THE POST OFFICE ACT OF 1711
In 1707, on the passing of the Act of Union between England and
Scotland, the first step taken by the postmasters-general was to alter
the colours of the packets. The cross of St. Andrew, with its blue
ground, united with the red cross of St. George, now became the national
ensign; and the packets no less than the ships of the Royal Navy were
under obligation to carry it.
The Post Office in Scotland was at this time held in farm at a rent of
L1194 a year. The lease expired on the 11th of November, and from that
date the postmasters-general held themselves responsible for the Scotch
no less than the English posts. They at once proceeded to frame an
establishment. George Main, the farmer, was appointed deputy-postmaster
of Edinburgh at a salary of L200, this being the amount which one year
with another he had made out of his contract. Three persons were
appointed to assist him, an accomptant and two clerks. These, with three
letter-carriers at a crown a week each, and a postmaster at the foot of
the Canongate, constituted the Edinburgh establishment.
In the country there were thirty-four postmasters, of whom only twelve
were paid by salary, the remaining twenty-two receiving as their
remuneration a certain proportion of the postage on inland letters.
Thus, three had one-half of this postage, one had one-third, and
eighteen had one-fourth. The highest salaries were given to the
postmasters of Haddington and Cockburnspath, who received L50 apiece,
the reason being no doubt that these two towns were on the direct line
of road between Edinburgh and London. At Aberdeen, the postmaster's
salary was L28; at Glasgow, L25; at Dundee, Montrose, and Inverness,
L15; and at Dumfries and Ayr, L12. Runners[34] at a fixed charge were
maintained between town and town--as, for instance, between Edinburgh
and Aberdeen at L60 a year, between Aberdeen and Inverness at L30 a
year, and between Inverness and Thurso at L18 a year: but except at
Edinburgh there was no letter-carrier, and except between Edinburgh and
Berwick there was no horse-post north of the Tweed. The establishment
charges for the whole of Scotland, Edinburgh included, were less than
L1000 a year.
[34] These runners or post-boys carried the mail through the whole
journey, resting by the way. It was not, according to common repute,
until about the year 1750 that the mail began to be carried from stage
to stage by different post-boys.
But something more was necessary than to frame an establishment and to
alter the colours of the packets. Serious doubts had arisen whether, as
the law stood, the postmasters-general of England were competent to deal
with the posts of Scotland; and, this vital consideration apart, between
the two divisions of the kingdom certain inequalities existed which only
fresh legislation could redress. Under the Scotch Act of 1695 the
postage on a single letter between Edinburgh and Berwick was 2d. Under
the English Act of 1660, 2d. would carry a single letter from Berwick
northwards for only forty miles, and considerably more than forty miles
separated Berwick from Edinburgh. This difference arose no doubt from
mere inaccuracy of reckoning on the English side; and yet it was one
which nothing less than a new Act, an Act by the united Parliament,
would adjust.
It is the more singular that at this time the postmasters-general should
not have taken steps to promote legislation, because, in connection with
the English no less than the Scotch Post Office, there were several
matters on which fresh legislation had become necessary. The statute on
which the very existence of the Post Office itself depended had been
found difficult to deal with, on account of its loose and ambiguous
wording. The postage to America and the West Indies rested on no legal
sanction. For the pence paid upon ship-letters the postmasters-general
had no authority to produce, and the auditors had threatened to
disallow, the payment. Even the penny post was of doubtful legality. The
Courts had indeed decided that Dockwra's undertaking was an infraction
of the rights of the Crown; but they had not decided, nor had they been
called upon to decide, whether in the hands of the Crown the same
undertaking would be legal. The law, as it stood, prescribed no postage
lower than twopence. By the penny post the postage was one half of that
amount.
With these and other matters requiring adjustment, it might well be
supposed that the postmasters-general would have been glad of the
opportunity which the Act of Union afforded to set their house in order.
Yet, so far from taking any steps in that direction, they now remained
perfectly passive. Of the reason for this inaction we are not informed;
but we venture to suggest an explanation. Cotton and Frankland were
advocates of cheap postage. Should fresh legislation be entered upon,
what guarantee had they that postage would not be made dearer? So far,
indeed, as they could judge, such was much more likely than not to be
the case. As early as William's reign they had been asked to estimate
how much an additional penny of postage would produce; and the
necessities of the Civil List which had prompted the inquiry had since
become more and more pressing.
It is not impossible that there was another, though subordinate, reason.
Between Whitehall and Lombard Street communications had been passing
from time to time, which might fairly raise the presumption that
advantage would be taken of any fresh Act to insert a clause under which
all Post Office servants, the postmasters-general included, would be
disfranchised. Cotton and Frankland, who still retained their seats, the
one for Cambridgeshire, and the other for the borough of Thirsk, were
not the men to be deterred by personal considerations from doing what
they conceived to be their duty; but if on principle they objected to an
increase in the rates of postage, it was little calculated to reconcile
them to a measure which they regarded as mischievous that, as a probable
consequence of its introduction, they would lose their seats. But be the
reason what it might, the fact remains that, whereas at one time they
were continually suggesting the propriety of fresh legislation in order
to clear up ambiguities in the existing statute, no such suggestion had
been recently made, and they now remained perfectly silent.
Thus matters stood when, in October 1708, or a year and a half after the
Act of Union had passed, an incident occurred which made silence no
longer possible. Letters of Privy Seal had been issued granting salaries
payable out of the revenue of the Scotch Post Office to certain
professors of the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, and warrants
for payment of these salaries were sent to Lombard Street to be signed.
The postmasters-general, being in doubt whether their signature would be
valid, took the precaution of consulting the law officers. The law
officers' opinion, which was not given until the end of December, must
have struck dismay into the hearts of those who sought it. It was to the
effect that the postmasters-general of England could not act as
postmasters-general of Scotland until they had been to Edinburgh and
taken the oaths prescribed by the Scotch law. A journey to Edinburgh in
those days, especially in the depth of winter, was no light undertaking.
But this was not all. And as soon--the opinion proceeded--as they have
taken the oaths and qualified as postmasters-general of Scotland, they
will cease to be postmasters-general of England.
The warrants were returned to the Treasury unsigned. And now that
silence had once been broken, the postmasters-general offered suggestion
after suggestion, each having for its object to remove the difficulty.
Might not a clause be inserted in some bill now before Parliament, a
clause under which they should be constituted postmasters-general of
Great Britain, and be given jurisdiction over the Scotch as over the
English Post Office? Would not the Scotch bill for drawbacks answer the
purpose, or if that were likely to be displeasing to the North British
members, some one of the many money-bills that were then pending? Would
not the requirements of the law be satisfied if for the management of
the Scotch Post Office some one were appointed by letters patent under
the Privy Seal of Scotland, and placed under the orders of the
postmasters-general of England? Or in view of a recent Act passed by the
united Parliament, might not the English postmasters-general themselves
be so appointed? To these suggestions, of which the first was made in
December 1708, and the last in April 1710, the Lord Treasurer returned
no reply. It was clear that Godolphin had other intentions.
Meanwhile events had taken place in London which must have gone far to
convince the postmasters-general that, impolitic as an increase in the
rates of postage might be, the need for fresh legislation was urgent.
Charles Povey had set up a halfpenny post or, as he called it himself, a
"half-penny carriage." For the sum of one halfpenny he undertook to do
what Dockwra had done, and what the postmasters-general were now doing,
for the sum of one penny. There were indeed points of difference. The
penny post extended not only over the whole of London proper, but to the
remote suburbs; the halfpenny post was confined to the busy parts of the
metropolis, to the cities of London and Westminster and to the borough
of Southwark. For the halfpenny post, again, letters were collected by
the sound of bell. That is to say, Povey's men carried bells, which they
rang as they passed along the streets, and so gave notice of their
approach. This, though no doubt intended merely as an advertisement,
possessed the merit of convenience. People had only to await the coming
of one of these bell-ringers, and letters and parcels which they must
otherwise have carried to the post themselves were carried for them.
Povey fancied himself a second Dockwra; but the two men were as unlike
as the circumstances under which their undertakings were launched.
Dockwra was gentle and conciliatory. Povey was violent and aggressive.
Dockwra disclaimed all intention of transgressing the law. It was only
necessary that his undertaking should become better known, and His Royal
Highness, he felt sure, would withdraw his opposition. Povey expressed
the utmost indifference whether his undertaking was legal or illegal,
and defied the law to do its worst. Dockwra was a pioneer. When he
established his penny post, there was nothing in existence at all
resembling it, nothing with which it competed, and by supplying an
acknowledged want he conferred an inestimable boon upon the community.
Povey, on the contrary, was a mere adventurer. His halfpenny carriage
was in direct opposition to an institution already existing and in full
activity, an institution which supplied every reasonable want, and which
it was the sole purpose of his enterprise to supplant for his own
advantage.
So impudent an infringement of the rights of the Crown could not, of
course, be tolerated, and the postmasters-general called upon Povey to
desist from his undertaking. Povey's reply must have extinguished any
hope they may have entertained of avoiding an appeal to the Courts. He
should certainly not, he said, be so unjust to himself as to lay down
his undertaking at their demand. If they were resolved on trying the
matter at law, he was quite content. And happily, he added, we live not
under such a constitution as Dockwra lived, a constitution made up of an
arbitrary government and bribed judges. Thus defied, the
postmasters-general had only one course to pursue, and that was to bring
an action. As a preliminary step Povey and the keepers of the shops at
which he had opened offices were served with notices setting forth the
illegality of their proceedings. The shopkeepers closed their offices at
once, and Povey was left alone with his bell-ringers.
The man now revealed himself in his true character. When first informed
that an information would be filed against him, he published a pamphlet
in which, after loading the postmasters-general with ridicule and abuse,
he dared them to proceed to trial, declaring that a trial in the Court
of Exchequer was the very thing he desired; but as time drew on and he
found them to be in earnest, he became alarmed and desired to effect a
compromise. With this object he attended at the Post Office and pleaded
his cause in person. If only his bell-ringers might continue to collect
letters for the general post and "such as pass between man and man," he
would pay to the Crown one-tenth more than had yet been received from
the penny post. Or let him take the penny post to farm, and he would pay
double what that post had ever produced. Or was it to his bells that
exception was taken? If so, and if only proceedings were stayed, his
bells should cease to-morrow. But even if at one time such overtures
could have been listened to, it was now too late, and the
postmasters-general so informed him. At this announcement, and while
they were still speaking, Povey bounced from his chair and flung himself
out of the room. The case came on for hearing in Easter term 1710, and
Povey was fined L100.
It may here be mentioned that the practice of collecting letters by the
sound of bell did not cease with the halfpenny carriage. It was adopted
by the Post Office, became general throughout the kingdom, and continued
down to a time well within the recollection of persons still living.[35]
[35] In London the practice continued until the end of 1846; and in
Dublin, which was the last town in the United Kingdom to give it up,
until September 1859.
Although the postmasters-general had won their suit, they were not
altogether satisfied. What Povey had done might be done by others, and
his proceedings, they did not attempt to conceal, had caused them great
annoyance. As soon as he found them bent on suppressing his undertaking,
he had had recourse to artifice. In order that his bell-ringers might
escape molestation, he had changed them about from place to place and
made them assume fictitious names, so that the man who appeared in
Holborn to-day under one name might appear in Westminster to-morrow
under another. The task of fixing evidence had thus been made extremely
difficult, and the postmasters-general had at one time almost given it
up in despair. They also bitterly complained of the law's delays. For no
less than seven months--from the 4th of October 1709 to the 4th of May
1710--the halfpenny post had been in full activity, to the serious
injury of the penny post. Must the institution which had been committed
to their charge remain, for periods of longer or shorter duration, at
the mercy of any unscrupulous person who might choose to follow Povey's
example? Or against future assaults of the same kind was it not possible
to provide themselves with some less cumbrous weapon than they had now
to their hands?
Whether the Act which subsequently passed conferred upon the
postmasters-general all the powers they desired may be open to question,
but there can be no doubt that, after the experience of the past few
months, the prospect of fresh legislation, if not actually welcome, had
lost half its terrors. For fresh legislation, however, the time had not
even yet arrived. It is true that Povey's case, pending the
consideration of which nothing of course could be done, had been heard
and determined; but now political difficulties arose. Godolphin, the
Lord Treasurer, gave way to Harley; and Harley's advent to power was
followed by a general election. It was not until the beginning of
November, or three weeks before the Houses met, that a decision was at
last announced. Subject to the consent of Parliament, the rates of
postage were to be increased, and a bill to carry out the object was to
be prepared at once.
The office of Secretary to the Treasury was at this time held by William
Lowndes, member of Parliament for the borough of Seaford. Lowndes had
written a silly book on the currency, a book in which he endeavoured to
prove that an Act of Parliament, by calling a sixpence a shilling, can
double its purchasing power. He had seriously believed, when the
postmasters-general recommended that the course of post to Warwick
should be direct instead of by way of Coventry, that the recommendation
was due to a bribe. When the postmasters-general were at their wits' end
to put a stop to the illicit traffic in letters, he had suggested--and
it was the only consolation which he had had to offer them--that in
order to defray the expenses of the Civil List every letter passing
through the post should be charged with an additional rate of 1d. Such
was the man to whom was now entrusted the oversight of the Post Office
bill. If confidence in the merits of the measure which the bill was
designed to promote were any recommendation, a better selection could
not have been made. Lowndes had long advocated an increase in the rates
of postage. He had, there can be little doubt, brought Godolphin over to
his views, and now, under Godolphin's successor, he obtained permission
to carry them into effect.
At the Post Office, unfortunately, there was at this time no one to
sound a note of alarm. Cotton was no more. Evelyn, Cotton's successor,
was new to his duties. Frankland was old and gouty. Between Frankland
and Lowndes, moreover, relations we suspect were somewhat strained. At
all events, the fact remains that the postmasters-general, who never
tired of inculcating as the result of experience that low postage
attracts correspondence and high postage repels it, received notice of
the intention to raise the rates without even an attempt to avert the
mischief.
By the middle of December, or little more than six weeks from the time
of the Post Office receiving notice to prepare for fresh legislation,
the bill was in Lowndes's hands. Containing as it did some fifty
clauses, and dealing with a matter of no little complexity, such
despatch might do no discredit even to our own days of high pressure. At
the beginning of the eighteenth century it was out of the common. But
the explanation is simple. Swift, the solicitor to the Post Office, who
was profoundly dissatisfied with the law as it stood, had for years past
employed his leisure moments in framing clauses founded upon his
conception of what the law ought to be, less probably in the hope of
seeing them passed than with the view of giving relief to his feelings.
These clauses he now collected, arranged, and added to, producing what
he conceived to be a model measure. But while the bill had taken only
six weeks to prepare, nearly double that period was occupied in revising
it. Whatever may be thought of Lowndes's understanding, there can be no
question about his industry. Day after day during the next three months
he devoted to the task he had undertaken every moment he could snatch
from his numerous other engagements. In conjunction with Swift, who now
passed most of his time at Whitehall, he went through the bill clause by
clause, discussing and arguing every point, and not seldom making
alterations. Swift, as the representative of the Post Office, knew well
what the Post Office wanted; but Lowndes knew, or thought that he knew,
better, and in this as in other instances superior authority passed
current for superior knowledge. It was not, however, to what for
distinction's sake may be called the Post Office clauses of the bill
that the chief interest attached. To these Lowndes added others, of
which one, while dealing with a matter of the most delicate character,
revealed an intention of which the Post Office had had no previous
notice. The preparation of this clause severely taxed the abilities of
its framers.
As the Post Office revenue was at this time vested in the Crown, the
Crown would, of course, in the absence of express provision to the
contrary, reap the benefit of any increase which additions to the rates
of postage might produce. To divert the increase, or part of the
increase, from the Crown to the public was the object of the clause on
which Lowndes and Swift were now engaged. This clause having at length
been settled to their satisfaction, the bill came before Parliament, and
was with some modifications passed. The new rates as compared with the
old were as follows:--
+------------------+--------------------------+------------------------+
| | 1660. | 1711. |
|FROM LONDON. +---------+--------+-------+--------+--------+------+
| | Single. |Double. |Ounce. |Single. |Double. |Ounce.|
+------------------+---------+--------+-------+--------+--------+------+
|80 miles and under| 2d. | 4d. | 8d. | 3d. | 6d. | 12d. |
|Above 80 miles | 3d. | 6d. | 12d. | 4d. | 8d. | 16d. |
|To Edinburgh | 5d. | 10d. | 20d. | 6d. | 12d. | 24d. |
|To Dublin | 6d. | 12d. | 24d. | 6d. | 12d. | 24d. |
+------------------+---------+--------+-------+--------+--------+------+
+-----------------------------------+--------------------------+
| | 1711. |
|FROM EDINBURGH, within Scotland. +---------+--------+-------+
| | Single. |Double. |Ounce. |
+-----------------------------------+---------+--------+-------+
|50 miles and under | 2d. | 4d. | 8d. |
|Above 50 and not exceeding 80 miles| 3d. | 6d. | 12d. |
|Above 80 miles | 4d. | 8d. | 16d. |
| | | | |
| FROM DUBLIN, within Ireland. | | | |
|40 miles and under | 2d. | 4d. | 8d. |
|Above 40 miles | 4d. | 8d. | 16d. |
+-----------------------------------+---------+--------+-------+
The old rates during the year ending the 29th of September 1710 had
produced L111,461, and the new rates were estimated to produce L36,400
more. Of this increase the whole was to be paid into the Exchequer by
weekly instalments of L700, so that a fund might be established for the
purpose of carrying on the war; and of the surplus, if any, over and
above L147,861, one-third was to be reserved to the disposal of
Parliament for the use of the public. These provisions were to hold good
for thirty-two years, after which the old rates were to be reverted to.
We have already seen how difficult the postmasters-general had found it,
even with the lower rates of postage, to prevent the smuggling of
letters; and of course, in exact proportion as the rates should be
increased, the temptation to smuggle would become greater. This
consequence had been foreseen and provided for. After declaring in the
preamble that, as a condition of the new rates, provision must be made
"for preventing the undue collecting and delivering of letters by
private posts, carriers, higglers, watermen, drivers of stage-coaches,
and other persons," the bill went on to give to the postmasters-general
large powers of search. This clause was regarded as of the highest
importance. Without it, indeed, even Lowndes would hardly have ventured
to suggest that the rates should be increased. To his dismay, however,
and, truth compels us to add, to the dismay also of the Post Office, the
House of Commons, while passing the rates, rejected the searching
clause. Only the declaration in the preamble remained, an enduring
monument of a foolish intention.
Another clause must also be regarded as peculiarly Lowndes's own. This
clause--which, unlike the foregoing, was not rejected--prohibited the
postmasters-general and all persons serving under them from
intermeddling in elections. They were forbidden under heavy penalties
"to persuade any one to give or to dissuade any one from giving his vote
for the choice" of a member of Parliament. Lowndes can hardly have
believed it possible thus to padlock men's mouths. It is still more
difficult to suppose that the clause can have been aimed at Frankland;
and yet assuredly Frankland was the only person whom it affected.
Postmasters and others, it may well be believed, continued to talk and
to argue exactly as they had argued and talked before; but Frankland had
to give up his seat. At the general election in October he had, there
can be little doubt, received a hint of what was coming, for after
sitting for his pocket borough of Thirsk for more than twelve years he
retired from the representation.
So much of the new Act as originated with the Post Office was mainly
directed to clearing up doubts, to supplying omissions, and to making
that legal for which the law had not yet provided. Thus, legal sanction
was given to the penny post, and competition with it was forbidden under
severe penalties. Pence upon ship-letters were not only authorised but
directed to be paid. The rates of postage to America and to the West
Indies were confirmed; and power was given to impose rates upon letters
to other places with which communication might be opened. The Act of
1660 had conferred upon the postmasters-general the exclusive right of
"receiving, taking up, ordering, despatching, sending post or with
speed, and delivering of all letters and packets whatsoever"; but it was
silent on the subject of carrying. This omission the Act of 1711
supplied. The later Act also imposed restrictions on the common carrier.
Hitherto it had been left in doubt what letters he might carry. These
were now defined to be letters which concerned the goods in his waggon
or cart; and they were to be delivered at the same time as the goods and
without hire or reward.
It was not enough that the penny post should receive legal sanction. By
this post, from its first establishment, a single penny had carried only
within London proper. For delivery in the outskirts--as, for instance,
at Islington, Lambeth, Newington, and Hackney, all of which were at this
time separate towns--the Post Office received one penny more. So long,
therefore, as the charge by the general post for a distance not
exceeding eighty miles stood at 2d., it was a mere question of
convenience whether towns in the neighbourhood of London should be
served by that post or by the penny post. In either case the postage on
a single letter was the same, namely 2d. But now that the initial charge
by the general post was raised from 2d. to 3d., it became necessary to
assign a limit beyond which the penny post should not extend; and this
limit was fixed at ten miles, measured from the General Post Office in
Lombard Street.
How little the Post Office had at this time entered into the inner life
of the people may be judged by the fact that such restriction was
possible. In 1711 there were towns distant nearly twenty miles from
London--for instance, Walton-on-Thames, Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, and
Tilbury in Essex--which had long been served by the penny post; and the
penny post carried up to one pound of weight for the same charge for
which the general post carried a single letter. Yet these towns were now
deprived of the facilities which the penny post afforded without, so
far as appears, exciting a murmur.[36]
[36] Even the notice to the public announcing the change was as
unapologetic as it well could be:--"These are to give notice that by the
Act of Parliament for establishing a General Post Office all letters and
packets directed to and sent from places distant ten miles or above from
the said office in London, which before the second of this instant June
were received and delivered by the officers of the penny post, are now
subjected to the same rates of postage as general post letters; and that
for the accommodation of the inhabitants of such places their letters
will be conveyed with the same regularity and dispatch as formerly,
being first taxed with the rates and stamped with the mark of the
General Post Office; and that all parcels will likewise be taxed at the
rate of 2s. per ounce, as the said Act directs."
Under the new Act the Post Office retained the monopoly of furnishing
post-horses. It is to be observed, however, that the charge for each
horse, although remaining the same as before--namely, 3d. a mile, with
4d. a stage for the guide--was now re-enacted apologetically, as though
some compunction had begun to be felt at the interference with the
freedom of contract. The explanation is perhaps to be found in the
recent introduction of stage-coaches and the low prices at which these
vehicles carried passengers. "There is of late," writes an author of the
period, "an admirable commodiousness, both for men and women of better
quality, to travel from London to almost any town of England and to
almost all the villages near this great city, and that is by
stage-coaches, wherein one may be transported to any place, sheltered
from foul weather and foul ways; and this is not only at a low price, as
about 1s. for every five miles, but with such speed, as that the posts
in some foreign countries make not more miles in a day."[37] If a mode
of travelling so luxurious as this appears to have been thought could be
secured for less than 2-1/2d. a mile, a charge of 3d. a mile for a horse
besides a guerdon to the guide may well have appeared to require
justification.
[37] Chamberlayne's _State of England_, 1710.
It may here be noticed that, although the postmasters-general were under
obligation to supply horses on demand, and, failing to do so, became
liable to a penalty, the control which they exercised over the
travelling post appears to have been of the slightest. It is true that
they would now and again complain of a postmaster for keeping bad
horses; but the badness would always be with reference to the horses'
capacity to carry the mails. Whether they were fit or unfit for the use
of travellers appears never to have troubled headquarters. Except,
indeed, for some little exertion of authority on rare occasions and in
circumstances out of the common,[38] it would almost seem that the
postmasters-general had ceased to regard the travelling post as a matter
in which they had any concern. It is not very clear why this should have
been so. But perhaps the explanation is that in the case of the
travelling post, unlike that of the letter post, a postmaster's interest
and duty were identical; if horses were wanted, he was under the
strongest inducement to supply them; and the danger to be apprehended
was not that travellers would be neglected, but that they might be
accommodated at the expense of the mails.
[38] The following letter affords an instance of the exertion of
authority referred to in the text:--
To the DEPUTIES between LONDON and TINMOUTH.
GENERAL POST OFFICE,
_April 6, 1708_.
GENTLEMEN--The bearer hereof, Mr. John Farra, being directed by order of
the Lord High Treasurer to proceed to Tinmouth on the publick affairs of
the Government, I am ordered by the postmasters-general to require you
to furnish the said gentleman with a single horse [_i.e._ a horse
without a guide] if required through your several stages, he being well
acquainted with the roads and coming recommended by such authority,
which by their order is signified by, Gentlemen, your most humble
servant,
B. WATERHOUSE,
_Secretary_.
On one point, no doubt because it involved a question of prerogative
rather than law, the new Act was silent; and yet it was a point of high
importance and, as it afterwards became the subject of legal enactment,
this may be a convenient time to mention it. We refer to the privilege
conceded to certain persons to send and receive their letters free of
postage, or, to use the term by which it was commonly known, the
franking system. The persons who enjoyed this privilege were the Chief
Officers of State and the members of the two Houses of Parliament. The
Chief Officers of State, or ministers as they had now begun to be
called, were entitled to send and receive their letters free at all
times and without limit in point of weight. The members of the two
Houses were so entitled only during the session of Parliament and for
forty days before and after, and in their case the weight was limited to
two ounces.
The privilege had already been greatly abused. Secretaries of State
would not scruple to send under their frank the letters of their friends
and their friends' friends as well as their own. In 1695 Blaithwaite,
who was then Secretary of War, carried the practice to such an extent as
to evoke from the postmasters-general a vigorous remonstrance. "We
cannot deny," they said, "but this has been too much a practice in all
tymes, and we are sure you will not blame us for wishing itt were
amended, being soe very prejudicial to His Majestye's revenue under our
management." The practice extended, and in 1705 a warrant under the
sign-manual, after enumerating afresh the Officers of State who were
entitled to frank, expressly charged them not "to cover any man's
letters whatsoever other than their own," and, as regards any letters
which might come addressed to their care for private persons, to send
them to the Post Office to be taxed and delivered.
The abuses identified with the letters of members of Parliament were of
wider scope. Lavishly as members might use their names as a means of
franking, the use was not confined to themselves and their friends. On
the part of the London booksellers and other persons who might hesitate
to incur the risk of imitating another man's signature it had become a
common practice to assume the name of some member of Parliament, and
under that name to have their letters addressed to them at particular
coffee-houses; and as their correspondents in the country adopted a
similar device, the letters passing to and fro escaped postage. Cotton
and Frankland had not been long at the Post Office before this practice
arrested their attention, and in 1698 the warrant which granted to the
members of the new Parliament the usual exemption from postage was
expressly designed to check the abuse. "To prevent abuses," thus the
warrant ran, "that were formerly practised[39] to the prejudice of our
revenue by divers persons who, though they were not members, yet
presumed to indorse the names of members of Parliament on their letters
and direct their letters to members of Parliament which really did not
belong to them," our will and pleasure is that members "will constantly
with their owne hands indorse their names upon their owne letters, and
not suffer any other letters to pass under their ffrank, cover, or
direction but such as shall concerne themselves." Successive warrants
issued between 1698 and 1711 were expressed in the same or nearly the
same terms, what little variations there were only serving to shew that
the practice against which the warrants were directed had become more
general.
[39] In documents intended for the public eye it was the practice of the
postmasters-general--and it was by them that these warrants were
prepared--to speak of an existing abuse as an abuse that was past. This
was, of course, to avoid giving offence.
But now the postmasters-general could no longer conceal from themselves
that, unwarrantable as might be the liberties taken with members' names,
the members themselves were by no means blameless. That they were
scattering their franks with boundless profusion was beyond doubt; and
the question which the postmasters-general set themselves to solve was,
How was this profusion to be checked? As the best expedient they could
devise, they prepared for the Queen's signature a fresh warrant which,
as a hint to members for the regulation of their own conduct, referred
to Her Majesty's condescension in allocating a portion of the Post
Office revenue towards defraying the expenses of the war. Of previous
warrants copies had been posted up in the lobby of the House and in the
Speaker's chamber. Of the present warrant copies were to be distributed
with the votes so as to secure that every member should have a copy.
The immediate effect of the Act of 1711 was, as might have been
foreseen, enormously to stimulate clandestine traffic. The Post Office
could do little to check it. In London officers were appointed whose
duty it was to frequent the roads leading into the capital and keep a
watch on all higglers and drivers of coaches who were notoriously
carrying letters in defiance of the law. In the country the
postmasters-general could get nothing done. In vain they urged upon the
Treasury the paramount importance of appointing officers who should
travel about the country and be authorised to open the mail bags at odd
times and unexpectedly. By no other means, they declared, was it
possible to keep any check upon either the London or the country
letters. The London letters might not be charged correctly by the clerks
of the roads; and of the country letters, it was perfectly well known,
only a very small proportion was charged at all. But all to no purpose.
The officers whom the postmasters-general proposed to appoint were to
receive for remuneration and travelling expenses together L1 a day, and
the Treasury declined to sanction the expense.
This, even for the Treasury, has always appeared to us a masterpiece of
perversity. That large sums were being diverted into the pockets of the
postmasters had been admitted in the Act itself;[40] nor could it be
denied that the tendency of the Act was to make these sums larger. And
yet the abuse was to be allowed to go on unchecked because its
correction would involve a small outlay. For four years this penny-wise
and pound-foolish policy continued, and it was not until 1715, as the
consequence of a strong representation from Frankland and Evelyn's
successors, that the officers whose appointment these two
postmasters-general had consistently advocated were added to the
establishment under the title of surveyors. To surprise the mail bags in
course of transit and to check their contents--such was the humble
function originally assigned to officers who have since become as
indispensable to the Post Office as the mainspring is to a watch or the
driving wheel to a steam engine.
[40] "And whereas divers deputy postmasters do collect great quantities
of post letters called by or way letters and, by clandestine and private
agreements amongst themselves, do convey the same post in their
respective mails, or by bags, according to their several directions,
without accounting for the same or endorsing the same on their bills, to
the great detriment of Her Majesty's revenues."--9 Anne, cap. x. sec.
18.
It may here be noticed that the decisions which the postmasters-general
received were not all of them conceived in the same spirit. So different
indeed was the treatment of questions relating to home communications
and communications with foreign parts as almost to suggest that they had
been referred to different tribunals. Was the packet service which had
come to an end through Dummer's misfortunes to be re-established or not?
The cost was far, very far, in excess of the receipts; and yet the
direction to the Post Office was to consult the West India merchants,
and to be guided by their wishes. The two packets between Falmouth and
the Groyne, which had been left running at the close of the war, were
after a time discontinued. They cost L1600 a year to maintain, and the
annual receipts from the letters and passengers they carried were less
than L450. Yet upon a representation from the merchants trading with
Spain pointing out the inconvenience which the stoppage had caused them,
the boats were restored at once. But all such questions were decided by
the Lord Treasurer himself, and his decisions were communicated under
his own signature, or else under the sign-manual.
Very different was it with questions affecting intercourse within the
kingdom. These, urgently as the postmasters-general might press them,
received little or no attention. They would seem indeed to have been
relegated to subordinates, who having been instructed to keep down
expense proceeded to obey their orders without discrimination. Whether
the packet agent at Dover had in his cups refused to drink to the health
of the ministers, or whether the postmaster of Chester had said that
Queen Anne, had she pursued the same course as was pursued by Charles
the First, would have met with the same fate--these were questions of
vital importance which must be investigated with all convenient speed;
but when the question was merely one of improving the internal posts of
the country, it was treated at leisure, and no considerations of public
convenience, or even of prospective gain, were allowed to weigh against
the bugbear of present expense. In 1710, for instance, the Lord Provost
and magistrates of Glasgow had petitioned that the foot-post to
Edinburgh might be converted into a horse-post. The mail would thus
arrive sooner and leave later, and, as the petitioners pointed out,
letters would fall into it which had heretofore been sent by private
hand. Between a horse-post and a foot-post the difference in point of
cost was L20 a year; and for the sake of this small sum the Treasury had
refused the request, just as they now refused to sanction the
appointment of surveyors, although the postmasters-general clearly
demonstrated that by no other means could the misappropriation of
postage be checked, and that within a few months the cost would be
covered many times over.
But the addition to the establishment of a few appointments more or less
was not the most serious charge which the Act of 1711 entailed. The Post
Offices over a great part of England were then in farm. How, within the
area over which these Post Offices extended, was the State to derive any
benefit from the higher postage? The postage, whatever it might be, was
under their leases secured to the farmers; and the farmers were under no
obligation to pay any higher rent than that for which they had
stipulated. This difficulty, which had without doubt been overlooked,
took a most unexpected turn. The farmers had had only a short experience
of the new rates before they found that these rates, far from bringing
them a golden harvest, were fast contributing to their ruin; that they
were in effect prohibitive rates; that the letters passing to and fro
were getting fewer and fewer; and that the increase of charge by no
means made up for the decrease in number. In short, the Crown or those
who represented the Crown had taken for granted that under the new
rates the returns would be relatively higher than under the old, whereas
the farmers found to their cost that the returns were actually lower.
Never, perhaps, has there been a more striking demonstration of the
unwisdom of high rates of postage. In this dilemma the postmasters-general
had recourse to an expedient which appears to have been considered
satisfactory on both sides. They cancelled all the leases, nine
in number,[41] and under the title of managers, appointed the
farmers to superintend the Post Offices embraced within the area
over which their farms extended. The managers who had heretofore been at
the cost of the postmasters' salaries were to be relieved from this and
all other payments; and as remuneration for their services they were to
receive one-tenth part of the net produce derived from the postage.
[41] The leases of seven out of the nine branches were cancelled in
1716; and those of the other two the postmasters-general expressed their
intention of cancelling with as little delay as possible. And yet as
regards one of the number, viz. the Chichester branch, there is reason
to doubt whether it did not survive until the year 1769.
Two questions may here be asked, to neither of which is it easy to give
even a plausible reply. Of these the first is, How did it happen that
the postmasters-general, who without authority from Whitehall could not
even convert a foot-post into a horse-post, were able on their own
motion to sanction an arrangement, the practical effect of which was to
add to the establishment not only a large number of small salaries,
amounting in the aggregate to a formidable total, but also a dead-weight
annuity of nearly L2000 a year? This is an obscurity which we confess
ourselves unable to penetrate. We can only record the fact, a fact the
more surprising because only recently Godolphin had laid it down under
his own hand that in the Post Office "all extraordinary payments or
allowances are to be vouched by warrant from Her Majesty or myself, or
from the Lord High Treasurer or the Commissioners of the Treasury for
the time being." The second question is hardly less perplexing. How,
except in name, did managers differ from surveyors, whose appointment
the postmasters-general were urging, and urging in vain? Or what could
surveyors have done which it was not equally competent to managers to
do? This question also we cannot answer. We only know that the very men
who as farmers had rendered signal service to the Post Office, and
earned the gratitude of the districts over which their farms extended,
were found as managers to be of little use, even if they did not league
themselves with the postmasters to intercept the postage.
Difficulties from an unexpected quarter added to the confusion into
which, as the result of the Act of 1711, the Post Office was drifting.
As soon as peace was declared, it became necessary to arrive at an
agreement with France as to the conditions on which the British mails
should pass through French territory. M. Pajot was still comptroller of
the posts in Paris; and he proved to be hardly less untractable than
before the war. Frankland and Evelyn committed their case to the care of
Matthew Prior, who was at that time minister plenipotentiary to the
Court of France. Prior, who had hated his commissionership of customs
because, as Swift tells us, he was ever dreaming of cockets and dockets
and other jargon, could hardly be expected to give his mind to anything
so prosaic as postage and letter bills. The matter, moreover, was one of
a highly technical character, and, without fuller information than could
be contained in the most precise instructions, a far abler negotiator
than Prior could claim to be might easily have found himself
overmatched. Pajot, presuming on his superior knowledge, put forward the
most extravagant demands; and it was not until an expert had been sent
from London, upon whom it would have been useless to attempt to impose,
that he abated his pretensions. Extravagant demands were now followed by
frivolous objections, and at the last moment, when the conditions were
practically settled, he actually refused to proceed further unless "Her
Britannic Majesty," an expression employed in the Post Office treaty,
were altered to "The Queen of Great Britain."
Vexatious as these proceedings were, the result was more vexatious
still. Before the war a lump sum of 36,000 livres a year had been paid
for the transit of the British mails across French territory. Pajot now
refused to accept any lump sum at all. He insisted that each letter
passing through France should be charged for separately, according to
the French postage; and high as the English postage was, the French
postage was higher still. In vain the postmasters-general pointed out
that by virtue of such an arrangement they would on many letters have to
pay more than Act of Parliament permitted them to receive. Pajot replied
in effect that this was their affair and not his; and no better terms
could they get. The treaty was eventually signed, and its onerous
provisions will best be shewn by an example. On a single letter from
Italy the postage prescribed by the Act of 1711 was fifteenpence, and on
a letter weighing one ounce sixty pence. This was all which the Act
permitted the postmasters-general to collect; and yet, under the terms
of the treaty, the postage for which they had to account to the French
Post Office was in the one case twenty-one sous and in the other
eighty-four.
To this treaty we are indeed indebted for one piece of information. It
gives us--what is not to be found elsewhere--a definition of the terms
single and double as applied to letters. It is strange that the Acts of
1660 and 1711, while imposing distinctive rates on single and double
letters, nowhere define what single and double letters are. This
omission the treaty of 1713 supplies. "That piece," the treaty provides,
"is to be esteemed a single letter which hath no sealed letter inclosed,
and that to be esteemed a double letter which hath inclosures and is
under the weight of an ounce." It will be interesting to note how far
the Post Office adhered to its own definition.
On the accession of George the First, when almost every place of honour
and profit under the Crown changed hands, the Post Office did not
escape; and Frankland and Evelyn were succeeded by Cornwallis and
Craggs. The natural tendency of the provision which had made members of
the House of Commons ineligible for the office of postmasters-general
was to throw the office into the hands of peers; and although this
tendency did not fully develop itself until later in the century, the
appointment of Lord Cornwallis was a first move in that direction. Peers
have in our own time been among the ablest of the many able
administrators who have presided over the Post Office; but at the
beginning of the eighteenth century the conditions attaching to the
appointment were in some respects different from what they are to-day.
The postmasters-general had to write their own letters; their attendance
was both early and late and during fixed hours; and they were expected
to reside at the Post Office. Whether from a disinclination to satisfy
these conditions, or on the score of health, which he was constantly
pleading, Cornwallis had not been long in Lombard Street before he
retired into the country, and left the conduct of affairs pretty much to
his colleague. Craggs--or Craggs senior as he was commonly called, to
distinguish him from his son, the Secretary of State--was an
industrious, plain-spoken man; and deeply as he afterwards became
implicated in the South Sea Scheme, there is no reason to suppose that
his proceedings as postmaster-general would not bear inspection.
Cornwallis and Craggs had been only a short time at the Post Office
before they became profoundly impressed with what they found there. The
managers withholding the postmasters' salaries, the postmasters
recouping and a good deal more than recouping themselves out of the
postage, the post-boys--for so they had begun to be called--clandestinely
carrying letters for what they could get, the inordinate number
of franked letters--these were among the abuses which arrested
the new postmaster-generals' attention; but what excited their
most lively surprise was that there should exist a branch of the King's
revenue upon the subordinate agents of which there was absolutely no
check. At length, on a representation from them as to the scandal of
allowing such a state of things to continue, consent was obtained to the
appointment of surveyors; and the dismissal of the managers speedily
followed.
These remedial measures, though good as far as they went, affected only
the internal administration of the Post Office. Of its troubles from
without, and how they had been increased by recent legislation,
Cornwallis and Craggs were no less sensible than their predecessors; but
here they had no remedy to apply. "The additional penny," they wrote in
March 1716, within eighteen months of their appointment, "has never
answered in proportion, and we find by every day's experience that it
occasions the people to endeavour to find out other conveyances for
their letters." "The additional tax," they wrote again two years later,
"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."
As with the clandestine traffic, so with the abuse of the franking
privilege. In isolated cases, where the abuse was more than usually
glaring, the postmasters-general would write to the erring member a
letter of mild expostulation, affecting to believe him more sinned
against than sinning;[42] but even if this had any effect in the
particular instance, to stem the torrent was beyond their power. In
Great Britain alone the postage represented by the franked letters,
excluding those which were or which purported to be on His Majesty's
service, amounted in 1716 to what was for that time, relatively to the
total Post Office revenue, the enormous sum of L17,500 a year. In
Ireland the members followed the example of their English colleagues, if
indeed they did not improve upon it. In 1718 the Irish Parliament sat
for three months, and in 1719 it sat for nine months; and it was only
during the session, and for forty days before and after, that letters
could be franked. Cornwallis and Craggs had now been some years at the
Post Office; and yet, with all their experience of the extent to which
the abuse of franking was carried, they were startled to see the effect
which the duration of Parliament had upon the receipts. In 1718 the
gross revenue of the Irish Post Office--and in the gross revenue was
reckoned the postage on members' letters, the postage which these
letters would have paid if they had not been franked--amounted to
L14,592, and the net revenue to L3066. In 1719, although the gross
revenue rose to L19,522, an amount higher by L4930 than in the preceding
year, the net revenue fell from L3066 to L753. Such was the effect upon
the revenue of a difference of six months in the duration of the two
Parliaments.
[42] Here are two letters they wrote:--
To Mr. CULVERT.
_Nov. 1, 1714._
SIR--As the three inclosed letters are directed to you in several places
we have reason to think that some persons have presumed to take the
liberty of your name. This practice is so great an abuse upon this
office, and so very prejudicial to His Majesty's revenue, that we must
desire you'll be pleased to send such letters inclosed that don't belong
to you to the office to be charged; and we are very well assured you'll
discourage the like practice for the future.
--We are, sir, your most humble servants,
T. FRANKLAND
J. EVELYN.
To Sir RICHARD GROSVENOR, Bart.
_April 29, 1715._
SIR--Having observed a letter directed to the Rev. Mr. Harwood at
Billingsgate that arrived here yesterday in an Irish mail frank't with
your name in Ireland, and knowing that you are in England, we have
reason to think that somebody in that kingdom has taken the liberty of
signing your name to the prejudice of His Majesty's revenue, which is a
practice that we are convinced you will discourage, and it is in order
thereunto that you have this trouble from your most humble servants,
CORNWALLIS.
JAMES CRAGGS.
To add to the postmaster-generals' troubles, the merchants of London,
groaning under the onerous rates of postage, had recourse to an
expedient in order to evade them. They associated themselves together,
and all those who had occasion to write to a particular place, though to
different persons, would write on the same piece of paper and under the
same cover. The postmasters-general contended that these several
writings should be charged as separate letters; the merchants contended
that there was but one letter, and that it should pass for a single rate
of postage.
Their next step was to dispute the postmaster-generals' reading of the
statute. Under the law as passed in 1660, and re-enacted in 1711,
merchants' accounts not exceeding one sheet of paper, and all bills of
exchange, invoices, and bills of lading, were "to be allowed without
rate in the price of letters"; in other words, the weight of these
documents was not to be reckoned in the weight of a letter for the
purpose of charging it with postage. This exemption, however, had
hitherto been allowed only in the case of foreign letters; and the
postmasters-general held that such was the intention of the statute. The
merchants retorted that no such intention was expressed, and that to act
as though it had been brought about this anomaly--that on a letter
containing any one of the documents in question the charge from
Constantinople was actually less than from Bristol. Was it possible that
the Legislature could ever have enacted such an absurdity? It was an old
contention, as old as the Post Office itself,[43] and the merchants took
the present opportunity to revive it. On both questions Northey, the
Attorney-General, advised that the Post Office should adhere to its
ancient practice as the best expositor of the meaning of the new law;
but excellent as this advice may have been, its adoption failed to
satisfy the merchants and it was not until a declaratory Act had been
passed that they ceased to contest the points.
[43] A strongly-worded petition on the subject was presented to
Parliament only a year or two after the Restoration. This petition,
after calling the charge an "abuse and extortion," goes on to say that
"it cannot be imagined the Parliament should either so far forget
themselves, or the countrey for which they served, or the necessary and
convenient correspondence, as well as the trade of His Majesties
dominions, as to put them upon worse and harder tearms than foreigners,
or foreign trade, to the prejudice of the kingdom...."
Much the same sort of thing occurred a few years later in connection
with the penny post. From the first establishment of this undertaking
1d. had carried only within the bills of mortality; for delivery beyond
those limits had been charged 1d. more. Some persons now refused to pay
the additional penny, on the ground that it was not prescribed by law.
This was perfectly true. The penny post owed its legal sanction to the
Act of 1711; and this Act merely provided that "for the post of all and
every the letters and packets passing or repassing by the carriage
called the penny post, established and settled within the cities of
London and Westminster and borough of Southwark and parts adjacent, and
to be received and delivered within ten English miles distant from the
General Letter Office in London [shall be demanded and received the sum
of] 1d." Again an Act of Parliament had to be passed in order to
assimilate law and practice. This Act, which was not obtained until
1730, made legal the twopenny post, just as the penny post was made
legal by the Act of 1711; although, as a matter of fact, both posts had
been in existence since April 1680.
In 1721 Lowndes, who was still at the Treasury, called for a return of
the Post Office income and expenditure. Ten years had now elapsed since
the imposition of the new rates. Of these ten years eight, as compared
with the eight which preceded them, had been years of prosperity and
peace; the population had increased, and the reductions in the packet
service had effected a saving of many thousand pounds a year. Certainly
the circumstances had not on the whole been unfavourable for testing the
results of the new policy. The return was rendered. During the year
ending the 29th of September the gross Post Office revenue was, in 1721,
L168,968, and in 1710, L111,461, being an increase of L57,507; in 1721
the cost of management was L69,184, as against L44,639 in 1710; and the
net revenue, which in 1710 had been L66,822, was in 1721 L99,784, an
increase of L32,962. But the case does not end here. Under the terms of
the Act the sum of L700 a week, or L36,400 a year, was to be allocated
to a specific object. This sum had been regularly paid into the
Exchequer, and, after deducting it from the net revenue, there remained
for the use of the Sovereign a balance of L63,384, or less than in 1710
by L3438.
While the contingency of a loss to the Civil List had not been either
foreseen or provided against, elaborate precautions had been taken for
the disposal of a surplus. If the gross Post Office revenue should
exceed the sum of L147,861, the excess was to be divided between the
Sovereign and the public in the proportion of one-third to the public
and two-thirds to the Sovereign. As a matter of fact, the gross Post
Office revenue in 1721 had exceeded, and exceeded by a considerable
amount, the sum of L147,861; and yet there was no excess to divide. The
plain truth is that, in preparing the Act of 1711, Lowndes had forgotten
the cost of management. It must have sounded strange in the ears of an
assistant Chancellor of the Exchequer to be told, as Cornwallis and
Craggs did not scruple to tell him, that he had confounded gross and net
revenue, and that by this blunder Parliament had been misled.
The Act of 1711, disastrous as it proved in its effects on the wellbeing
and morality of the nation, is only one more instance of the mischief
which may be done with the best intentions; and it was perhaps meet that
its author should have remained long enough at his post to witness the
results of his own handiwork.