Communications in Canada prior to the Conquest--Extension
of colonial postal service to Canada--Effects of colonial
discontents on post office.
Having described the several arrangements, which were made to enable the
older British colonists to correspond with the mother country and with
one another, we shall now turn to Canada.
In the first place an account must be given of the route pursued by the
courier, who was shortly to begin regular trips between New York and
Montreal. The route is the oldest in North America and the best known.
Before either Frenchman or Englishman came to America, the Indian
tribes, dwelling on the stretch of land which lies between the waters
running south and those running north, passed and repassed over this
natural highway in the prosecution of their perpetual wars; and in the
long struggle between France and England for mastery of the continent,
many of the most decisive battles were fought at different places on the
route.
The forts erected by each nation at the several strategic points on the
route within its territory indicate their conviction that this was the
ordinary course of passage from one country to the other.
A glance at the map confirms this view. From New York to the boundaries
of Canada, the few miles of watershed between the Hudson and the lake
Champlain systems are the only part of this long route, which could not
be easily travelled by vessel. The first long stretch on the journey
from New York to Montreal was that between New York and Albany. This
part of the trip was made in one of the sloops, which were employed by
the merchants of Albany to carry furs, lumber and grain to New York, and
which usually returned to Albany empty or with a cargo of brandy, which
was considered necessary in their dealings with the Indians. The trip up
the river occupied about three days.
From Albany northward, there was a good road on the west side of the
Hudson as far as fort Edward, which stood at the bend of the river,
where it made a sharp turn to the west. At fort Edward there was a
choice of routes, one leading directly north to lake George, and the
other to the north-east to Wood Creek, from which there was a navigable
course into lake Champlain.
The lake George route also led into lake Champlain, though the
difficulties of the passage from one lake to the other subjected the
traveller to the inconvenience of a portage. Lake Champlain offered an
uninterrupted course to St. John's in Canada, from which point there was
a pleasant trip by carriage to Laprairie, followed by a sail across the
St. Lawrence to Montreal. The time taken by travellers over this route
was from nine to ten days.
The population of Canada at the period when it became a British province
was about seventy thousand, all of whom dwelt on the shores of the St.
Lawrence and its tributaries. Travellers between Montreal and Quebec
taking the river passage were wont to declare that they seemed to be
passing through one long village, so closely were the settlements on
each side of the river drawn to one another.
Below Quebec, the country on the north shore in the _seigneuries_ of
Beauport and Beaupre, as far east as Cap Tourmente, was as thickly
populated as any part of Canada. Beyond that point settlement rather
straggled on to Murray Bay. On the south shore from Levis eastward, the
census of 1765 showed a population of over ten thousand. A gentleman
travelling from Riviere du Loup to Quebec a few years later stated that
there were from twelve to sixteen families to every mile of road.
Although people travelling in Canada preferred making their journey by
boat, there was a good road from Montreal to Quebec and, what was unique
in America at the time, there was a regular line of post houses over the
whole road, where _caleches_ or carrioles were always kept in readiness
for travellers.
Each _maitre de poste_ had the exclusive privilege of carrying
passengers from his post house to the next, which was usually about nine
miles distant, his obligation being to have the horse and carriage ready
on fifteen minutes' notice during the day, and in half an hour, if he
were called during the night.
This facility for travel, the advantages of which are obvious, was a
gift from France, where it had been in operation since the fifteenth
century. When the road between Montreal and Quebec was completed in
1734,[66] the post road system was at once established upon it. It was a
convenience which cost the government nothing, the habitant who was
appointed _maitre de poste_ receiving his pay from the persons whom he
conveyed within his limits. The government confined its attention to
seeing that the _maitre de poste_ furnished the horses and vehicles
promptly.
In September 1760, when the English became masters of Canada by the
capitulation of Montreal, Sir Jeffery Amherst, commander-in-chief of the
British forces, issued new commissions to the _maitres de poste_, and
fixed the rate at which they should be paid for their services, but gave
directions that they should let their horses to no person, who was not
provided with a written order from the governor.[67]
A question of much interest is suggested by the fact that the post road
between Montreal and Quebec had its origin during the French regime. In
France the post roads were part of the postal system of the country, and
the question occurs, by what means were letters conveyed within Canada
during the period of French rule? It is probable that there was a
considerable correspondence between Canada and France, and the lines on
which the business of the country was conducted would seem to call for a
fairly large interchange of letters within the colony itself. Though the
great mass of the people were unable either to read or to write, they
differed but little in this respect from the same class of people in
other countries. It was not the custom of the time to look to the
working classes for patronage for the post office, though even here it
is to be observed that the girls of Canada had many opportunities for
securing the elements of education, which did not fall in the way of the
young men, and with the instinct for graceful expression, which is
nature's endowment to French women, it is probable that many letters
came from this class. From the towns, however, there would be a
relatively large correspondence. Although the populations of Quebec and
Montreal were less than that of many of our country towns, and Three
Rivers would not bear comparison in that respect with many villages, the
social life in these towns was on a high plane. From Charlevoix to
Montcalm, every visitor to Canada expressed his astonishment at the
refinement and even elegance which he found in the towns. This society,
with its _seigneurs_, military officers, clergy and civil service, would
beyond doubt have an extensive correspondence with friends at home.
Indeed, mention of the clergy brings up that remarkable series of
letters written by Jesuit missionaries from the wilds of Canada, known
as the Jesuit Relations, which forms so large a part of the foundation
on which the history of the country in the seventeenth century rests.
The commercial correspondence was, also, considerable. All the trade
between Canada and France was carried on through the merchants of
Quebec. Montreal from its situation at the junction of the St. Lawrence
and Ottawa rivers had been the chief town for the Indian trade in furs
for over a century, but it did not send its furs directly to France. The
Quebec merchants had been the intermediaries for this trade, and they
held jealously to the profitable privilege. The imports from France
which included a large part of the necessities and conveniences of life,
were also handled by the Quebec merchants, who acted as wholesalers to
the merchants in Montreal and the other parts of the colony.
It will be obvious from a view of all these circumstances that there
must have been a large volume of correspondence to and from as well as
within Canada during the French regime. The greater part of it would be
between Quebec and the ports of France and the means by which this was
carried on, are known. In the _Royal Almanach_ for 1723, it is announced
that on letters to Canada there would be a charge of seven sols (about
seven cents) which would pay for the conveyance from Paris to Rochelle,
while between Rochelle and Canada, letters were carried free of all
charge. Between Old and New France, therefore, there was little
restriction on correspondence. If a letter going to France were destined
for Paris, it would be carried there for seven cents; if for other parts
of France, local and personal arrangements would have to be made for
their delivery. The case was the same with letters coming to Canada, but
addressed to other places than Quebec. Persons living in Montreal, Three
Rivers or any other place, who had correspondence with France would
arrange with friends in Quebec to take their letters from the captain of
the incoming ship, and send the letters to them by the first
opportunity. Kalm, the Swedish naturalist, who was travelling through
Canada as the guest of the governor, states that, on the way up to
Montreal on the governor's _bateau_, they put in at Three Rivers in
order that the officer in charge might deliver some letters, which had
been entrusted to him.
The question of establishing such a postal system as existed in France
was laid before the governor as early as 1721. In that year Nicholas
Lanoullier, a clerk in the treasury, made application for the exclusive
privilege of carrying on a postal system between Montreal and Quebec. He
pointed out that the only means for the conveyance of letters between
Quebec, Three Rivers and Montreal was the canoe, and as there was no
regular canoe service, a person desiring to send a letter had either to
hire a canoe, or wait until some person would be found willing to take
the letter in the course of his journey. Either mode was obviously
unsatisfactory. Lanoullier proposed to open post offices at the three
towns, for letters and couriers, and to maintain _messageries_ or an
express service, and a line of post houses. There was no road between
Montreal and Quebec at this time, and as Lanoullier's scheme involved
the construction of a road, the governor granted the application, and in
addition gave Lanoullier the exclusive privilege of establishing ferries
over the rivers, which would cross the road he undertook to build. As
the total population of Canada in 1721 did not exceed 25,000, and the
towns of Quebec, Three Rivers and Montreal contained no more than 2300,
325 and 3200 people respectively, an enterprise of that magnitude could
not possibly be profitable. Lanoullier no doubt realized this, for he
did nothing in pursuance of the scheme. It was ten years after this
period before any serious effort was made to construct a continuous road
from Quebec to Montreal, and by that time Nicholas Lanoullier's
connection with the work had ceased entirely. By a somewhat curious
coincidence, when the governor and intendant resolved that the road
should be constructed, the duty of superintending the work fell upon a
brother of Lanoullier, who was appointed grand voyer or general overseer
of the roads of the colony. The office of grand voyer had existed in the
colony since 1657, but until Lanoullier's time, it seems to have been
neglected, and when the habitants along the road were called upon to
work upon it, they obeyed with much reluctance. Lanoullier's
difficulties were increased by the hostility of the _seigneurs_ through
whose estates the road was to pass, and who resented his making his
surveys without deference to their wishes and opinions. He pushed
forward the work with much energy, however, and by 1734 the road was
opened. The intendant, Hocquart, who had followed the road building with
much interest, reported to the king that he himself had made the journey
in a carriage from Quebec to Montreal in four days. As soon as the road
was declared fit for travel post houses were placed upon it at intervals
of about nine miles, and ferries were established for transportation
across the broader rivers which crossed the road.
But although no regular postal system was in operation during the French
regime, an arrangement existed from an early period, by which the
letters of the governor and intendant were carried by an appointed
messenger, who was permitted to take with him, in addition to the
official letters, any that might be entrusted to him by private persons.
The fee allowed the messenger by the intendant's commission was ten sous
for a letter carried from Quebec to Montreal and five sous to Three
Rivers, with proportionate charges for greater or shorter distances. The
commission which was issued in 1705 by Raudot, the intendant, to Pierre
Dasilva dit Portugais, made no provision for regular conveyance, but as
the messenger conveyed all the governor's despatches within the colony,
it is probable that he made his trips with fair frequency. Another
messenger, Jean Morau, received a commission in 1727, though he had been
performing the duties of the service for ten years before that date.[68]
A curious fact is disclosed in a memorandum prepared during the period
between the capitulation of Canada in 1760 and the treaty of Paris,
which settled definitively the possession of the country. The writer,
who had hopes that the country would be restored to France, was
discussing several measures for improving the administration, when the
French returned to the government. Among these was the establishment of
a royal post office. In submitting his suggestion he pointed out that
the system of royal messengers was expensive to the country, as the
letters of private persons were carried and delivered free of charge. By
the establishment of a post office, the charges of maintaining it would
fall on the persons whose letters were carried, and the treasury would
be relieved of the expense.[69]
As has been already stated, when Franklin learned that Canada was to
remain a British possession, he came to Quebec to arrange for the
establishment of a postal service between Quebec, Three Rivers and
Montreal, and for a regular exchange of mails between those places and
New York. At Quebec he met with Hugh Finlay, a young Scotchman who had
been in the country for three years and who had been performing the very
important duties of justice of the peace. In 1765, Finlay was made a
member of the governor's council, and until his death, thirty-six years
later, took a leading part in the affairs of the colony. Franklin opened
a post office in Quebec with Finlay as postmaster and put under his
charge subordinate offices at Three Rivers and Montreal. A monthly
service by courier was established between Montreal and New York, whose
duty it was to have the Canadian mails in New York in time to place
those for Great Britain on board the outgoing packet. In making his
arrangements for the exchange of mails between the Canadian offices
themselves, Finlay sought and obtained the co-operation of the governor,
who directed the _maitres de poste_ to provide saddle horses for the
mail couriers at sixpence a league, which was just half the charge made
to the public for the same service, and who issued orders to the
ferrymen along the route to pass the couriers over their rivers promptly
and without charge.[70] The captains of boats running on the river were
instructed in their duty to deliver the letters in their hands to the
nearest postmasters who would pay them one cent for each letter. The
courier's trips between Montreal and Quebec were made weekly each way,
and each trip took about thirty hours. As the distance is one hundred
and eighty miles, the advantages of the post house system in
facilitating the movements of the couriers are manifest.
A difficulty for which provision had to be made was the extreme
magnitude of the postage charges. In 1763 the American post office was
still working under the act of 1710, which was enacted at a time when
Canada as an English colony was not in contemplation.
The system for which provision was made by the act extended from
Piscataway (now Portsmouth, New Hampshire) to Charlestown; and if
letters were sent beyond the range of this system, the charge for single
letters conveyed up to sixty miles was fourpence; and when the
conveyance was from sixty to one hundred miles the charge was sixpence.
At the rate of sixpence for one hundred miles, it cost two shillings to
send a single letter from New York to Montreal and three shillings from
New York to Quebec.
This rate was quite prohibitive. Governors Murray of Quebec, and Gage of
Montreal, in 1760, represented to the home government[71] that the
people of Canada were almost destitute of cash, and that they would not
write to their friends in England until they found private occasions to
send their letters to New York. The governors suggested that every
interest would be better served if the rates could be made so that the
charge on letters between any two places in America might not exceed one
shilling and sixpence for a single letter.
In 1765, the act of 1710 was amended to meet the governor's views.[72]
The scale of fourpence for sixty miles and sixpence for one hundred
miles was not changed, but an addition was made to it by providing that
for each one hundred miles or less beyond the first hundred miles, the
additional charge was to be twopence.
The reduction for the longer distances was very considerable. Between
New York and Montreal, the act of 1765 lowered the charge for a single
letter from two shillings to one shilling, and between New York and
Quebec from three shillings to one shilling and fourpence.
Halifax, which had had a post office since 1755, had until this time but
little benefit from it owing to the excessive charges. But the amendment
of 1765 provided a rate of fourpence on single letters passing between
any two seaports in America, and thus put Halifax in comparatively easy
communication with Boston and New York.
Here then in its entirety is the postal system of North America as it
was completed by the inclusion within it of the new province of Canada.
The most important communications were those between America and Great
Britain. Of these there were three: with New York, Charlestown and the
West Indies. Between each of these places and Great Britain, packet
boats carried the mails once a month. These several divisions were
united with one another by a small packet from Jamaica to Charlestown,
and by a courier from Charlestown to Suffolk, Virginia, where he met
with a courier from New York.
Within the northern district, the centre of which was at New York, there
was a well-organized mail service, in which all existing travelling
facilities were employed to the limit of their usefulness.[73] Mails
were transported regularly as far south as Virginia and as far north and
east as Quebec and Halifax. Within the better settled parts of the
country, the service was excellent. Before the Revolution, two trips
were made weekly between New York and Boston, and three between New York
and Philadelphia. From Quebec to Montreal, there were two trips every
week. The courier service at this time was quite equal, if not superior,
to the service in England.
The financial affairs of the American post office flourished. For the
three years ending July 1764, there was a surplus revenue of L2070.[74]
The succeeding years, though satisfactory, were not equal to those up to
1764.[75]
But the political troubles were rendering the post office an object of
unpopularity, and making it a duty on the part of the patriots to employ
agencies other than the post office for the transmission of their
letters. As these unofficial agencies were usually satisfied with a much
lower compensation than the post office demanded, the pleasant
circumstance arose for the patriot that the line of interest coincided
with the line of duty.
During the period between the establishment of the post office in Canada
in 1763, and the outbreak of the war of the Revolution in 1775, the post
office pursued on the whole an even, uneventful course. Canada did not
entirely escape the influence of the sentiments which in the older
colonies were leading to the Revolution; and, as the war approached, the
post office was made to feel the effects.
There were, at the time of the peace of 1763, along with the seventy
thousand Canadians which made up nearly the whole of the population, a
number of the older British subjects, most of whom had come from the
British American colonies. At this time they numbered about two hundred,
and when the war broke out in 1775, the number had doubled.
These new-comers to Canada were not without the usual practical ability
of Americans, and they very soon gathered into their hands the greater
part of the business of the colony. They were, however, a source of much
trouble and offence to the governor, and to their Canadian fellow
subjects. The governor reported that their arrogance, and repugnance to
the social and religious customs of the new subjects--the former
subjects of France--as well as the factious opposition they displayed to
the mode of government then existing, retarded seriously the progress of
the efforts which were made towards conciliating the Canadians to the
new regime.
Nothing short of the complete domination of these few hundred
English-speaking people over the French Canadians would have satisfied
them. The spirit of rebellion grew no faster in the older British
colonies than among the few of English extraction in Canada, and the
mutual distrust between these people and the government hampered the
work of the post office a few years later.
In 1767 Finlay was called upon to remove a certain friction which had
arisen between the _maitres de poste_ and the travelling public. The
regulations, which confined travelling by post to persons having special
permits from the governor, were no longer insisted upon. Any person
desiring to do so was at liberty to hire horses and carriages at any of
the post houses for travel to the next post house.
The easing of restrictions enlarged the business of the _maitres de
poste_. But it evidently did not give unmixed satisfaction, as
complaints were made that many persons riding post imposed upon the
postmen, "threatening and abusing them contrary at all law."
Finlay had no actual warrant for interfering on behalf of the _maitres
de poste_, but as postmaster of the province, he had a strong motive for
picking up the reins of authority where he found them lying in slack
hands. He required the services of the _maitres de poste_ to help him
with the conveyance of the mails, and as those services were rendered
for half the charge which was made to the travelling public, he kept the
_maitres de poste_ under his influence by constituting himself their
champion. Finlay pointed to the fact that in England the postmaster
general was also general master of the post houses, and declared that as
deputy of the postmaster general he would take the same position in
Canada.
There was the essential difference between the situation in England and
in Canada that the postmaster general had statutory authority for
exercising control over the post houses in England, whereas there was no
such authority for control over the post houses in Canada. However,
Finlay was a member of the legislative council, and he assumed, without
opposition or question, the charge of the _maitres de poste_, and in
1767 issued public notice that the post house system was to be under the
same regulations as were in force in England.[76] The _maitres de poste_
were confirmed in their monopoly, and protected against imposition on
the part of the public.
Finlay's energetic management of the affairs of the Canadian post office
attracted the attention of his superiors, and as Franklin had resided
continuously in England since 1764 as agent for Pennsylvania and other
of the American colonies, the expanding scope of the American post
office demanded a greater degree of supervision than Franklin's
associate, Foxcroft, was able to give.
It was resolved to create another office, until then unknown in America,
called a surveyorship. The duties of the surveyor in England are the
same as those of the inspector in the Canadian or United States
services, and call for a general control over the postal service within
certain defined limits. The office of surveyor was established in 1772,
and Finlay was appointed to the position. He was allowed to retain his
charge of the post office in Canada, though his salary here underwent an
abatement.
The first duty assigned to Finlay as post office surveyor was to explore
the uninhabited country beyond the last settlements on the river
Chaudiere extending over the height of land into New England.[77] The
purpose of the trip was to ascertain the practicability of a direct road
between Quebec and New England. The merchants of Quebec had made much
complaint of the slowness and irregularity of the ordinary communication
with New York, which was by way of Montreal, and they hoped that the
proposed road would materially shorten the journey to the principal
places in the northern colonies.
The road which the merchants of Quebec desired to see built was a
project which had occupied public attention at various times for over a
century before this time. When Louis XIV, Colbert his minister, and
Talon the intendant, were devising schemes for the creation of a New
France in North America, they observed that the long Canadian winters,
which shut up the port of Quebec, made it desirable that there should be
free access to an ocean port.
The treaty of Breda confirmed England in 1667 in its possession of New
York and New Jersey, and also established the right of France to Acadia,
which in the French view comprised not only Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick, but also that section of the state of Maine which lies east
of the Kennebec river. In 1671[78] the king directed Talon to see what
could be done towards constructing a road between the mouth of the
Chaudiere and fort Pentegoet at the mouth of the Penobscot, which was
the headquarters of the French governor in Acadia.
The purposes of the king were not unlike those of the fathers of the
present confederation. Canada was French and so was Acadia, and the
association of the inland with the maritime settlements could not but be
productive of good. The populations were small: Canada had six thousand
seven hundred, and Acadia four hundred and forty-one,[79] but, for a
short period, imperial ideas prevailed.
Talon in 1671 despatched two explorers to Pentegoet. They took different
routes, although following the watercourses, and their reports confirmed
Talon as to the desirability of establishing permanent communication
between the two provinces. His plans embraced a line of settlements on
the Penobscot and Kennebec rivers with a view to imposing a barrier to
the advances of the English. But Talon's health gave way, and he
returned to France in the fall of 1672, and as the king's ardour towards
Canada was cooling off, owing to his absorption in his European wars,
the road was abandoned.
The project was revived eleven years afterwards by de Meulles, a later
intendant. He was persuaded that if communication were opened, the
merchants of Quebec might secure the trade of the Acadians which went
entirely to New England, and the Acadians would become attached to
Canada. The road would have to be settled upon, and de Meulles' plan was
to place old soldiers upon it, as he did not think the Canadians could
be induced to give up their comfortable lives, to enter upon a venture
of that kind. De Meulles' proposition, however, fell upon deaf ears, as
did all others calling for the outlay of money, and the scheme was
allowed to lie until Finlay took it up.
From the New England side a movement towards the height of land
separating Canada from the English colonies was made in 1754.[80]
Governor Shirley of Massachusetts in the early part of that year, set
out from Falmouth (now Portland) with eight hundred men on an expedition
up the Kennebec river. His purpose was to dislodge any Frenchman who
might be settled on the height of land, and to establish a fort to
secure the country against attack.
Fort Halifax was erected at the junction of a stream called the
Sebastoocook with the Kennebec, and the Plymouth company built a
storehouse at the head of navigation on the Kennebec. A carriage road
was laid between the fort and the storehouse. The governor anticipated
that with fort Halifax as base he might secure the mastery of the
Chaudiere and even threaten Quebec.
As Talon in 1671, and Shirley in 1754, so Finlay in 1772 was persuaded
that a direct road from Quebec to New England was altogether desirable,
and that it might be made without unusual difficulty. It was not,
however, in the scheme of things that Finlay should succeed any more
than his predecessors. His preparations were soon made. He explained his
views to lieutenant governor Cramahe, who headed a subscription to pay
Finlay's expenses, and inside of twenty-four hours he had ample means at
his disposal for his purpose.[81]
Finlay set out in September 1773 with a party of Indians, and reached
Falmouth after seventeen days of canoeing and following trails. Having
become satisfied as to the practicability of the road, he addressed
himself to the task of securing the co-operation of those who might be
supposed to benefit by the enterprise.
At Portsmouth, New Hampshire, he discussed the subject with governor
Wentworth. The governor was eager to help with the scheme of
establishing a further connection between Canada and the colonies to the
south, but was of opinion that the best route would be over the tract of
country between the Connecticut river and the St. Francis river in
Canada.
This route had several advantages. It avoided the watercourses which
made the road from Montreal to New York, and the proposed Kennebec road,
useless for so long a period every year; the passage over the height of
land was easy, and the country along the line of the route between the
height of land and the St. Francis was favourable for settlement.
As Finlay was prepossessed with the governor's plans, the governor set
about putting them into execution. He laid a carriageable road along the
Connecticut to the boundary of his province, and by April 1774 had a
line of settlements along the road so that the post rider would always
have a stage at which to pass the night, and generally have one within
four hours' travel from any point on the road.
Governor Wentworth lent to Finlay the services of his own surveyor to
explore the country on the Canadian side of the route, but before
anything could be accomplished in this way, the discontents in the south
had broken out in acts of rebellion, and the post office was the first
of the institutions of government to be suspended.
At Boston, Finlay laid his plans before governor Hutchinson.[82] The
interview was not encouraging. The governor declared that, in the
existing temper of the people, it would be enough for the legislature to
know that the governor favoured a scheme, to ensure its defeat. The New
Englanders had, besides this, but moderate grounds for assisting in
establishing further communication with Canada.
The proposed road would be beneficial to Massachusetts in so far as it
aided colonization in the northern parts of the province, but as the
tract through which the proposed Kennebec road would run lay largely in
the grants of the Plymouth company, it would be this company which would
be the chief beneficiary of the enterprise, and the legislature
considered that the company should bear the burden of the expense.
The company were not averse from assisting, but they indulged the hope
that with their interest in the legislature the government might be
induced to bear the cost. Another circumstance that tended to cool the
interest of the legislature was the belief that in a short time this
northern country was to be detached from Massachusetts, and erected into
a separate government. Altogether Finlay concluded that unless the
British government undertook the scheme on the New England side, it
would not be accomplished at all.
Finlay's tour of exploration was ended by his arrival in Falmouth at the
beginning of October. He then entered upon the more extensive duty of
inspecting the whole postal service from Maine to Georgia.[83] He
travelled southward from Falmouth, inspected every post office, studied
the conditions under which the mails were carried, and made a full
report of his investigations to the postmaster general.
It is plain from his report that the service had deteriorated seriously
since Franklin and Foxcroft had made their last inspection ten years
before. Franklin, it will be remembered, had resided in England since
1764, and Foxcroft undoubtedly found it impossible to give proper
attention to the post offices throughout the country, and at the same
time to keep abreast of the official routine at the head office.
The postmasters on the whole impressed Finlay favourably. They
understood their duties and seemed to be making a commendable struggle
against the demoralization which confronted them however they turned.
Only a small proportion of the letters which circulated within the
colonies passed through the post office, although their conveyance by
any other means was illegal. The consequence was that the revenues of
the post office were small.
At Falmouth the greater part of the letters from Boston were delivered
by the masters of sailing vessels. The postmaster on one occasion
attempted to enforce the law against illegal conveyance by seizing the
letter bag on one of the incoming ships; but the populace made so marked
a manifestation of its displeasure that he did not venture on that
course a second time.
It was not so much, however, by direct defiance of the postal law,
although instances of this were not wanting, as by evasions of it, that
the monopoly of the post office was broken down. But in many cases the
evasions were so palpable that they could deceive nobody. A popular mode
of escape from the penalties attaching to the breach of the monopoly was
to seek shelter under one of the exceptions which the post office act
allowed.
In none of the acts, for instance, is objection made to a person sending
a letter to a correspondent by his own servant, or by a friend who
happened to be journeying to the place where the letter should be
delivered. Another exception to the monopoly was made in favour of
letters which accompanied merchandise to which letters related. Thus a
merchant in filling an order for goods has always been at liberty to
send with them the invoice, or any other communication, having
presumable reference to them. This was the excepted article, which
served the turn of those eluding the monopoly.
What Finlay saw at New Haven illustrates fairly what was going on
throughout the colonies. Riders came in from other towns, their carts
laden with bundles, packages, boxes and canisters, and every package had
a letter attached. Some of the parcels consisted of no more than little
bundles of chips, straw, or old paper, but they served their purpose. If
the postmaster made objection to the number of letters they carried, the
riders asserted their right to carry letters accompanying goods, and the
public saw to it that neither postmaster or magistrate took too narrow a
view of what constituted goods.
On the route between Boston and Newport the mail carrier was a certain
Peter Mumford, who did a much larger business in the illegal conveyance
of letters than as the servant of the post office. At Newport the
postmaster declared that there were two post offices--the king's and
Mumford's--and the latter did the larger business. There was no remedy,
as the postmaster declared that whoever should attempt to check the
illegal practice would be denounced as the friend of slavery and
oppression and the declared enemy of America.
Many of the couriers did so large a carrying business that the
conveyance of the mails became a mere incident with them. As he
approached New Haven, Finlay was accosted with the inquiry whether he
had overtaken the post bringing in a drove of oxen, which the courier
had engaged to do, when he came in with the mail.
In all respects but one, the situation described by Finlay presented no
unexpected features. There had been no general inspection since Franklin
made his tour in 1763, at the time he opened the post office in Quebec.
This fact fully explains the shortcomings of the postmasters and
couriers. That the postmasters were chargeable with so few
irregularities in their accounts, or were open to so little censure for
faults in management, is high testimony to their intelligence and
fidelity to duty.
Mail couriers have always been less completely identified with the
postal service than postmasters. They are held by contract, not by
appointment, and their engagements are for short terms. There is nothing
irregular in their practice of combining the conveyance of the mails
with other means of gaining a livelihood, but in the absence of
supervision there was a constant tendency to give undue attention to
what should have been merely auxiliary employments of carrying
passengers and parcels.
People employing the couriers demanded prompt service, while there was
no person to insist on the prior claims of the post office, and indeed
there were probably few people in any community at that time to whom an
hour more or less was of any consequence in the receipt of their
letters.
The evasion of the postmaster general's monopoly also was too common to
excite particular remark. It was beyond doubt a breach of the law, but
that it was wrong was a proposition to which few even good citizens gave
assent, at least by their practice. Thomas Hancock made a merit of his
saving the colony of Connecticut from thirty to forty shillings a year
through the interest he had with certain captains, which enabled him to
secure the colonial letters, as they came over in the ships, and thus
prevent their passing through the post office.
In England, also, the practice was wellnigh universal. The increased
rates imposed by the act of 1710 gave an immense impetus to clandestine
traffic. Every pedlar and driver of public coaches lent himself to the
profitable business of carrying letters for a few halfpence a letter. In
London an effort was made to stop the practice by having officials of
the post office frequent the roads leading into the city, for the
purpose of searching the vehicles of those who had made themselves
objects of suspicion.
It is interesting to note that the work for which the post office
surveyors or inspectors were first appointed was to detain the mail
couriers in the course of travel, and check the contents of the mail
bags, and thus prevent postmasters from becoming parties, as they too
frequently were, to frauds on the revenue, to their own great
advantage.
As late as 1837, when Rowland Hill[84] laid his penny postage scheme
before a public which was impatient for its adoption, Richard Cobden
declared to a committee appointed to report on the scheme, that
five-sixths of the letters passing between Manchester and London were
conveyed by private hand. This state of things continued until the
postage rates were brought down to a point, at which the service offered
by the post office was cheaper as well as better than any other. The
only certain means by which a government monopoly in a free country can
maintain its position is to outbid its rivals. There is no safe
dependence to be placed in legal process.
In ordinary times, then, the evasion of the exclusive privilege of the
postmaster general by any community would deserve no more than passing
mention. It is as part of a general boycott of the government that the
action of the Americans is worthy of note.
From the time of the passage of the stamp act in 1765, the attitude of
the colonies towards all schemes in which taxation by Parliament could
be detected was one of resistance active or passive. When this act went
into operation, the Americans bound themselves to import nothing from
England, a self-imposed obligation which in the undeveloped state of
their manufactures entailed much inconvenience and even distress.
There was an essential difference between the English and the American
methods of avoiding the penalties for infractions of the post office
law. In England, and to some extent doubtless in America as well, men
engaged in the illegal conveyance of letters did their best to conceal
their operations from the authorities. The efforts of a public coach
driver were directed to rendering the search made by the post office
inspectors fruitless. If letters were found in his possession, he
suffered the legal penalties as the smuggler does to-day. It was one of
the chances of his trade.
In the colonies men who were bent on circumventing the post office
pursued another course. They indulged their taste for legal
technicalities by carrying their letters openly, and maintaining that
the packages which accompanied them took them outside the monopoly, and
they gave scope to their humour by making the packages as ridiculous as
possible. They incurred no great risk, for the active spirits in every
community threatened a prosecutor with a coat of tar and feathers.
The stamp act was repealed in the year following its enactment, and for
the moment trade resumed its wonted course. But it was not for long. The
British government was determined that the legislative supremacy of
parliament should be recognized in America, and the colonies were
equally persistent in their denial of this supremacy; and in the
conflict which ensued the principle weapons employed by the Americans
until the outbreak of the war were non-importation and non-exportation
agreements.
As the British merchant exercised a preponderating influence with the
government, the stoppage of trade with America, as the result of a
constitutional dispute, was an effective instrument in making the
government consider the situation seriously. The difficulty with the
government was to understand the attitude of mind which prevailed among
the Americans.
The government had no quarrel with the principle that representation
should be a condition of taxation. It would have asserted the principle
on any occasion, but it could not see that the course it was pursuing
was a violation of that principle. Parliament, it declared, was the
great council of the nation, representing those parts beyond the sea as
well as those at home, and its measures bound the whole nation.
It was still, it must be remembered, half a century before the time when
the agitations which preceded the great reform bill of 1832 had
familiarized the country with the distinction between virtual and actual
representation. The British parliament was far from being, and indeed
made no pretence of being a representative assembly in the sense in
which the phrase is now used. The right to send members to parliament
had for centuries been exercised by the electors of counties and certain
ancient boroughs, and no enlargement of the representation was made from
1677 until 1832,[85] in spite of the great changes in population and
industrial importance which had taken place in the course of time.
Great manufacturing towns such as Manchester and Leeds sent no members
to represent them in parliament, while Old Sarum which did not contain a
single house elected two members. To a people, who saw nothing in this
state of things inconsistent with the theory of representative
government, the colonial view would be quite incomprehensible.
The colonist on the other hand with his strict representation in town
meetings and colonial assemblies, and without the historical aids to an
understanding of the point of view of the home government, saw little
of a truly representative character in the British system. But he did
see, what the home government did not, that a body of distinct and
separate interests had grown up in America of which parliament had a
very inaccurate conception, and with which it was in no way qualified to
deal.
The attitude of the colonists did not appear to the government to be
quite free from insincerity. For half a century and more, the government
declared, the colonists had been subject to taxes in the shape of post
office charges imposed by the act of 1710, and they had never raised a
question.
In the Newcastle correspondence, there is a paper, dated 1765,
containing a discussion on the legality of a tax on the trade with the
Spanish West Indies. In the course of the paper it is asserted that
parliament, by the post office act of Queen Anne, imposed an internal
tax on the colonies without their presuming to dispute the jurisdiction
of parliament over them.
The disturbances in America which followed upon the attempts to enforce
the stamp act surprised and alarmed the government, and a committee of
parliament was appointed to consider what their future course would be.
Franklin who, as the representative of several of the colonies, had been
in London for a considerable time, was among the witnesses examined by
the committee. His examination took a wide range, but the point of
interest was the question as to what ground in principle the Americans
stood upon in objecting to the stamp act, since they had accepted the
post office act of 1710.
For Franklin this was a crucial question, as he had been not only
administering the post office in America for twelve years past, but he
did not conceal his satisfaction that by his management he had been able
for several years to send substantial sums to Great Britain as profits
from the institution.
Franklin answered the questions with much ingenuity. The money paid for
the postage of a letter was not in the nature of a tax; it was merely a
_quantum meruit_ for a service done; no person was compellable to pay
the money if he did not choose to receive the service. A man might
still, as before the act, send his letter by a servant, a special
messenger, or a friend, if he thought it safer and cheaper.
The answer would have been quite just, if the postmaster general of
England had not held a monopoly of letter carrying in America. While a
person is free to use or not to use a certain service, the charge for
the service is not in the nature of a tax. If a person does not like
the price demanded by the post office for its services, he may seek
other means of having his letters carried. But the post office act does
not leave a person free to employ other agencies for the conveyance of
his letters. The monopoly has attached to it heavy penalties for its
infringement.
It is true, as Franklin said, that the post office act leaves it open to
a man to employ a servant, special messenger, or friend in the course of
his travel, to carry his letters. But the mention of these agencies
shows the absurdity of Franklin's contention. A merchant in New York
having business to transact by letter with a customer in Boston or
Philadelphia could not afford to pay the expenses of his messenger or
servant unless the transaction were one of considerable magnitude. Nor
could he await the chance of a friend's making a visit to either of
these places. He might, if he were free to do so, have entrusted his
letters to a coach driver who made a business of passing between New
York and the other two towns, but the monopoly of the post office stood
in his way, and the coachman would have made himself liable to a heavy
fine.
In short, if the merchant had to correspond with neighbouring places he
was compelled to employ the post office. With a country so extended and
so highly civilized as the American colonies were at that day, a postal
system was an absolute necessity; and if the system maintained by the
government were protected by a monopoly, its charges were a tax on the
users of the system in so far as those charges exceeded the strict cost
of carrying on the service.
Furthermore, since the post office act of 1710 was imposed on the
colonies without their consent, and since Franklin's good management had
enabled him to pay all the expenses of the service and send a
considerable surplus to England for some years past, it is plain that to
the extent of the yearly surplus the colonies had been subject to a tax
laid on them without their consent, and that Franklin himself was the
tax gatherer. This was undoubtedly where the point lay in the question
which was asked of Franklin.
Franklin's views on the constitutionality of the post office charges
were part and parcel of his views on taxation generally. For instance,
he drew a clear line of distinction between a tax on imported goods and
an internal tax such as the stamp act. A duty on imported goods it was
permissible for parliament to impose on the colonies, while an internal
tax could not properly be levied without consent.
The stamp act required that all commercial and legal documents and
newspapers should be written or printed upon stamped paper which was
sold by agents of the government at varying prices prescribed by the
law. As this was a tax which could not be avoided so long as men carried
on their business in the ordinary way and by the ordinary means, it was
one for which the consent of the colonies was necessary.
An import tax stood on a different footing. It was simply one of the
elements entering into the price of the goods imported. If people
objected to the price as enhanced by the tax, it was open to them to
decline to buy the goods. A tax of this sort was in Franklin's view
quite within the powers of the sovereign state.
The ultimate test applied by Franklin to determine whether a tax could
in a given case be constitutionally imposed, was whether or not there
was a legal mode of escape from the tax. If the tax were an avoidable
one, it was constitutional, since submission to it implied consent. If,
on the other hand, the tax were one which from the necessities of the
case could not be avoided, it ought not to be imposed until it had been
assented to by the people.
Opinions may differ as to which of the two classes the application of
the test would place postal charges in. They constituted a tax beyond
any question since they turned into the government a surplus of revenue
after all expenses had been met. Whether they were to be regarded as an
avoidable tax to be paid or not as one cared to employ the services of a
post office or not, or whether as a tax which the circumstances of the
community made it necessary to accept, will depend on one's views as to
whether a post office is indispensable to the community.
It is difficult to see how Franklin, who of all men of his generation
knew best the requirements of a highly developed industrial community,
could believe that the necessities for the interchange of correspondence
on the part of a people like the American colonists could be satisfied
by private messengers, or travelling friends, or indeed by any agency
less comprehensive than a national postal system.
FOOTNOTES:
[66] _Can. Arch._. C. 11, LXIV. 110 (Report of progress by grand voyer).
[67] _Memoires de la Societe Historique de Montreal_, 1870, pt. 5. I.
150.
[68] _Ordonnances des Intendants_, I. 54, and IX. 109.
[69] _Public Archives of Can._, C. 11, X. 338.
[70] Order of lieutenant governor Burton, to the _maitres de poste_
(_Memoires de la Societe Historique de Montreal_, 1870, pt. 5. I. 268).
[71] G.P.O., _Treasury_, 1760-1771, p. 99.
[72] _Imperial Statutes_, 5, Geo. III. c. 25.
[73] Journal kept by Hugh Finlay, surveyor of the post roads on the
continent of North America, 1773-1774 (published by Frank H. Norton,
Brooklyn, 1867).
[74] G.P.O., _General Account Book_, Account April 5, 1765.
[75] _Ibid._, Account April 5, 1769. The net revenue for the four years
ending 1768 was L1684.
[76] _Quebec Gazette_, February 16, 1767.
[77] Finlay's _Journal_.
[78] _Lettres, Instructions et Memoires de Colbert_, tome iii. pp. 514
and 520.
[79] _Census of Canada_, 1870-1871, p. xvi.
[80] _C. O._ 5, XIV. 300 (_Can. Arch._).
[81] _Can. Arch._, B. 26, p. 54.
[82] _Can. Arch._, B. 26, p. 75.
[83] Finlay's _Journal_, Brooklyn, 1867.
[84] _Life of Sir Rowland Hill and Hist. of Penny Postage_, by G.
Birkbeck Hill, 1880, I. 301.
[85] Cf. Porritt, _The Unreformed House of Commons_, I. 16-17.