THOMAS WITHERINGS
1635--1644
Armed with the King's commission, Witherings lost no time in applying
himself to his task. And, indeed, the state of things which he found
existing afforded ample scope for his energies. Except to Plymouth and
through the county of Kent, posts existed rather in name than in
reality. Nominally there was a post to Scotland, and this post James had
busied himself in improving, in anticipation of his progress to London;
but since then it had languished and died, or nearly died, of inanition.
Between the kingdoms of England and Scotland there had, up to the date
of Witherings's commission, as expressed in the commission itself, been
no certain or constant intercourse. The only remaining post, the post to
Ireland, was in an equally forlorn condition.
This decadence can only be attributed to two causes, the paucity of
travellers and the necessities of the King. Had travellers been
numerous, the posts would have been kept up for the sake of the profit
to be derived from the letting of horses. In the absence of travellers,
the keepers of the post-houses were dependent upon their established
wages, and these had long remained unpaid. As far back as 1628 a
petition on the subject had been presented to the Council. The "99 poore
men," as the petitioners styled themselves, had received no wages for
nearly seven years; the arrears then due to them amounted to L22,626;
some of them were already in prison, and many more were threatened with
arrest. In 1635, as a consequence, doubtless, of their necessitous
condition, they had ceased to keep horses, and letters were being
carried on foot. In this manner a distance of only sixteen to eighteen
miles was accomplished in a day, and to obtain from Scotland or from
Ireland a reply to a letter written in London took "full two monthes."
Witherings was not long in producing his plan. Within the city of London
was to be appointed an office or counting-house for the receipt and
despatch of letters, and thence were to be established trunk lines of
post to the principal towns of the kingdom, with corresponding branch
posts, either foot posts or horse posts, according to distance, to the
smaller towns. The branch posts were to be so fitted to the main posts
that there was to be no waiting on the part of either; and these latter
were to start and return at stated times, and to run night and day so as
to cover 120 miles in twenty-four hours. From London to Edinburgh the
course of post which had been full two months was to be only six days;
and to Holyhead or Plymouth and back the distance was to be accomplished
in the same time. Even Witherings himself appears to have been carried
away by the brilliancy of the prospect. "Anie fight at sea," he says,
"anie distress of His Majestie's ships (which God forbid), anie wrong
offered by anie other nation to anie of ye coastes of England or anie of
His Majestie's forts ... the newes will come sooner than thought."
An example has been left us of the process to be followed. The letters
for Scotland were to be put into a "portmantle" directed to Edinburgh,
into which were also to be put small bags containing letters for towns
on the same line of road. At Cambridge, for instance, as soon as the
Portmantle arrived, the bag for that town was to be taken out, and a
foot-post, "with a known badge of His Majestie's arms," was upon the
market days to go to all towns within six, eight or ten miles, and there
deliver the letters, at the same time receiving any that might be handed
to him. These he was to bring back to Cambridge in time for the
return-post from Scotland. The return was to be on a particular day,
and at a particular hour, and the letters were to be ready without fail,
"upon the verie instant comeing back of the portmantle." The same
process was to be adopted at Huntingdon and all other towns on the road.
It was an essential part of Witherings's plan that the posts should be
not only regular and certain but also self-supporting. During the
earlier part of the century they had been maintained at a cost to the
Crown of L3400 a year, and this was a burden which the Crown was no
longer in a position to bear. That they should be made to pay their own
way was, therefore, an indispensable condition. But how was this to be
accomplished? Witherings's sagacity left him at no loss for a reply. He
discerned that to carry a letter is to perform a service for which a
payment may fairly be demanded in return; and that the demand would meet
with a ready response must have been plain to him from what he saw going
on in the west of England. In 1633, or two years before he produced his
plan, the Mayor and Aldermen of Barnstaple had set up a post between
their town and Exeter. This post was to leave Barnstaple every Tuesday
at 7 o'clock in the morning, and to be in Exeter early on the following
day, in time to catch the King's post on its way from Plymouth to
London. The King's post was maintained at the expense of the King; but
for the local service, as a means of defraying the cost, the Corporation
imposed a small charge, a charge of 6d. for a single letter and of 8d.
for a double one. Other towns in Devonshire had adopted a similar
course. That Witherings was aware of the existence of these posts is
evident from the special allusion that is made to them in the
Proclamation which he prevailed upon the King to issue;[5] and it was
their success, probably, which suggested his own undertaking. Concluding
that what private enterprise was effecting on a small scale the State
would be able to effect on a large one, he proposed--and the proposal
received the royal sanction--that for every letter sent by post a "port"
or charge for carriage should be levied after the following rates:--
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| |Single Letter.|Double letter.|"If bigger."|
+------------------------------+--------------+--------------+------------+
|Under 80 miles | 2d. | 4d. | 6d. an oz. |
|80 miles and not exceeding 140| 4d. | 8d. | 9d. " |
|Above 140 miles | 6d. | 12d. | 12d. " |
|To or from Scotland | 8d. | ? | ? |
|To or from Ireland | 9d. | After two ounces, 6d. the |
| | | ounce. |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
[5] The Proclamation enjoined that on letters "to Plymouth, Exeter, and
with the two other places in that road," Witherings should "take the
like port that now is paid, as near as possibly he can."
This was the introduction of postage. The object of the exceptional rate
in the case of Ireland was to avoid interference with a Proclamation
which had been recently issued by the Lord Deputy and Council there.
Henceforth the posts were to be equally open to all; all would be at
liberty to use them; all would be welcome. Important as this provision
was, it followed as a natural consequence from the imposition of
postage. The carriage of the subjects' letters was now to be a matter of
purchase, and, unless the purchasers were sufficiently numerous, the
posts would not be self-supporting. The custom of the public, therefore,
was a necessity of their very existence.
In other respects the regulations remained much as they had been, except
that now there would be the means of enforcing them. Every postmaster
was to have ready in his stable one or two horses, according as
Witherings might direct, the charge to be for one horse 2-1/2d. a mile
and for two horses 5d. This 5d., however, was to include the cost of a
guide who was always to accompany the horses when two were taken. On the
day the post was expected, the horses were not to be let out on any
pretext whatever, this being the first indication on record of letters
enjoying precedence over travellers. And finally, with certain specified
exceptions, no letters were to be carried or delivered in any part where
posts should be established except by such persons as Witherings might
appoint. The letters excepted were those sent by a friend, by a
particular messenger employed for the particular occasion, and by
common known carrier. On the common carrier, however, restrictions were
imposed. He was to confine himself to his ordinary known journey, and
was not, for the sake of collecting or delivering letters, to lag behind
or outstrip his cart or horse by more than eight hours.
The reason for this last exception is not far to seek. The established
posts were few in number, and even where they existed in name they had
fallen into disuse. The common carriers had thus become the chief
carriers of letters, and Witherings, in the furtherance of his project,
was anxious to disarm their opposition. This he had already attempted to
effect by argument; and now, as a practical step in the same direction,
he procured their exemption from the State monopoly. But what may have
appeared and was probably intended to appear as a valuable concession
was really no concession at all. The carrier took eight days to go 120
miles. By the posts the same distance was to be accomplished in a day
and a night. The carrier's charge for a letter from Cambridge to London,
a distance of about sixty miles, was 2d. A postage of 2d., according to
Witherings's plan, was to a carry a letter for eighty miles. If the
posts were to be both faster and cheaper than the common known carrier,
it might safely be predicted that as a carrier of letters he could not
long survive.
In October 1635 Witherings, having completed the necessary arrangements,
proceeded to carry his plan into effect. The results he anticipated from
it, as shewn in a memorandum which he delivered to the Secretary of
State, were promotion of trade and intercourse and the cultivation of
better relations with Scotland and Ireland. That the posts might one day
be more than self-supporting, that they would become a source of
revenue, does not appear to have entered into his calculations; or, if
it did, his silence on the point would seem to shew that, as compared
with the other advantages, he deemed it too insignificant to mention.
It was probably about this time that the practice of writing "Haste,
post, haste" on the outside of letters began to be discontinued. The
term "post," as here used, meant nothing more than the carrier or bearer
of the letter; and an injunction to make the best speed he could,
properly as it might be given to a messenger who had a particular letter
to carry, would be altogether out of place if addressed to a general
letter-carrier who was bound by his instructions not to exceed a given
distance within a given time. "For thy life, for thy life" had sometimes
been added, as in the case of Protector Somerset's letter to Lord Dacre.
"To our very good Lord, the Lord Dacre, Warden of the West Marches, in
haste; haste, post, haste, for thy life, for thy life, for thy life";[6]
and it seems probable, if the barbarity of the punishments in those days
is considered, that this was no empty threat. It was "on payn of lyfe"
that, according to Sir Brian Tuke, all townships were to have horses
ready for their Sovereign's service. Among the Ashburnham manuscripts is
a letter from Sir Edward Nicholas to Sir John Hippisley, Lieutenant of
Dover Castle, written in 1627 or eight years before the introduction of
postage. This letter is endorsed by George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham,
and the cover is inscribed "for His Majesty's special affairs; hast,
hast, hast, post, hast, hast, hast, hast, with all possible speede." The
absence of any threat in this instance may of course have been due to
the individual character of the writer, but it is more agreeable to
think of it as a sign of the advance of civilisation.
[6] _Her Majesty's Mails_, by William Lewins, p. 19.
In 1637, Lord Stanhope having surrendered his patent, Witherings was
appointed in his room, and thus became centred in one person the offices
of postmaster for inland and for foreign letters. In the same year a
letter office, the erection of which had formed an important part of
Witherings's plan, was opened in the city of London, and nothing
remained to hinder him from carrying his project into full effect. But,
fair as everything promised, hardly three years had elapsed before
Witherings met with the fate which has overtaken so many of his
distinguished successors. In 1640, on a charge of divers abuses and
misdemeanours in the execution of his office, this eminent man was
deprived of his appointment. Whether the charge was well or ill founded
we have no means of judging. Only the fact has come down to us that
after this miserable fashion ended the career of one who had the
sagacity to project and the energy to carry out a system, the main
features of which endure to the present day.
Among those who had lent money to the King was Philip Burlamachi, a
naturalised British subject, and one of the principal merchants of the
city of London. He had advanced, on the security of the sugar duties, no
less than L52,000, an immense sum in those days; and it was probably
this fact rather than any special qualification on his part that pointed
him out as Witherings's successor. Be that as it may, into Burlamachi's
hands the office of Master of the Posts was sequestered, subject to the
condition that he was to discharge the duties under the control of the
Secretary of State. The sequestration was announced to the public by
means of placards fixed up on the old Exchange, and Witherings lost no
time in fixing up counter-placards by way of protest.
And now began an unseemly contention which, arising ostensibly out of
the rights of individuals, went far to bring the two Houses of
Parliament into collision. In 1642, after struggling for the best part
of two years to maintain his position, Witherings assigned his patent to
the Earl of Warwick, and, under the influence of this peer, both Houses
declared the sequestration to be illegal and void. Meanwhile Burlamachi
had fallen into the power of one in whose hands he was the merest
puppet. This was Edmund Prideaux, afterwards one of the Commissioners of
the Great Seal and Attorney-General under the Commonwealth. At his
instigation Burlamachi still kept possession of the letter office. In
vain the Lords ordered him to give it up to Lord Warwick, and summoned
him before them to explain his contumacy. It was true, he replied, that
the office was still kept at his house, but this house and his servants
had been hired by Mr. Prideaux, and it was he that disposed of the
letters.
Incensed at such contempt of their orders, the Lords authorised Warwick
to seize the mails. After one or two half-hearted attempts to carry this
authority into effect, arrangements were made for a more strenuous
effort. On the 19th of December two of Warwick's agents lay in wait at
Barnet and there surprised the mail as it came from Chester. Seizing the
letters and the man that carried them, they made the best of their way
towards London, but had not proceeded further than the foot of the hill
beyond Highgate when they were themselves surprised by five troopers "on
great horses with pistols," who barred the road, and, in the name of the
House of Commons, captured the captors.
Meanwhile a still more exciting scene was enacting before Warwick's
office near the Royal Exchange. There two of his men kept watch for the
mail from Plymouth, and, as it passed on its way to Burlamachi's house
hard by, they dashed into the street and seized the letters. Their
success was but for the moment. Before they could regain the office,
Prideaux had swooped down upon them at the head of some half-dozen
adherents, and with his own hands had torn the letters away. "An order
of the House of Commons," cried one of the bystanders, "ought to be
obeyed before an order of the House of Lords."
On these occurrences being reported to the Lords, Burlamachi and all
others who had been concerned in them, Prideaux alone excepted, were
ordered to prison. Among these was the man who had been captured at
Barnet and afterwards rescued, one Hickes by name; and this fellow
proved to be Prideaux's own servant. On the part of that wily politician
one looks in vain for any effort to procure Burlamachi's release, or
even for the slightest indication of concern that he had been arrested;
but the arrest of his own servant, the servant of a member of the House
of Commons, excited his keenest resentment. This, in Prideaux's view,
was a clear breach of privilege, and the House was pleased to agree
with him. No sooner, therefore, had Hickes been imprisoned by the Lords
than he was released by the Commons, and no sooner had he been released
by the Commons than the Lords ordered him to be imprisoned again.
Matters having come to this pass, the two Houses held a conference. The
result might easily have been foreseen. The Lords yielded to the
Commons, and Burlamachi, on rendering an account which had long been
called for, was released from custody together with the others who had
been imprisoned at the same time. Concerning the next two years little
is known; but it seems probable that Burlamachi, who in his petition
praying for release had pleaded old age and infirmities, did not long
survive the indignity to which he had been exposed. At all events, in
1644, either by death or resignation, the office of Master of the Posts
had become vacant, and, as Burlamachi's successor, the House of Commons
appointed Prideaux.
Thus ended the battle of the patents, which had raged more or less
fiercely for more than twenty years. It was long indeed before Lords
Warwick and Stanhope ceased urging their claims, Warwick as Witherings's
assignee, and Stanhope on the allegation that at the Council Table the
Lord Keeper Coventry had cajoled him into surrendering his patent; but
after Prideaux's appointment there was no farther appeal to force.