towards York; seize the letter mail going outward, and all other letters
upon the rider, and present them by one of yourselves; the other shall
then ride to the next stage, and seize the mail coming inwards, and
bring the letters to Council, searching all persons that ride with the
mail, or any other that ride post without warrant, and bring them before
Council, or the Commissioners for Examinations. All officers civil and
military to be assistants. With note of like orders for Chester Road and
the western roads."--_Calendar of State Papers (Domestic Series_), 1650,
p. 223.
[29] _Commons Journal_, 7th September 1644, p. 621.
[30] Ibid., 21st March 1650, p. 385.
[31] Ibid.
[32] H. Joyce, _History of the Post Office_, London, 1893, p. 25.
[33] _Commons Journal_, 19th October, 1652, p. 192.
[34] _Register of Council of State_, 7th May 1653, vol. xvi. pp. 34-6.
[35] _Calendar of State Papers (Domestic Series)_, 1652-3, p. 455.
[36] "The case of the first undertakers for reducing letters to half the
former rates, viz. Clem. Oxenbridge, Rich. Blackwell, Fra. Thompson, and
Wm. Malyn. We observed that the postage of inland letters was long
continued at 6d. a letter, and that the whole benefit went into one
hand, to the grievance of many. Being encouraged by the votes of the
last Parliament (made in the time of their primitive, free, and public
actings, viz. 16 August 1642) that the taking of letters from and the
restraints and imprisonments of Gower, Chapman, Cotton, and Mackedral
were against the law and the liberty of the subject ... and that the
said secretaries and Witherings were delinquents, being also encouraged
by the opinion of the judges given in the House of Lords, that the
clause in Witherings' patent for restraint of carrying letters was void
and against law--we attempted to put the same in practice, but through
the interest of Mr. Prideaux, who for many years had enjoyed excessive
gains by the former high rates, we met with all the obstruction he could
make against us, by stopping our mails, abusing our servants, etc.,
though he always held forth that it was free for any to carry or send
letters as they pleased."--_Calendar of State Papers (Domestic Series)_,
1653/1654, p. 22. Cf. John Hill, _A Penny Post_, London, 1659.
[37] "Cross posts did not exist. Between two towns not being on the same
post road, however near the towns might be, letters could circulate only
through London; and the moment London was reached an additional rate was
imposed. Hence the apparent charges, the charges as deduced from the
table of rates, might be very different from the actual charges. Bristol
and Exeter, for instance, are less than 80 miles apart; but in 1660, and
for nearly forty years afterwards, letters from one to the other passed
through London, and would be charged, if single, not 2d. but 6d., and if
double, not 4d. but 1s. That is to say, the postage or portage, as it
was then called, would consist of two rates, and each of these rates
would be for a distance in excess of 80 miles."--H. Joyce, _History of
the Post Office_, p. 29. Cf. _infra_, Appendix B, pp. 390-1.
This practice of charging according to the route traversed and not
according to direct distance was also followed in other countries. It is
perhaps comparable to the practice of computing railway charges on the
basis of the distance by railway, and not as the crow flies.
[38] H. Scobell, _Collection of Acts and Ordinances_, London, 1658, p.
511.
[39] 12 Car. II, cap. 35.
[40] See, e.g., Royal Proclamations, 16th January 1660-1 and 16th July
1667.
[41] See Appendix, pp. 388-391.
[42] "As early as William's reign they (the Postmasters-General) had
been asked to estimate how much an additional penny of postage would
produce; ... the necessities of the Civil List had prompted the
inquiry."--H. Joyce, _History of the Post Office_, p. 119.
[43] 9 Anne, cap. 10.
[44] 9 Anne, cap. 10, [S] 35.
[45] "The additional tax has never answered in proportion to the produce
of the revenue at the time it took place, the people having found
private conveyances for their letters, which they are daily endeavouring
to increase, notwithstanding all the endeavours that can be used to
prevent them."--Statement by the Postmasters-General, 20th May 1718
(_British Official Records_).
[46] H. Joyce, _History of the Post Office_, p. 145.
[47] 9 Anne, cap. 10, [S] 39.
[48] 3 Geo. III, cap. 75, [S] 1.
[49] "An important legal decision, with which the Post Office had only
the remotest concern, an improved system of expresses following as a
natural consequence from circumstances over which the Post Office had no
control, a simple contrivance to facilitate the posting of letters (i.e.
the aperture), and an acceleration of the mail between London and
Edinburgh--this as the record of forty or fifty years' progress is
assuredly meagre enough; and yet we are not aware of any omission."--H.
Joyce, ibid., p. 184.
[50] "A letter between Bath and London would be a London letter, and a
letter from one part of the country to another which in course of
transit passed through London would be a country letter. A bye or way
letter would be a letter passing between any two towns on the Bath Road
and stopping short of London--as, for instance, between Bath and
Hungerford, between Hungerford and Newbury, between Newbury and Reading,
and so on; while a cross post letter would be a letter crossing from the
Bath road to some other--as, for instance, a letter between Bath and
Oxford."--Ibid., p. 147.
[51] 9 Anne, cap. 10, [S] 18.
[52] "To give a slight idea of the nature of this conveyance: _The Bye
and Way Letters_ were thrown promiscuously together into one large Bag,
which was to be opened at every Stage by the Deputy, or any inferior
Servant of the House, to pick out of the whole heap what might belong to
his own delivery, and the rest put back again into this large Bag, with
such Bye Letters as he should have to send to distant places from his
own Stage. But what was still worse than all this, it was then the
constant practice to demand and receive the postage on all such Letters
before they were put into any of the Country Post Offices. Hence (from
the general temptation of destroying these Letters for the sake of the
Postage) the joynt mischief of embezling the Revenue and interrupting
and obstructing the commerce, fell naturally in, to support and inflame
one another. Indeed, they were then risen to such a height, and
consequently the discredit and disrepute of this conveyance grown so
notorious, that many Traders and others in divers parts of the Kingdom
had recourse to various contrivances of private and clandestine
conveyance for their speedier and safer correspondence; whereby it
became unavoidable but that other branches of the Post Office revenue
should be greatly impair'd, as well as this ...
"Now whilst the _Bye and Way Letters_ continued to be conveyed in so
precarious and unsafe a way, as is shewn above, it was thought hard to
punish such as undertook to convey them in a speedier and safer manner.
But from a Time that this Branch of the Revenue was put under a just
regulation, in consequence of the contract with Mr. Allen, all such
Persons who were any way concerned in this illegal collection and
conveyance of Letters, were by proper Officers employed by him, strictly
enquired after, and when detected, the most notorious of them punished
as a terror to the rest."--Ralph Allen's Narrative, 2nd December 1761
(Ralph Allen's _Bye, Way and Cross Road Posts_, London, 1897, pp. 6 and
18).
[53] "Upon the next renewal of his Contract, which was in the Year 1741,
the Postmasters-General, after largely expressing, as usual, their sense
of the integrity of his conduct, and the services he had done to the
Public, told him they judged it but reasonable to expect some addition
to his rent of [L]6,000 a Year for the _Bye, Way and Cross Road
Letters_, altho' he should still continue to support and increase the
produce of the Country Letters for the Benefit of the King. To which,
Mr. Allen answered, that their expectations of additional rent appeared
very reasonable to him, and which he should have made in his own way (a
way he was going to open to them) had they not themselves proposed it.
That there are two ways of giving this additional Rent: the one was by
paying a further some of money yearly, such as he could afford to his
Majesty's use without any advance to public commerce, the other was by
paying his Majesty, and immediately too, a much larger sum than he could
in the first way pretend to advance, in causing a considerable increase
of the produce of the _London and Country Letters_ by means of extending
and quickening the correspondence of London and several of the most
considerable Trading Towns and Cities thro'out the Kingdom; a project
that would be of infinite advantage to commerce. Which of these two ways
the Postmasters-General would think fit to prefer, he left to themselves
to consider; who on duly weighing all circumstances, did not in the
least hesitate to prefer the latter method.
"Upon which Mr. Allen agreed to erect, at his own Expence, one every day
cost from London to Bath, Bristol, and Glocester towards the _West_; and
from London to Cambridge, Lynn, Norwich, and Yarmouth towards the
_East_; and to all intermediate places in both quarters: and--that all
the increase of the postage of Letters thus conveyed between London and
the several places, East, and West of it above-mentioned, should,
without any charge or deduction, be paid in directly for his Majesty's
use, as well as all the increase of the _Country Letters_ within that
District, that is, such Letters as pass between one Country Town and
another thro' London.
"All this was accordingly done and executed conformable to the terms of
the contract."--Ibid., pp. 25-6.
Similar extensions were made at the renewals of the lease in 1748 and
1755.
[54] 5 Geo. III, cap. 25, [S] 5.
[55] "It is certain that the alteration of the rates of Postage in the
year 1765 has not been attended with every good consequence then
expected from it and has been some loss to the Revenue."--Mr. Draper,
District Surveyor, _British Official Records_, 1783.
[56] "At a time when the mail leaving London on Monday night did not
arrive at Bath until Wednesday afternoon, he (Palmer) had been in the
habit of accomplishing the distance between the two cities in a single
day. He had made journeys equally long and equally rapid in other
directions; and, as the result of observation, he had come to the
conclusion that of the horses kept at the post houses it was always the
worst that were set aside to carry the mail, and that the post was the
slowest mode of conveyance in the kingdom. He had also observed that,
where security or despatch was required, his neighbours at Bath who
might desire to correspond with London would make a letter up into a
parcel and send it by stage-coach, although the cost by stage-coach was,
porterage included, 2s. and by post 4d."--H. Joyce, _History of the Post
Office_, pp. 208-9. Cf. D. Macpherson, op. cit., vol. iv. p. 54.
[57] "If the present hours fixed at all the offices of the Kingdom with
the greatest care and attention to that regular plan of correspondence
which has been established after long experience were to be altered it
would throw into the greatest confusion for the present and would be
many years before it could be restored to the degree of perfection it
now has."--Observations on Mr. Palmer's Plan by Mr. Draper, District
Surveyor (_British Official Records_, 1783).
"Indeed, it is a pity that the Author of the Plan should not first have
been informed of the nature of the Business in question, to make him
understand how very differently the Posts and Post Offices are conducted
to what he apprehends, and that the constant Eye that has been long kept
towards their improvement in all Situations and under all Circumstances
has made them now almost as perfect as can be without exhausting the
Revenue arising therefrom."--Observations on Mr. Palmer's Plan by Mr.
Hodgson, District Surveyor. Ibid.
"Upon the whole it appears impracticable upon a general System to convey
the Mails by Machine."--Observations on Mr. Palmer's Plan by Mr. Allen,
District Surveyor. Ibid.
[58] "In 1797 there were forty-two mail-coach routes established,
connecting sixty of the most important towns in the kingdom, as well as
intermediate places. These coaches cost the Government [L]12,416 a year,
only half the sum paid for post-horses and riders under the old system.
The coaches made daily journeys over nearly two-thirds of the total
distance traversed and tri-weekly journeys over something less than
one-third the total distance. The remainder travelled one, two, four,
and six times a week."--J. C. Hemmeon, _History of the British Post
Office_, Cambridge, Mass., 1912, p. 40.
[59] 24 Geo. III, sess. 2, cap. 37.
[60] H. Joyce, _History of the Post Office_, p. 215.
[61] H. Joyce, _History of the Post Office_, pp. 317-18.
[62] 41 Geo. III, cap. 7.
[63] 45 Geo. III, cap. 11.
[64] 52 Geo. III, cap. 88. For details of the changes in the rates
during this period see Appendix, pp. 338-9.
[65] "Von epochemachender Bedeutung war die ber[:u]hmte von _Rowland
Hill_ angeregte Portoreform bei Briefen (sogenanntes Pennyporto) in
GROSSBRITANNIEN 1839."--A. Wagner, _Finanzwissenschaft_, Leipzig, 1890,
vol. ii. p. 152.
[66] Sir Rowland Hill and G. Birkbeck Hill, _Life of Sir Rowland Hill
and History of Penny Postage_, London, 1880.
[67] "They were all full of high aims--all bent on 'the accomplishment
of things permanently great and good.' There was no room in their minds
for the petty thoughts of jealous spirits. Each had that breadth of view
which enables a man to rise above all selfish considerations. Each had
been brought up to consider the good of his family rather than his own
peculiar good, and to look upon the good of mankind as still higher than
the good of his family. Each was deeply convinced of the great truth
which Priestly had discovered, and Bentham had advocated--that the
object of all government, and of all social institutions, should be the
greatest happiness of the greatest number for the greatest length of
time. In their youth their aims were often visionary; but they were
always high and noble."--Ibid., vol. i. p. 193.
[68] "Early in the 'thirties there had been some reduction in certain
departments of taxation. It occurred to me that probably some ease might
be given to the people by lowering the postal rate.... Although occupied
with other affairs, the reduction in the postal rate was not dismissed
from my thoughts. The interest it had excited induced me to read
Reports, etc., on postal administration."--Ibid., vol. i. p. 242.
[69] "The best test to apply to the several existing taxes for the
discovery of the one which may be reduced most extensively, with the
least proportionate loss to the revenue, is probably this: excluding
from the examination those taxes, the produce of which is greatly
affected by changes in the habits of the people, as the taxes on
spirits, tobacco, hair-powder, let each be examined as to whether its
productiveness has kept pace with the increasing numbers and prosperity
of the nation. And that tax which proves most defective under this test
is, in all probability, the one we are in quest of."--Rowland Hill,
_Post Office Reform: Its Importance and Practicability_, London, 1837,
p. 2.
[70] "The revenue of the Post Office has been stationary at about
[L]1,400,000 a year since 1818. This can be accounted for only by the
great duty charged on letters; for with a lower duty the correspondence
of the country through the Post Office would have increased in
proportion to the increase of population and national wealth."--Sir
Henry Parnell, _On Financial Reform_, London, 1832, p. 41.
[71] "While thus confirmed in my belief that, even from a financial
point of view, the postal rates were injuriously high, I also became
more and more convinced, the more I considered the question, that the
fiscal loss was not the most serious injury thus inflicted on the
public; that yet more serious evil resulted from the obstruction thus
raised to the moral and intellectual progress of the people; and that
the Post Office, if put on a sound footing, would assume the new and
important character of a powerful engine of civilization; that though
now rendered feeble and inefficient by erroneous financial arrangements,
it was capable of performing a distinguished part in the great work of
national education."--Sir Rowland Hill in _Life of Sir Rowland Hill and
History of Penny Postage_, London, 1880, vol. i. p. 245.
[72] _Post Office Reform: Its Importance and Practicability_, by Rowland
Hill, London, 1837.
[73] "In order to ascertain, with as much accuracy as the circumstances
of the case admit, the extent to which the rates of postage may be
reduced, under the condition of a given reduction in the revenue, the
best course appears to be, first to determine as nearly as possible the
natural cost of conveying a letter under the varying circumstances of
distance, etc., that is to say, the cost which would be incurred if the
Post Office were conducted on the ordinary commercial principles, and
postage relieved entirely from taxation; and then to add to the natural
cost such amount of duty as may be necessary for producing the required
revenue."--Ibid. p. 10.
[74] "I found, first, that the cost of conveying a letter between post
town and post town was exceedingly small; secondly, that it had but
little relation to distance; and thirdly, that it depended much upon the
number of letters conveyed by the particular mail; and as the cost per
letter would diminish with every increase in such number, and as such
increase would certainly follow reduction of postage, it followed that,
if a great reduction could be effected, the cost of conveyance per
letter, already so small, might be deemed absolutely insignificant.
"Hence, then, I came to the important conclusion that the existing
practice of regulating the amount of postage by the distance over which
an inland letter was conveyed, however plausible in appearance, had no
foundation in principle, and that consequently the rates of postage
should be irrespective of distance."--Sir Rowland Hill, _Life of Sir
Rowland Hill and History of Penny Postage_, London, 1880, vol. i. p.
250.
[75] "It appears, then, that the cost of mere transit incurred upon a
letter sent from London to Edinburgh, a distance of 400 miles, is not
more than _one thirty-sixth part of a penny_. If therefore the proper
charge (exclusive of tax) upon a letter received and delivered in London
itself were twopence, then the proper charge (exclusive of tax) upon a
letter received in London, but delivered in Edinburgh, would be twopence
_plus_ one-thirty-sixth part of a penny. Now, as the letters taken from
London to Edinburgh are undoubtedly carried much more than an average
distance, it follows, that when the charge for the receipt and delivery
of the letter is determined, an additional charge of one-thirty-sixth
part of a penny would amply repay the expense of transit. _If,
therefore, the charge for postage be made proportionate to the whole
expense incurred in the receipt, transit, and delivery of the letter,
and in the collection of its postage, it must be made uniformly the same
from every post town to every other post town in the United Kingdom_,
unless it can be shown how we are to collect so small a sum as the
thirty-sixth part of a penny."--Rowland Hill, _Post Office Reform: Its
Importance and Practicability_, London, 1837, pp. 18-19.
[76] Ibid., p. 45.
[77] A "frank" was a letter or packet bearing on the outside the
signature of a person entitled to send letters free of postage.
[78] These proposals are not, however, necessarily related to the
principle of uniformity, and, although interesting and important at the
time, are now only of historical interest. They relate more particularly
to the practicability of applying low and uniform rates to the postal
service in the United Kingdom, having regard to the circumstances then
obtaining and to the necessity for maintaining a large net revenue.
Given that uniformity of rate was scientifically sound, it did not
follow that it should be immediately adopted, and the financial effect
was, to say the least, speculative. But since it was unlikely that the
plan would be adopted if any large decrease in revenue were likely to
result, Sir Rowland Hill was at great pains to explain methods by which
his plan could be adopted without serious reduction of net revenue, and
it was in this connection that the question of the increase in traffic
which might be anticipated assumed such importance.
[79] See, e.g., H. von Stephan, _Geschichte der preussischen Post_,
Berlin, 1859, p. 615.
[80] _Ninth Report of Commissioners for Inquiring into the Mode of
Conducting the Business of the Post Office Department_, 1837, Appendix,
pp. 26-40.
[81] "Of all the wild and visionary schemes he had ever heard or read
of, it was the most extraordinary."--Lord Lichfleld, Postmaster-General,
15 June 1837, _Parl. Debates_ (_Lords_), vol. xxxviii, col. 1464.
"He considers the whole scheme of Mr. Hill as utterly fallacious; he
thought so from the first moment he read the pamphlet of Mr. Hill; and
his opinion of the plan was formed long before the evidence was given
before the Committee. The plan appears to him a most preposterous one,
utterly unsupported by facts, and resting entirely on assumption. Every
experiment in the way of reduction which has been made by the Post
Office has shown its fallacy; for every reduction whatever leads to a
loss of revenue, in the first instance: if the reduction be small, the
revenue recovers itself; but if the rates were to be reduced to a penny,
revenue would not recover itself for forty or fifty years."--Abstract of
Evidence of Colonel Maberly, Secretary to the Post Office, _Third Report
from the Select Committee on Postage_, 1838, p. 18.
[82] _Post Office Reform: Its Importance and Practicability_, by Rowland
Hill, second edition, London, 1837.
[83] See _Life of Sir Rowland Hill and History of Penny Postage_,
London, 1880; Sir Henry Cole, _Fifty Years of Public Work_, London,
1884.
[84] _Third Report of the Select Committee On Postage_, 13th August
1838, [S] 10.
[85] In 1837-8 the deficiency was [L]1,428,000; in 1838-9, [L]430,000;
in 1839-40, [L]1,457,000; in 1840-1, [L]1,851,000; and for 1841-2 it was
estimated at [L]2,421,000.
[86] "Was the Committee ignorant--we think not--that the radicals in
politics and the sectarians in religion, have been the warmest
advocates--and indeed (except the mercantile body we have alluded to)
the only very zealous advocates for this penny post?"--_Quarterly
Review_, October 1839, p. 531. Cf. _Edinburgh Review_, January 1840; J.
Morley, _Life of Cobden_, London, 1881, p. 411.
[87] "On the 9th April 1839, Lord Melbourne's Government brought in what
is generally known as the Jamaica Bill--a Bill for suspending for five
years the constitution of that colony. This measure was strongly opposed
by the Conservative party (led by Sir Robert Peel), and by many of the
Radicals. On the second reading of the Bill, the Government only escaped
defeat by the narrow majority of five votes. The Ministry thereupon
resigned; Sir Robert Peel was sent for by her Majesty, but owing to the
'Bedchamber Difficulty' failed to form a Government. Lord Melbourne was
recalled, and in the negotiations with the Radical members for future
support to his Government, the bargain was struck that that support
should be given, provided Penny Postage was conceded.
"Thus one of the greatest social reforms ever introduced was, to speak
plainly, given as a bribe by a tottering Government to secure political
support."--_The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago_, London, 1890, p. 24.
Cf. _Parl. Debates_, 26th March 1855, vol. cxxxvii, col. 1136; Sir
Stafford H. Northcote, _Twenty Years of Financial Policy_, London, 1862,
pp. 8-9.