchester and Chesterfield; but this was doubtful, and the annual cost, owing partly to the badness of the road, would be 80. Between Derby and Nottingham a new stage could not be erected for less than 26. Nor could the Lincolnshire posts be improved as desired for less than 102, making altogether an increased annual charge of 208; and there was no probability of this increase of cost being covered, or nearly covered, by increase of correspondence. Allen was not to be deterred by any such consideration. The whole of the alterations were carried into effect; the postmasters-general received from the Duke a warm expression of thanks for their admirable arrangements; and Allen, who had devised them, and at whose expense they were made, did not so much as appear in the transaction.

In striking contrast with Allen's proceedings were those of the Post Office in the few instances in which it acted independently. Allen's energy, far from communicating itself to Lombard Street, appears to have extinguished what little energy had existed there before. Why should the postmasters-general exert themselves to do that which was done better and without expense to the Crown by another? And yet there were some, though rare, occasions on which independent action was called for. One such occasion presented itself in 1733, and it serves to shew how wanting the Post Office was in the local knowledge which Allen possessed in so remarkable a degree. Application had been made for a post to Aylsham in Norfolk. Among those who had lent their influence in support of the application was Lord Lovell, who had just been appointed postmaster-general in conjunction with Carteret, but who had not yet entered upon his duties; and Carteret, to oblige his new colleague, sent an officer specially from London with a view to facilitate arrangements.

This officer, John Day by name, was furnished with written instructions. He was to proceed to Norwich, and there ascertain certain facts, any one of which could have been supplied by Allen at Bath without rising from his chair in Lilliput Alley. These were--how far Aylsham was from Norwich; whether the road between the two towns was a good or a bad one; whether under existing arrangements Aylsham ever received any letters, and, if so, how and whence; and particularly--an instruction which could hardly have been given except under the belief that Aylsham was south and not north of Norwich--whether the setting up of a post between the two towns would be a "hindrance to the grand mail betwixt Norwich and London." Day, having described the position of Aylsham, appears to have considered it unnecessary to give this last piece of information; but he told as news, which perhaps it was, that the London mail left Norwich on Mondays and Wednesdays at midnight, and on Sat.u.r.days at four in the afternoon.

Even where local knowledge was not wanting, the lack of funds which they could dispense at discretion placed the postmasters-general as compared with Allen at a serious disadvantage. We have seen how Allen dealt with the application from Chatsworth. Not many years later it devolved upon the postmasters-general to deal with a somewhat similar one from Kimbolton; and it is interesting to note the difference of procedure.

From Kimbolton and St. Neots the course of post had been through Biggleswade and Hitchin, and in 1758 the inhabitants of the counties of Huntingdon and Cambridgeshire pet.i.tioned that it should be through Caxton. The effect of the alteration would be that letters for the two first-mentioned towns coming from the north or from Norfolk and Suffolk would, regularly three times a week, be brought to the towns themselves, and not, as had hitherto been the case, be left at Huntingdon, to be forwarded thence as opportunity offered by carriers and market people.

St. Neots had a further interest in the matter. A considerable corn-market was held there on Thursdays; and the dealers complained that, leaving as the post did at twelve mid-day, they had no time to write their letters, whereas, by way of Caxton, it need not leave until five in the afternoon. On the score of convenience the change had everything to recommend it; but there was one drawback. To carry it into effect would involve a cost of 25; and this, the postmasters-general expressed their apprehension, the Treasury would not feel justified in incurring, as the increase of expense might be only partially covered by the increase of correspondence. Whether the Treasury consent was given or withheld we know not; but the mere fact that such an apprehension should have been expressed, and that the convenience of towns and extensive districts should have been made to depend upon the paltry consideration of a few pounds, goes far to shew that the Post Office, without the aid of private enterprise, would have made but little progress.

Allen's contract expired every seven years. In order to obtain a renewal of it he did not, according to a practice not uncommon with reformers, stoop to the pretence that he was on the point of introducing some important measure, which would be lost to the country unless his services were retained. On the contrary, he treated it as a pure business matter, and each time offered higher terms. Thus, in 1741, which was the first year of a new septennial period, he guaranteed the country letters to produce 17,500; in 1748 he guaranteed them to produce 18,000; and in 1755, 18,500. This being the cla.s.s of letters of which it had been and continued to be predicted that with the extension of cross-posts the number must diminish, the postmasters-general regarded the advance as not unhandsome.

But, in consideration of his contract being renewed, there was another and far more important condition, which Allen undertook to perform. This was to convert tri-weekly posts into posts six days a week, and to take the whole expense upon himself. Accordingly, in 1741, the post began to run every day of the week except Sunday between London and Bristol, between London and Norwich, and between London and Yarmouth; and of course all the intervening towns partic.i.p.ated in the benefit. In 1748 a further instalment followed. This time it was the Midlands and the west of England that were to be benefited; and on and after Monday the 26th of December the post went on the three days on which it had not gone hitherto to Birmingham, through Oxford, and to Exeter through Bristol.

In 1755, the beginning of another septennial period, the six-day service was widely extended. Leicester, Derby, and Nottingham, Shrewsbury and Chester, Warrington, Liverpool, and Manchester were among the towns which were now to receive letters from London on every day of the week except Sunday. From Liverpool and Manchester the cross-post service to almost every part of the kingdom was at the same time improved. At the close of the nineteenth century, postridden as some of us think ourselves to be, we may find it sometimes difficult to believe that less than 150 years ago there was not a town in the kingdom which received a post from London on more than alternate days.

And yet Allen's activity, untiring as it was, went only a short way to regain for the Post Office the popularity it had lost. Various causes had contributed to this result. The chief of them, however, as it was the earliest in point of time, was of itself enough and more than enough to account for the distrust and hostility with which the Post Office appears to have been regarded towards the middle of the last century. As early as 1735 members of Parliament had begun to complain that their letters bore evident signs of having been opened at the Post Office, alleging that such opening had been frequent and was become matter of common notoriety; but it was not until six years later, in the course of inquiries which were being made into the conduct of Sir Robert Walpole during the last ten years of his administration, that the state of the case became fully known. It then transpired that in the Post Office there was a private office, an office independent of the postmasters-general and under the immediate direction of the Secretary of State, which was expressly maintained for the purpose of opening and inspecting letters. It was pretended, indeed, that these operations were confined to foreign letters, but, as a matter of fact, there was no such restriction. The office appears to have been established in 1718, and its cost, which was defrayed out of the secret service money, had since increased more than tenfold, and now reached the prodigious sum of 4700 a year. The establishment, exclusive of a door-keeper, consisted of nine persons, with salaries ranging from 200 to 1000; the head of the office or "Chief Decypherer," as he was called, being Dr. Willes, Dean of Lincoln. It was in June 1742 that these shameful facts became known, through the report of a committee of the House of Commons; and, in the August following, Willes was gazetted Bishop of St. Davids.

To ourselves it may seem strange that the State monopoly of letters should have survived so terrible a revelation. It must be remembered, however, that in the middle of the last century the Post Office, owing mainly to the heavy charges it levied, had hardly become matter of general concern; that public opinion, as we now understand it, was only beginning to exist; and, above all, that the very conditions under which Post Office work was done precluded the idea of privacy. These conditions were absolutely inconsistent with the sanct.i.ty which now surrounds a letter. Letters were divided into two cla.s.ses,--single and double; and to determine whether a letter was the one or the other demanded a close scrutiny, a scrutiny such as could not be exercised except by the strongest light that candles could give. In 1719 it had been laid down that a letter, however small, was to be charged as a double one if two or more persons joined in writing it. How could it be ascertained that the whole of a letter was in one and the same handwriting except by prying? Even the law itself, by the meagre protection it vouchsafed to letters, discouraged the idea of sanct.i.ty.

For an offence of the pettiest kind, as for instance for stealing a pocket-handkerchief in a dwelling-house, the penalty was death. For opening or embezzling a letter the highest penalty which the law allowed was a fine of 20. It is significant of the change which has since taken place in the public sentiment that while in the case of almost every other description of offence the penalty has been enormously reduced, in the case of opening and embezzling letters it has been enormously increased.

Horace Walpole, writing more than twenty-five years later, never tired of mentioning the elaborate precautions he had taken to secure his correspondence against inspection. "I shall send this letter by the coach," he says, "as it is rather free-spoken and Sandwich[47] may be prying." "I always say less than I could, because I consider how many post-house ordeals a letter must pa.s.s"; and similar observations occur in a hundred different places. All this was sheer nonsense. It tickled the exquisite vanity of the man to affect to believe that his correspondence was of sufficient importance to attract the attention of the State. And yet truth compels us to admit that the infamous practice which the committee exposed did not cease with the exposure. The Treasury, while grudging every 6d. expended on the posts, continued regularly to remit more than 4000 a year for the maintenance of their inquisitors in Lombard Street; and it was not until George the Third had sat some years on the throne, probably under the Rockingham administration, that the corps was finally disbanded.

[47] Lord Sandwich was postmaster-general in 1768.

Apart from the grave cause of offence we have mentioned, it is a curious fact that during the last eighteen or twenty years of George the Second's reign hardly anything occurred in which the Post Office was concerned that did not in one way or another cause dissatisfaction to some section of the community. The Post Office, no doubt, was often to blame, sometimes deeply so; but even where this was not the case, where no blame attached either to itself or to any other office or person, it in no single instance, so far as we are aware, escaped a certain amount of obloquy.

This unfortunate result first shews itself in the case of the Falmouth and Lisbon packets. During the war with Spain it had only been necessary, as a defence against some Spanish privateers which infested the Channel, to provide the Dover and Harwich packets with arms and to make a small addition to their complement of men; but in 1744, when Spain was joined by France, a good deal more had to be done. The Dover and Calais packets, after the six months' grace allowed by the treaty of Utrecht, were taken off; the packets to the West Indies which had been discontinued since 1711 were revived; and the Falmouth and Lisbon packets were put on the same footing as during the last war. This the merchants trading with Portugal, an important body representing forty-eight firms, protested was not enough. The packets, they argued, afforded the only available means for remitting gold to Lisbon in exchange for commodities, and should, therefore, be of at least 300 tons and carry 100 men. It was true that this would be in excess by about seventy tons and forty men of what was provided during the last war; but the fact that during the last war some of the packets fell into the hands of privateers was of itself a proof that they were not of force and burthen sufficient. Besides, we had then an army in Spain, and the number of soldiers and pa.s.sengers pa.s.sing to and fro made fewer sailors necessary. Moved by these arguments, the Duke of Newcastle decided to comply with the merchants' request; but Pelham, on learning that the building and equipment alone would cost 34,800, revoked the Duke's decision. His Majesty's opinion he declared to be that the main object of a packet was to carry letters, and that for the carriage of letters light and swift vessels were the fittest. This, it will be remembered, was the opinion which had been expressed by William the Third more than fifty years before, and events had proved its soundness. Nevertheless, the merchants were highly displeased; and, of course, at that time they were no more able than they are now to distinguish between a refusal which originated with the Post Office and one that was imposed upon it by superior authority.

But the merchants--and here we speak not of those alone who traded with Portugal--had other and more serious cause of complaint. Their foreign letters were not delivered until twelve o'clock in the day, and, if a mail arrived by as much as a few minutes after twelve, it was not at the earliest delivered until the same hour on the following day. And if on this day a second mail chanced to arrive shortly before noon, the letters by the first mail were kept back so as to be delivered with those of the second in the evening. Thus, foreign letters received at the Post Office in Lombard Street a few minutes after mid-day on Sat.u.r.day might not be delivered even in Lombard Street itself until the evening of Monday. To make matters worse, the foreign ministers residing in London had their letters delivered soon after the mail arrived, so that any persons whom these ministers might please to favour enjoyed an undue advantage.