Investigation into the history of the various and successive issues of
labels, wrappers, and envelopes connected with the Postal systems of the
British Colonies in North America does not present the difficulties which
had to be surmounted in the case of the Australian Colonies, and perhaps
does not therefore include subject matter of so interesting a character
as that comprised in the recent “Oceania” Catalogue.
Reference Lists of the North American Colonies have nevertheless been
hitherto crude, as well as deficient, and even incorrect in detail, thus
affording but superficial aid to the Philatelist: and the endeavour of
the Society in the following pages has been to amplify the information
at present in the possession of collectors; and by the collation of
contents of recent papers in Canadian and English journals, as well as by
reference to official gazettes and correspondence, to present as far as
possible a complete history of the Postal Service in these Colonies.
In this endeavour it has derived a large amount of assistance from the
researches of its late Secretary, Mr. E. D. Bacon, whose Notes at the
head of each Colony were originally intended to have been read as a paper
before the London Society, but which, by the desire of the Committee
entrusted with the revision and publication of the accompanying lists,
he has consented should be amalgamated with them, thus adding to the
completeness of the present work. The Society is also largely indebted to
Mr. Donald A. King for the permission to reproduce the valuable contents
of certain papers he contributed to the _Halifax Philatelist_.
The lists of Canada and Newfoundland, the only two of the Colonies now
using distinct stamps, have been completed to the end of June, 1889.
The same mode of illustration by the Autotype process, which proved
successful in the case of the “Stamps of Oceania,” has been adopted on
the present occasion, and is undoubtedly the most satisfactory of all
methods of reproduction in fac-simile which have come under the notice of
the Society.
_August, 1889._