CHAPTER X

RALPH ALLEN

1720-1764

There was one who realised not less fully than the postmasters-general

themselves the difficulties by which they were beset. He knew well, even

better than they, how letters were being kept out of the post and

transmitted clandestinely, and how even on letters which fell into the

post the postage was being intercepted. But while the postmasters-general

regarded the evil as incurable, he thought that it might at all

events be mitigated. This was Ralph Allen, the postmaster of

Bath. Allen's experience in postal matters was probably unrivalled.

He had, it might almost be said, been cradled and nursed in the Post

Office. The son of an innkeeper at St. Blaise, he had, at eleven years

of age, been placed under the care of his grandmother, who, on the post

road being diverted from South to Mid-Cornwall, was appointed

postmistress of St. Columb. Here the regularity and neatness with which

the lad kept the accounts gained for him the approval of the district

surveyor when on a tour of inspection; and shortly afterwards, probably

through the surveyor's influence, he obtained a situation in the Post

Office at Bath. It is said that while in this situation, intelligence

having reached him that a waggon-load of arms was on its way from the

West for the use of the disaffected, he placed himself in communication

with General Wade, who was then quartered at Bath with his troops, and

that it was by this service that he first brought himself into notice;

but be that as it may, it is certain that when Quash the old postmaster

died, Allen was appointed in Quash's room.

In 1719 Allen offered to take in farm the bye and cross-post letters,

giving as rent half as much again as these letters had ever produced. It

was a bold offer, and, coming as it did from a young man only twenty-six

years of age, and presumably without capital, not one to be accepted

precipitately. Allen proceeded to London and had frequent interviews

with the postmasters-general. The earnestness of his convictions and the

modest assurance with which he expressed them invited confidence, and on

the 12th of April 1720 a contract was signed, the conditions of which

were to come into operation on the Midsummer Day following.

Much as we desire to avoid the employment of technical terms, it is

necessary here to explain that letters, exclusive of those passing

through the penny post, were technically divided into four

classes--London letters, country letters, bye or way letters, and

cross-post letters. For purposes of illustration we will take Bath, the

city in which Allen resided. 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. It was only with the last two classes of

letters that Allen had to do. The London and country letters were

outside the sphere of his operations.

On the bye and cross-post letters the postage for the year 1719 had

amounted to L4000. Allen was to give L6000 a year; and in consideration

of this rent he was for a period of seven years to receive the whole of

the revenue which these letters should produce. Some letters indeed

were excepted, namely Scotch letters, Irish letters, packet letters,

"all Parliament men's letters during the privilege of Parliament," and

such letters as "usually goe free," that is, letters for the High

Officers of State or, as we should now say, letters on His Majesty's

service. No post under Allen's control, whether a new or an old one, was

to go less than three times a week; and the mails were to be carried at

a speed of not less than five miles an hour. He was also to keep in

readiness "a sufficient number of good and able horses with convenient

furniture," not only for the mails but for expresses and for the use of

travellers. One condition of the contract may seem a little hard.

Allen's own officers were to be appointed and their salaries to be fixed

by the postmasters-general, and to these officers he was to give no

instructions which had not first been submitted for the

postmaster-generals' approval.

Allen by his sterling qualities had won the confidence of his

fellow-townsmen at Bath, and there can be little doubt that they now

gave him practical proof of the estimation in which he was held. It is

difficult to understand how else he can have raised the funds necessary

for the purposes of his undertaking. In the very first quarter, between

the 24th of June and the 29th of September 1720, he expended in what may

be called his plant as much as L1500, and made himself responsible for

salaries to the amount of L3000 a year. But heavy as the expenses were,

the receipts bore a most gratifying proportion. From the bye and

cross-post letters the postmasters-general had received, at the highest,

L4000 a year. Allen in his first quarter received L2946. These

first-fruits, while viewed by Allen with equanimity, threw the

postmasters-general into transports of delight, such delight as men feel

when they find themselves to have been true prophets. "See," they said

in a letter to the Treasury dated the 10th of November, "how right we

were. We told you that the greater part of the postage on these letters

was going into the pockets of the postmasters, and that to accept Mr.

Allen's proposal was the only way to check the malversation." But the

promise of the first quarter was not fulfilled. The system of check and

countercheck on which Allen relied for the success of his plan depended

largely, as the postmasters were not slow to discover, on their own

co-operation; and this they refused to give.

Nor can we feel surprise that it should have been so. Of the postmasters

some received no salary at all, while others received the merest

pittance. It could not in reason be expected that they would give their

services gratuitously or, as the postmasters-general were pleased to

think, in return for the copy of a newspaper once a week. Postmasters,

like other men, must live, and they no doubt reasoned that, as the State

did not pay them, they were forced to pay themselves. It must also be

remembered that the offence of intercepting postage, heinous as it would

now be considered, may in those days have been regarded in a somewhat

different light. Some postmasters, as remuneration for their services,

were authorised to withhold a certain proportion of the postage; and

numerous were the complaints that in this particular the liberty

accorded to some was not extended to others. It is probable, therefore,

that many a postmaster, when accounting for less postage than he had

actually received, excused himself on the plea that he was only doing

without authority that for which authority had been given to others, and

which should not in his judgment have been denied to himself.

But whatever apologies they may have found for their conduct, the fact

remains that Allen's contract had been only a few months in operation

before the postmasters resumed their old practices, and, seeing clearly

enough that his plan when once fairly floated would deprive them of a

profitable source of income, they not only withheld all co-operation but

obstructed him by every means in their power. To such an extent indeed

was this obstruction carried that at the end of three years Allen, far

from realising the promise of the first quarter, found himself a loser

to the amount of L270. Although things now began to improve, the

improvement was slow, and in June 1727, when the contract expired,

Allen had established his plan completely on only four out of the six

main roads of the kingdom. On the Yarmouth road he had established it

only partially, and on the Kent road not at all.

Circumstances so far favoured Allen that the demise of the Crown, which

must in any case have terminated his contract, took place within a

fortnight of the date on which the contract would have expired in the

ordinary course. The period of seven years for which it was made expired

on the 24th of June 1727, and the King died on the 11th. A renewal of

the contract could not in justice be refused. Not only had Allen been

obstructed in the execution of his plan and put to heavy expenses which,

except for such obstruction, would not have been necessary, but in

fixing the amount of his rent a mistake had been made to his prejudice.

He had agreed to pay half as much again as the bye and cross-road

letters had ever produced, and it is true that the postage represented

by these letters had amounted to L4000 a year; but it had been

overlooked that the whole of this amount had not been collected, and

that for the purpose of fixing the rent the sum of L300 should have been

deducted on account of letters which could not be delivered, and on

which, therefore, no postage had been received. Allen, while making no

claim for the return of the amount overpaid, pleaded the fact of

overpayment as an additional reason for enlarging his term. The

postmasters-general were not less solicitous than Allen himself that his

services should be continued. They had, during the last seven years,

received on account of bye and cross-post letters L6000 a year, where

before they had received only L4000, or, allowing for the sum not

collected, L3700; and during the same period the country letters, far

from falling off as had been predicted, had improved to the extent of

L735 a year, a result which was attributed to the vigilance of Allen's

surveyors. These reasons were regarded as conclusive, and, subject to

the condition that he should appoint an additional surveyor and lose no

time in completing his plan, Allen's contract was extended for a further

period of seven years.

While Allen is perfecting his arrangements, it may not be amiss to

glance at the condition of affairs as he found them. Houses were still

unnumbered. On letters even to persons of position the addresses could

be indicated only by their proximity to some shop or place of public

resort. "For the R^{t.} Hon^{able.} the Lady Compton next door to Mr.

Massy's Wachmaker in Charles Street near S^{t.} James's Square, London."

"To the Right Hon^{ble.} Lady Compton next door to the Dyall in Charles

Street near S^{t.} James Squir--London." "Pray derickt for me att my

Lady norrise near the Theater in Oxford."[44] To the Court and the Downs

the post went every day; but to no town, however large, did it go more

than thrice a week. Of cross-posts there were only two in the kingdom,

the post from Exeter to Chester and the post from Bath to Oxford.

Outside London, Chester was the only town in England which could boast

of two Post Offices; and these two Post Offices were not for letters in

the same direction. One was for general post letters, and the other for

letters by the Exeter cross-road, an arrangement which presupposed a

knowledge of topography not probably possessed even in the present day.

The cathedral town of Ripon had no Post Office at all. Not many years

before, the inhabitants had asked for one and the request had been

regarded as little less than audacious. "We could not think it

reasonable," wrote the postmasters-general, "to put Her Majesty to the

expense of a salary to a Deputy att Ripon." The utmost concession that

could be obtained was that the letters for that town should be made up

into a packet by themselves and put into the mouth of the Boroughbridge

bag, and, on arrival at Boroughbridge, be despatched to Ripon at once by

a messenger on horseback. This messenger was to deliver them with all

expedition, and to remain at Ripon for replies, leaving only in time to

catch the return-mail from the North. Charges on letters over and above

the legal postage were general. Not a single letter passed between

Yarmouth and the Great North Road without a charge of 3d. as the

postmaster's perquisite. At Gosport a perquisite of similar amount was

claimed on every bye-letter. In the neighbourhood of Chesterfield the

inhabitants paid for every letter they received in no case less than 2d.

in addition to the postage, and in some cases as much as 4d.; and so it

was, with variations as to the amount, in every part of the kingdom.

Only the wealthy could afford to use the post, and even they, on account

of the want of facilities, used it sparingly. How far the post was at

this time removed from being a matter of common concern might, if other

evidence were wanting, be inferred from one solitary fact. In 1728 a

book was published,[45] one chapter of which professed to give a

detailed account of the posts of the period, and assuredly the account

it gave was detailed enough; but of the posts as we understand them,

that is to say, as a vehicle for the transmission of letters, there was

from the beginning to the end of the chapter not a single word. By the

term posts nothing more was meant than the post for travellers, and, for

anything that appeared to the contrary, the letter post might have had

no existence.

[44] Historical Manuscripts Commission, Appendix to Eleventh Report,

Part iv. pp. 233, 234.

[45] _British Curiosities in Art and Nature, likewise an Account of the

Posts, Markets, and Fair-Towns_, 1728.

And perhaps this may be a convenient place to say a few words about

those who had presided over the Post Office during the first five or six

years of Allen's connection with it. Edward Carteret and Galfridus

Walpole, who had succeeded Cornwallis and Craggs in 1721, possessed in a

high degree the qualities which endear men to their subordinates,--a

sense of justice, consideration for others, and a rooted dislike to

high-handed proceedings. In these respects they bore a striking contrast

to their immediate predecessors. We will give instances.

When Cornwallis and Craggs assumed the direction of the Post Office,

their first step was to dismiss the secretary, Henry Weston. The

circumstances were peculiarly hard. Weston's father had been

receiver-general for the county of Surrey, and in this capacity he had

contracted a heavy debt to the Crown. It was the son's ambition to pay

off this debt and to provide a home for his mother and sisters. By force

of industry and self-denial he had just succeeded in securing both

objects when a change of postmasters-general resulted in his summary

dismissal. Weston naturally appealed against so arbitrary an act.

Cornwallis and Craggs, to whom his antecedents were well known, while

commending the young man as an object worthy of the royal benevolence,

resented as unreasonable and little short of impertinent his reluctance

to give up a situation which they desired for a nominee of their own.

Far different was the treatment accorded by Carteret and Walpole to

those who were committed to their charge. Mary Lovell had for more than

thirty years kept the receiving office in St. James's Street. On the

11th of March 1725 the Earl of Abercorn entered this office, holding in

his hand a letter addressed to his son at Cambray, and inquired what

postage had to be paid upon it. The woman replied that there was only

1d. to pay, this being the charge by the penny post, and that the

remaining postage of 3s. would be payable on delivery. Abercorn

questioned the accuracy of this information, and insisted on paying the

entire sum at once. Lovell, feeling sure that a mistake had been

committed, and anxious about the consequences, hurried to the Post

Office, and having there ascertained that she should have received only

1d., called at Abercorn's residence, and with a humble apology refunded

the difference.

Nothing more was heard of the matter until the following July, when a

second very similar mistake appears to have revived the recollection of

the first. Abercorn, who was then at Tunbridge Wells, took to the Post

Office there a letter addressed to his son at Luneville and handed it to

Comer, the postmaster, impressing upon him the importance of its prompt

despatch, and desiring him to pay whatever postage might be required. It

should be explained that at that time letters for Germany had to be

prepaid, or else they were returned to the writers, whereas letters for

France could not be paid except on delivery. Comer, jumping to the

conclusion that Luneville was in France, paid no more than the inland

postage of 6d., the consequence being that three or four days afterwards

the letter, after being opened in London, was returned as insufficiently

paid. Abercorn, naturally enough, was very angry, and, as is apt to be

the case with angry persons, was not altogether reasonable. Luneville,

without the addition of Lorraine or Germany, was an incomplete address.

For this he would make no allowance; neither would he admit that it was

necessary to open the letter in order to return it, and that the

impression on the seal, a coronet and coat of arms, was not sufficient

indication of the writer.

All this was natural enough; but it was strange that he should have

reverted to the earlier of the two mistakes, and directed his resentment

less against Comer than against Mary Lovell. He now charged her with

insolence and an attempt at imposition, and declared that nothing would

satisfy him except her dismissal. In pursuance of this object Abercorn

proceeded to the Post Office, where he was received by Carteret and

Walpole. Walpole said little, and what little he said was said

courteously. Carteret spoke in both their names. He expressed surprise

that the return of the amount overcharged on the letter to Cambray,

accompanied as it had been by Lovell's humble apology, had not been

considered satisfactory, and inquired what further satisfaction could be

expected. Abercorn replied that he expected her to be turned out of her

office as a person unfit to retain it. Carteret expostulated. Such a

step, he said, would not be in accordance with Post Office usage; she

was a poor and unprotected woman, no previous complaint had been made

against her during the thirty years she had held the office; he had seen

her himself, and felt sure that her professions of regret that she had

given offence to his lordship were sincere. Impatient of what he

afterwards described as an irksome expostulation, Abercorn rose to

leave. Carteret and Walpole rose also, and accompanied him to the door.

"I owe it to the North British peers," said Abercorn, turning on the

threshold, "to acquaint some of their representatives with the treatment

that I, their peer, have met with." "And I," haughtily retorted

Carteret, "should care not if all the sixteen North British representing

peers were present at this moment."

Allen's plan consisted in a system of vouchers and what he called

post-bills, by means of which the postmasters might act as a check upon

each other. The post-bill which accompanied the letters throughout their

course was designed to distinguish the bye-letters from others, and to

shew the total amount of postage to be collected; the voucher appears to

have been nothing more than the acknowledgment which each postmaster

gave of the amount to be collected by himself; and these two documents

were sent periodically, once a month or once a quarter, to Allen's

office in Bath, where they underwent a rigid scrutiny. Simple as this

check was, it was only by ceaseless vigilance on Allen's part that he

could get it carried out. To make in the post-bills entries which should

have been made in the vouchers, to omit to send the vouchers to

headquarters, to confound the bye-letters with the London and country

letters--these were only some of the devices to which recourse was had

in order to defeat the check.

Allen was better qualified probably than any other man living for the

task he had set himself to perform. Of a temper which nothing could

ruffle, with ample means at his command, and accountable to no one but

himself for their disposal, and possessed of an amount of local

knowledge which even at the present day is perhaps unrivalled, he

enjoyed a combination of advantages which might have been sought

elsewhere in vain. His patience indeed was inexhaustible. No subterfuge,

not even a transparent attempt at imposition, would call forth more than

a passing rebuke. "'Tis faulty," he would write, "'tis blameable"; and

then, perhaps, from the following words would peep out, in spite of

himself, a gleam of merriment at the clumsiness of the contrivance.

To a man of less easy temperament even the conditions under which he

worked would have been intolerable. Under the terms of his contract

Allen's surveyors were to be the officers of the postmasters-general,

and to do as the postmasters-general bid them. This was no mere nominal

condition. When Allen wanted something done, it may be in the extreme

north or the extreme west of England, he might find that the surveyor

whose business it would have been to do it had been summoned to London

to wait upon the postmasters-general in Lombard Street. Hardly less

provoking must have been the condition that the surveyors, though

Allen's servants, were not to receive from him any instructions which

the postmasters-general had not first approved. Ordinarily Allen was at

Bath, and it was there that the instructions were prepared; yet they had

to be sent to London for approval, and were seldom despatched thence to

their destination until seven or eight days after the dates they bore.

But to any one of less modest and retiring disposition the severest

trial would have been the manner in which the postmasters-general took

credit to themselves for improvements which were exclusively his own. It

was always "our" surveyors who had been instructed to do this, that, and

the other, without the slightest acknowledgment that the instruction had

come from Allen, and that it was he who supplied the money to pay and

the wit to direct them. Only when the cost of some new arrangement had

to be stated to the Treasury did his name appear, and then it was put

prominently forward. "Your Lordships," the postmasters-general would

write, with a confidence which must have possessed all the pleasure of a

new sensation, "will of course approve our proposals. It is true that

the cost they involve is considerable, but the whole of this will fall

upon Mr. Allen, the farmer." But so placid was Allen's temper that these

petty annoyances, irritating as they might have been to some men, passed

unheeded.

As a qualification for the task he had undertaken, hardly less important

than placidity of temper was the possession of ample means and his

unaccountability to others for their disposal. With no one to please

but himself, he enjoyed facilities in dealing with postmasters which the

Post Office, under the most favourable circumstances, could never hope

to possess. To one he would give what he called a complimentary salary;

to another he would give, over and above his salary, a certain

proportion of the postage; and a third would receive a substantial

increase, not for what he had done or was doing, but for what he might

do in the future. All, in short, who could control the actions of others

Allen bound to himself by a community of interest.

But it was the extent of his local knowledge that constituted Allen's

chief qualification for the task he had set himself to perform. This

knowledge, acquired probably during the struggle to introduce his plan,

may appear almost marvellous. There was hardly a town in England, and

certainly no town of importance, with the trade and manufactures of

which, and even with the character and disposition of its postmaster, he

was not acquainted. At the present day it is the district surveyor who

in Post Office matters affecting the provinces takes the initiative. In

Allen's time the initiative came from Bath. In a single letter he would

treat of some thirty or forty towns, and not only prescribe the order in

which they were to be taken and the roads by which they were to be

reached, but give the minutest instructions as to what was to be said

and done on arrival there. In respect to only one town, a town without a

Post Office, does Allen appear to have been uninformed, and that was

Stowmarket. "When in that neighbourhood," he wrote to one of his

surveyors, as though half ashamed of his own ignorance, "go over to

Stowmarket and ascertain and let me know the distance of that town from

Ipswich and from Eye, and also the nature and extent of its trade."

Lest we should be thought to exaggerate the difficulties with which

Allen had to contend, Allen himself shall be our witness. The

postmasters were strictly enjoined to stamp the bye and cross-post

letters. This was their first duty, for without stamping no check was

possible. "I need not tell you," Allen writes to one of his surveyors,

"the mischief which has already attended the omission of this necessary

part of their duty, nor the difficulty which I have hitherto met with to

get this order observed; but when they find that their neglect will for

the future hurt themselves, this evil will be stopped."

Hardly less difficult did he find it to make the postmasters send in

their vouchers with even decent regularity. We will give a few instances

out of many. Of Bodmin and St. Columb he writes, "Both these deputies

are exceeding backward in transmitting their vouchers. Order them

strictly to send them hither for the future within a week after every

quarter." Richmond, Yorkshire, "instead of sending me his vouchers at

the end of every month sends them considerably over the quarter and then

in so great disorder as to be of little use to me in fixing my cheque

account." Gosport, again, "persistently neglects to send his vouchers,

without which, as you know, it is not in my power to state an exact

account nor to fix the cheques which are necessary to prevent abuses."

Grantham is little better, and as for Wolverhampton, Allen writing in

April says, "He has sent me no vouchers since last Michaelmas, and by

this obstinacy destroys my cheque and puts my affairs into great

disorder."

The dead and missent letters were a source of continual trouble. How to

dispose of dead letters and how to get back into their proper channel

letters that had been missent were questions which not seldom perplexed

even Allen himself. But it is not of this particular difficulty that we

propose now to speak. Our present concern is with these two classes of

letters only so far as they affected the relations between Allen and the

postmasters. According to his instructions a postmaster who should find

himself in possession of a dead or missent letter was to send it to Bath

in order that allowance might be made for the postage with which,

otherwise, he would stand charged. Hence arose various attempts at

imposition, attempts to palm off, as though they were dead or missent,

letters which were neither the one nor the other. But let Allen again

speak for himself. "From Lancaster," he writes, "go through Kendal and

Penrith to Carlisle, where I believe you will meet with a very great

abuse. 'Tis thus: His dead letters for a good while since much exceed

what can be rationally accounted for at that stage, and upon enquiry the

greatest number of those letters appear to be sham letters all written

by one hand and sent from different parts of the kingdom, which plainly

shews it to be only a blameable contrivance by some people in that

office to expect money from me for bits of paper never sent by the post

but made by themselves. Some instances you will receive with these

instructions. Be sure to suppress this dangerous abuse. Cause me a

redress for the injury I have received and leave with Mr. Pattison a

copy of my letter relating to stamps, which is the only method I can

think of for an effectual cure of this evil."

The method to which Allen here refers afterwards became a rule of the

office. It was to the effect that no allowance would be made in respect

to any dead or missent letters which should not bear on their covers the

name of the office whence the postmaster by whom the allowance was

claimed had received them. If at that office they had been stamped, that

was enough; but if they had been forwarded unstamped--and the stamping

was as often omitted as not--the postmaster who received the letters was

to write the name upon them. Allen's first experience of the working of

this rule was a little singular. Mrs. Wainwright, the old postmistress

of Ferrybridge, had sent up for allowance a number of unstamped letters

without shewing whence she had received them. Allen returned the

letters, explaining that as such information had not been given no

allowance could be made. If Mrs. Wainwright felt any impatience at what

she no doubt regarded as new-fangled ways, no evidence of it was allowed

to appear. She simply sent the letters back with the name of the office

whence they had reached her neatly written upon each. To Allen's dismay,

the letters had all been opened and the information obtained from the

inside.

The new rule, though good as far as it went, proved insufficient to

check imposition; and Allen felt constrained to add an additional

safeguard. For the future no postmaster was to have his claim allowed

unless he should verify it on oath. This obligation brought its own

troubles. By one the oath was omitted, by another it was objected to on

conscientious grounds, a third would treat it as of small account, and

all this meant additional work for Allen. "This officer," he writes of

the postmaster of Salisbury, "constantly makes large deductions for

missent letters" and on other grounds "without sending me the

particulars of his demand or the office oath to the truth of his claim."

The postmaster of Newark had conscientious scruples and objected to the

oath in any form. "You have already," writes Allen, "been fully

acquainted how tender I am in this respect; but if he still refuses to

claim his demand for allowances by an oath framed in any shape, 'tis

directly necessary to appoint an officer in that place who will obey

their Honours' commands, for if his obstinacy should be suffered the

rest of the kingdom who have readily complyed may raise new objections."

No such scruples afflicted the postmaster of Stone in Staffordshire.

Until lately "the errors made to my injury considerably exceeded those

made to the hurt of that deputy"; but now "the articles to my hurt are

dwindled to a trifle and the others much augmented, which causes Mr.

Barbor to make constant and large claims on me for the difference. Only

lately I received from him a statement of his demands on this head, with

an oath at the bottom of it that the several articles to his prejudice

were all true. But if it be the case, as I have always understood, that

he never concerns himself with the bye-letters but leaves this business

to his uncle, pray enquire of him how he came to send me such an oath."

The postmasters had been allowed to receive their correspondence free of

postage; but Allen soon found that the privilege was being abused. The

covers addressed to them would contain letters not for themselves alone

but also for their neighbours in trade. Indeed the neighbours' letters

would predominate, and, ordinarily, the address was a mere subterfuge.

To check this abuse Allen established a rule that when addressed to

postmasters none but single letters--letters without enclosures, were to

pass free, and that all others were to be charged with full postage. The

postage, however, was to be afterwards remitted in the case of any

postmaster who should make oath that the letters in respect to which he

claimed remission were on his private business. Here again Allen's

belief in the efficacy of an oath was rudely shaken. The number and

magnitude of the claims made upon him from Lancaster had arrested his

attention, and he had laid them aside to be examined at leisure.

Meanwhile the explanation came in a curious manner. He received a

circular from a man of the name of Bracken asking him to subscribe

towards the publication of a book relating to the treatment of

horses.[46] This circular, as announced in the document itself, was

being issued to all the postmasters in the kingdom; and it was in his

capacity of postmaster of Bath that Allen received it. It further

announced that answers should be sent under cover to the postmistress of

Lancaster, the reason given being that they would thus escape postage.

[46] The book was afterwards published--_The Gentleman's

Pocket-Farrier_, by Doctor Henry Bracken of Lancaster, 1735.

Other malpractices were less easy of detection. All the claims, before

they were passed, came under Allen's personal inspection; and to

determine whether these were fraudulent or not needed no special

aptitude. But whether at some distant part of the country two or more

postmasters were in collusion, or whether without collusion they were

bringing to account less postage than they collected, were questions the

solution of which demanded qualifications of a different order. As the

result of reflection or observation, or more probably of both combined,

Allen laid down for his own guidance certain propositions as simple as

they were no doubt sound. Of these one was that the correspondence

passing between two given places, far from being liable to violent

fluctuations, might be relied on to maintain a nearly uniform level. It

is certain that in our own days, when locomotion is easy and the

movements of large parts of the population are influenced by the weather

and other considerations, the principle which this proposition embodies

would not hold good; but in the earlier half of the eighteenth century

Allen regarded it, and probably not without reason, as a safe guide.

When, therefore, the correspondence passing between two places during a

certain period had once been ascertained, he adopted this as a standard,

and any variation of the amount immediately excited his suspicions. "At

Christchurch and Ringwood," he writes, "fully inform yourself why the

letters which formerly were sent between those places and Salisbury are

now almost entirely sunk." At York, during the quarter ending Midsummer

1734, the postage on bye-letters amounted to L165, as against L176

during the corresponding quarter of the previous year. This he affirms

must proceed, not from "deadness in trade," but from "some mismanagement

in the office." Between Appleby and Brough the letters passing in

December were fifteen, whereas in the two preceding months they had been

only three. "Let me know at once," he writes, "the cause of the

difference."

Another proposition which Allen established as a rule of conduct was

that between two trading towns in the same neighbourhood there must

almost of necessity be correspondence. He noticed with surprise that

between Stone and Coventry, according to the vouchers sent him, not a

single letter had passed during a whole quarter. "I will not say it is

impossible," he writes to the surveyor, "that no letters should during

this time pass between such trading places, but during your stay at

Stone I must in a particular manner desire you will examine whether you

receive none."

A third proposition was that there could not be what, if it be not a

contradiction in terms, we will call a one-sided correspondence. He

regarded it as an absolute certainty, amounting almost to an axiom, that

whatever number of letters a town might receive, it would send the same

or nearly the same number in reply. If, therefore, as between two towns,

he found from his vouchers that one was sending to the other more

letters than the other sent in return, he immediately concluded that

something was wrong. It is interesting to note how his views on this

point were confirmed by experience. During the year 1732 the postage on

letters sent from Nottingham to Newark amounted to L25, whereas on those

sent from Newark to Nottingham it amounted to only L13. Surely, writes

Allen, the amounts should be nearly equal. Ascertain whether this comes

"from faults, errors, or a real deadness in the correspondence," and to

enable him to do this the surveyor was to take the Newark office under

his care for a week or a fortnight. Here Allen speaks with confidence

indeed, and yet as though some doubt might exist; but a few years later

there is no doubt at all. "In the Chipping Norton vouchers," he writes,

"another remarkable oddness is that the letters received by that deputy

appear to be double the number sent from that office, which is not only

different from any other well-managed office, but 'tis out of all rules

of proportion with respect to correspondence." And again, "The receipt

of Chipping Norton's letters are still double the number of what Mr.

Mackerness in his vouchers enters as sent from his stage. I can't

conceive how 'tis possible for this difference to arise where an office

is justly managed. Fully examine into the cause of it."

But there were other irregularities which, as being further removed from

observation, were still more difficult to check. Between Worcester and

Bewdley there had been great delay. "The account sent me," writes Allen,

"is that, tho' both these deputys are paid for riding their whole

stages, by a private arrangement between themselves they exchange the

mails at an alehouse on the road, and neither of them will ride beyond

that place, tho' one of them should happen to arrive there several hours

before the other can reach it." The postmaster of Lynn, in Norfolk, who

was paid by Allen to keep a check upon other postmasters in the

neighbourhood, calls his attention to their remissness in delivering

letters. Sometimes, he states, they keep letters several days. On this

account letters that would otherwise go by post are sent by friend or

carrier. "I am perfectly ashamed," he adds, and when I remonstrate and

"set forth the complaints of our gentlemen," the postmasters plead that

they are not paid for delivery, "and therefore think themselves not

obliged to send out their letters even to persons inhabiting within

their own towns."

The post-boys were a constant source of trouble. "By the enclosed letter

from Mr. Floyer of Worcester," Allen writes to his surveyor, "you will

find that the post-boys on the cross-road convey letters between that

city and Bristol by exchanging them from one hand to another without

ever suffering them to be put into the mayl or baggs. Pray thank Mr.

Floyer for his letter, diligently search the boys, and make whatever

other inspection you find to be necessary. Mr. Lumley by the last post

writ me that at Exeter he had made another new and great discovery of

this kind, having found nineteen letters on the Oakhampton rider." "At

Plymouth," he writes on another occasion, "formerly there was a

particular house where the post-boys frequently met to exchange their

letters, which they collected throughout the country from Exon to Truro.

Inquire if this is still going on, and, if so, endeavour to detect

them." On the cross-road between Bristol and Tiverton "several of the

letters have been actually taken out of the baggs and delivered in some

of the trading towns by the post-boys instead of the proper officers.

This could not be if, according to instructions, these bags were always

chained and sealed." At Wells, in Somersetshire, the postmaster has

deprived the Bristol riding-boys of their perquisite of 1d. a letter

"for dropping of letters" at the towns and villages through which they

pass; and as to his own boys, he allows them no wages. This "must drive

those unhappy boys to almost a necessity to rob the mails for their

subsistence." "Then proceed to Rawcliff, in Yorkshire, where Mr.

Carrack, the deputy of that place, will tell you that the riders of the

branch between Doncaster and Hull embezzle great numbers of the

bye-letters. Take his assistance to detect and then punish those

fellows."

Heretofore we have spoken only of the difficulties with which Allen had

to contend in dealing with persons more or less under his own control.

But he had troubles from without as well as within. "Everywhere," he

writes, "endeavour to inform yourself of and suppress all illegal

conveyance of letters." "At Birmingham," he writes again, "endeavour to

detect the carriers who, I am told, in the most open manner convey

letters from that place to all the trading towns in that country." "Use

your utmost vigilance to suppress the illegal collection of letters

which, I am informed, is now carried on by one Twopotts and other

persons, to the injury of the revenue, between Derby and Nottingham."

Between Cowes and Southampton the illegal conveyance of letters "is now

such a custom that we have seldom any go in the bag." "At every stage

which you pass through cause to be fixed to the most public places some

of the printed advertizements against the carriers and wherrymen, and

take every other reasonable methode to surprize all private, illegal,

conveyances of letters, and always have a particular regard of the

followers employed in the dispersing of news from the country presses."

This last injunction is best explained by another given a year or two

later. A printer at Northampton was employing a large number of persons

ostensibly to disperse newspapers, but really, as Allen affirmed, to

collect letters. These persons, he wrote, no longer confine their

operations to short distances, but "by meeting at the extremity of their

divisions the servants of other printers exchange their letters." "Pray,

therefore," he adds, "wherever country presses are erected, do your best

to suppress this evil."

Allen when dealing with the posts displayed a degree of self-reliance

which was hardly to be expected from one of his modest and retiring

disposition. We will give an instance, and with the less hesitation

because it will serve to shew his general way of transacting business.

In 1736 the Duke of Devonshire, who had been spending the summer at

Chatsworth, was much struck with the length of time which letters took

to pass between Chesterfield and Manchester, and he begged the

postmasters-general to apply a remedy. These two towns are about

forty-six miles apart, and in 1736 there was no post between them. Not

very long before, indeed, letters from one to the other would have had

to pass through London, and even now they were taking a circuitous

course by Ferribridge, Doncaster, and Rotherham. The Duke's application

was referred to Allen; and Allen, without waiting to consult the local

surveyor, proceeded at once to give his instructions. Between Manchester

and Chesterfield there should certainly be a post; but this would not be

enough. Derby must also share the benefit; and this could not be

compassed without erecting a stage between that town and Nottingham,

Nottingham being already in direct communication with Chesterfield.

Lincolnshire must also be considered. True, there was a post from

Nottingham to Newark; but between Newark and Lincoln, though only about

seventeen miles apart, there was no communication except through

Grantham, nor between Newark and Horncastle and Boston except through

Stilton. The letters, moreover, on reaching the Great North Road had to

await the arrival of the London mail. Not only did Allen determine that

all this must be altered, but he sketched out the particular alterations

that were to be made, and merely referred to the district surveyor with

a view to ascertain what their effect upon the correspondence was likely

to be.

The particulars which this officer furnished were curious. At

Chesterfield, he reported, not a letter was delivered except on payment

of a fee of 2d. or 3d., and sometimes even of 4d., over and above the

postage. On each letter sent to the post it was the custom to pay 1d.

The entire district, including not Chesterfield alone, but Sheffield,

Nottingham, and Mansfield, was doing a very considerable trade in

Manchester wares; but the letters which passed between these towns and

Manchester were chiefly sent with the goods by carrier. Of post letters

there were few, the postage for a whole year amounting to only L23. The

correspondence might possibly increase by as much as one-third or

L7:13:4 a year, if a post were put on between Manchester and

Chesterfield; but this was doubtful, and the annual cost, owing partly

to the badness of the road, would be L80. Between Derby and Nottingham a

new stage could not be erected for less than L26. Nor could the

Lincolnshire posts be improved as desired for less than L102, making

altogether an increased annual charge of L208; and there was no

probability of this increase of cost being covered, or nearly covered,

by increase of correspondence. Allen was not to be deterred by any such

consideration. The whole of the alterations were carried into effect;

the postmasters-general received from the Duke a warm expression of

thanks for their admirable arrangements; and Allen, who had devised

them, and at whose expense they were made, did not so much as appear in

the transaction.

In striking contrast with Allen's proceedings were those of the Post

Office in the few instances in which it acted independently. Allen's

energy, far from communicating itself to Lombard Street, appears to have

extinguished what little energy had existed there before. Why should the

postmasters-general exert themselves to do that which was done better

and without expense to the Crown by another? And yet there were some,

though rare, occasions on which independent action was called for. One

such occasion presented itself in 1733, and it serves to shew how

wanting the Post Office was in the local knowledge which Allen possessed

in so remarkable a degree. Application had been made for a post to

Aylsham in Norfolk. Among those who had lent their influence in support

of the application was Lord Lovell, who had just been appointed

postmaster-general in conjunction with Carteret, but who had not yet

entered upon his duties; and Carteret, to oblige his new colleague, sent

an officer specially from London with a view to facilitate arrangements.

This officer, John Day by name, was furnished with written

instructions. He was to proceed to Norwich, and there ascertain certain

facts, any one of which could have been supplied by Allen at Bath

without rising from his chair in Lilliput Alley. These were--how far

Aylsham was from Norwich; whether the road between the two towns was a

good or a bad one; whether under existing arrangements Aylsham ever

received any letters, and, if so, how and whence; and particularly--an

instruction which could hardly have been given except under the belief

that Aylsham was south and not north of Norwich--whether the setting up

of a post between the two towns would be a "hindrance to the grand mail

betwixt Norwich and London." Day, having described the position of

Aylsham, appears to have considered it unnecessary to give this last

piece of information; but he told as news, which perhaps it was, that

the London mail left Norwich on Mondays and Wednesdays at midnight, and

on Saturdays at four in the afternoon.

Even where local knowledge was not wanting, the lack of funds which they

could dispense at discretion placed the postmasters-general as compared

with Allen at a serious disadvantage. We have seen how Allen dealt with

the application from Chatsworth. Not many years later it devolved upon

the postmasters-general to deal with a somewhat similar one from

Kimbolton; and it is interesting to note the difference of procedure.

From Kimbolton and St. Neots the course of post had been through

Biggleswade and Hitchin, and in 1758 the inhabitants of the counties of

Huntingdon and Cambridgeshire petitioned that it should be through

Caxton. The effect of the alteration would be that letters for the two

first-mentioned towns coming from the north or from Norfolk and Suffolk

would, regularly three times a week, be brought to the towns themselves,

and not, as had hitherto been the case, be left at Huntingdon, to be

forwarded thence as opportunity offered by carriers and market people.

St. Neots had a further interest in the matter. A considerable

corn-market was held there on Thursdays; and the dealers complained

that, leaving as the post did at twelve mid-day, they had no time to

write their letters, whereas, by way of Caxton, it need not leave until

five in the afternoon. On the score of convenience the change had

everything to recommend it; but there was one drawback. To carry it into

effect would involve a cost of L25; and this, the postmasters-general

expressed their apprehension, the Treasury would not feel justified in

incurring, as the increase of expense might be only partially covered by

the increase of correspondence. Whether the Treasury consent was given

or withheld we know not; but the mere fact that such an apprehension

should have been expressed, and that the convenience of towns and

extensive districts should have been made to depend upon the paltry

consideration of a few pounds, goes far to shew that the Post Office,

without the aid of private enterprise, would have made but little

progress.

Allen's contract expired every seven years. In order to obtain a renewal

of it he did not, according to a practice not uncommon with reformers,

stoop to the pretence that he was on the point of introducing some

important measure, which would be lost to the country unless his

services were retained. On the contrary, he treated it as a pure

business matter, and each time offered higher terms. Thus, in 1741,

which was the first year of a new septennial period, he guaranteed the

country letters to produce L17,500; in 1748 he guaranteed them to

produce L18,000; and in 1755, L18,500. This being the class of letters of

which it had been and continued to be predicted that with the extension

of cross-posts the number must diminish, the postmasters-general

regarded the advance as not unhandsome.

But, in consideration of his contract being renewed, there was another

and far more important condition, which Allen undertook to perform. This

was to convert tri-weekly posts into posts six days a week, and to take

the whole expense upon himself. Accordingly, in 1741, the post began to

run every day of the week except Sunday between London and Bristol,

between London and Norwich, and between London and Yarmouth; and of

course all the intervening towns participated in the benefit. In 1748 a

further instalment followed. This time it was the Midlands and the west

of England that were to be benefited; and on and after Monday the 26th

of December the post went on the three days on which it had not gone

hitherto to Birmingham, through Oxford, and to Exeter through Bristol.

In 1755, the beginning of another septennial period, the six-day service

was widely extended. Leicester, Derby, and Nottingham, Shrewsbury and

Chester, Warrington, Liverpool, and Manchester were among the towns

which were now to receive letters from London on every day of the week

except Sunday. From Liverpool and Manchester the cross-post service to

almost every part of the kingdom was at the same time improved. At the

close of the nineteenth century, postridden as some of us think

ourselves to be, we may find it sometimes difficult to believe that less

than 150 years ago there was not a town in the kingdom which received a

post from London on more than alternate days.

And yet Allen's activity, untiring as it was, went only a short way to

regain for the Post Office the popularity it had lost. Various causes

had contributed to this result. The chief of them, however, as it was

the earliest in point of time, was of itself enough and more than enough

to account for the distrust and hostility with which the Post Office

appears to have been regarded towards the middle of the last century. As

early as 1735 members of Parliament had begun to complain that their

letters bore evident signs of having been opened at the Post Office,

alleging that such opening had been frequent and was become matter of

common notoriety; but it was not until six years later, in the course of

inquiries which were being made into the conduct of Sir Robert Walpole

during the last ten years of his administration, that the state of the

case became fully known. It then transpired that in the Post Office

there was a private office, an office independent of the

postmasters-general and under the immediate direction of the Secretary

of State, which was expressly maintained for the purpose of opening and

inspecting letters. It was pretended, indeed, that these operations were

confined to foreign letters, but, as a matter of fact, there was no

such restriction. The office appears to have been established in 1718,

and its cost, which was defrayed out of the secret service money, had

since increased more than tenfold, and now reached the prodigious sum of

L4700 a year. The establishment, exclusive of a door-keeper, consisted

of nine persons, with salaries ranging from L200 to L1000; the head of

the office or "Chief Decypherer," as he was called, being Dr. Willes,

Dean of Lincoln. It was in June 1742 that these shameful facts became

known, through the report of a committee of the House of Commons; and,

in the August following, Willes was gazetted Bishop of St. Davids.

To ourselves it may seem strange that the State monopoly of letters

should have survived so terrible a revelation. It must be remembered,

however, that in the middle of the last century the Post Office, owing

mainly to the heavy charges it levied, had hardly become matter of

general concern; that public opinion, as we now understand it, was only

beginning to exist; and, above all, that the very conditions under which

Post Office work was done precluded the idea of privacy. These

conditions were absolutely inconsistent with the sanctity which now

surrounds a letter. Letters were divided into two classes,--single and

double; and to determine whether a letter was the one or the other

demanded a close scrutiny, a scrutiny such as could not be exercised

except by the strongest light that candles could give. In 1719 it had

been laid down that a letter, however small, was to be charged as a

double one if two or more persons joined in writing it. How could it be

ascertained that the whole of a letter was in one and the same

handwriting except by prying? Even the law itself, by the meagre

protection it vouchsafed to letters, discouraged the idea of sanctity.

For an offence of the pettiest kind, as for instance for stealing a

pocket-handkerchief in a dwelling-house, the penalty was death. For

opening or embezzling a letter the highest penalty which the law allowed

was a fine of L20. It is significant of the change which has since taken

place in the public sentiment that while in the case of almost every

other description of offence the penalty has been enormously reduced, in

the case of opening and embezzling letters it has been enormously

increased.

Horace Walpole, writing more than twenty-five years later, never tired

of mentioning the elaborate precautions he had taken to secure his

correspondence against inspection. "I shall send this letter by the

coach," he says, "as it is rather free-spoken and Sandwich[47] may be

prying." "I always say less than I could, because I consider how many

post-house ordeals a letter must pass"; and similar observations occur

in a hundred different places. All this was sheer nonsense. It tickled

the exquisite vanity of the man to affect to believe that his

correspondence was of sufficient importance to attract the attention of

the State. And yet truth compels us to admit that the infamous practice

which the committee exposed did not cease with the exposure. The

Treasury, while grudging every 6d. expended on the posts, continued

regularly to remit more than L4000 a year for the maintenance of their

inquisitors in Lombard Street; and it was not until George the Third had

sat some years on the throne, probably under the Rockingham

administration, that the corps was finally disbanded.

[47] Lord Sandwich was postmaster-general in 1768.

Apart from the grave cause of offence we have mentioned, it is a curious

fact that during the last eighteen or twenty years of George the

Second's reign hardly anything occurred in which the Post Office was

concerned that did not in one way or another cause dissatisfaction to

some section of the community. The Post Office, no doubt, was often to

blame, sometimes deeply so; but even where this was not the case, where

no blame attached either to itself or to any other office or person, it

in no single instance, so far as we are aware, escaped a certain amount

of obloquy.

This unfortunate result first shews itself in the case of the Falmouth

and Lisbon packets. During the war with Spain it had only been

necessary, as a defence against some Spanish privateers which infested

the Channel, to provide the Dover and Harwich packets with arms and to

make a small addition to their complement of men; but in 1744, when

Spain was joined by France, a good deal more had to be done. The Dover

and Calais packets, after the six months' grace allowed by the treaty of

Utrecht, were taken off; the packets to the West Indies which had been

discontinued since 1711 were revived; and the Falmouth and Lisbon

packets were put on the same footing as during the last war. This the

merchants trading with Portugal, an important body representing

forty-eight firms, protested was not enough. The packets, they argued,

afforded the only available means for remitting gold to Lisbon in

exchange for commodities, and should, therefore, be of at least 300 tons

and carry 100 men. It was true that this would be in excess by about

seventy tons and forty men of what was provided during the last war; but

the fact that during the last war some of the packets fell into the

hands of privateers was of itself a proof that they were not of force

and burthen sufficient. Besides, we had then an army in Spain, and the

number of soldiers and passengers passing to and fro made fewer sailors

necessary. Moved by these arguments, the Duke of Newcastle decided to

comply with the merchants' request; but Pelham, on learning that the

building and equipment alone would cost L34,800, revoked the Duke's

decision. His Majesty's opinion he declared to be that the main object

of a packet was to carry letters, and that for the carriage of letters

light and swift vessels were the fittest. This, it will be remembered,

was the opinion which had been expressed by William the Third more than

fifty years before, and events had proved its soundness. Nevertheless,

the merchants were highly displeased; and, of course, at that time they

were no more able than they are now to distinguish between a refusal

which originated with the Post Office and one that was imposed upon it

by superior authority.

But the merchants--and here we speak not of those alone who traded with

Portugal--had other and more serious cause of complaint. Their foreign

letters were not delivered until twelve o'clock in the day, and, if a

mail arrived by as much as a few minutes after twelve, it was not at the

earliest delivered until the same hour on the following day. And if on

this day a second mail chanced to arrive shortly before noon, the

letters by the first mail were kept back so as to be delivered with

those of the second in the evening. Thus, foreign letters received at

the Post Office in Lombard Street a few minutes after mid-day on

Saturday might not be delivered even in Lombard Street itself until the

evening of Monday. To make matters worse, the foreign ministers residing

in London had their letters delivered soon after the mail arrived, so

that any persons whom these ministers might please to favour enjoyed an

undue advantage.

The merchants now urged that this might be altered. Did not Sir Harry

Furness, they asked, during the last war obtain permission to have his

letters delivered immediately after the arrival of a mail? And was not

this permission afterwards revoked on the ground that it had led to

abuse? Matters were better managed abroad. At Amsterdam, for instance,

if a mail arrived as late as nine o'clock in the evening, the letters

were delivered to those who might call for them at any time before

midnight, or else sent out for delivery early the next morning. At

Rotterdam--this also was urged as an instance of better management--the

English letters were never delivered till twelve hours after the mail

had arrived, about which time those which had come by the same mail

would be in course of delivery at Amsterdam. Equality of treatment was

thus secured, and neither city had priority of intelligence. At Hamburg,

again, as soon as a mail arrived--if in the day, a notice to that effect

was fixed up at the Post Office and at the Exchange, the letters being

delivered about three hours later; and if at night, the clerks were

called out of bed, so that the letters might be sorted and ready for

delivery the first thing in the morning. Sundays, moreover, were not

excepted. As regards foreign gazettes, too, these all over Europe were

delivered within a quarter of an hour after their arrival; yet in

London the merchants had to wait for them many hours. And this was all

the more hard to bear because the clerks in the Post Office, to whom

gazettes were addressed, received them at once and communicated the

contents to their friends. What could be more calculated to promote

fraudulent insurance, one-sided bargains, and a system of overreaching

generally? Such was the representation made by the merchants; and they

concluded by asking that henceforth, except on Sundays, no longer

interval should be allowed to elapse between the arrival and delivery of

a foreign mail than was absolutely necessary for the purpose of sorting.

The postmasters-general had no choice but to refuse the request. To have

granted it would have defeated the object with which the Treasury were

maintaining an office of their own within the Post Office building.

About this time, three or four years short of the middle of the century,

the Post Office got into disgrace with travellers. Under the provisions

of the numerous Turnpike Acts which had recently passed, the trustees of

the roads were to measure distances and to erect milestones; and on

these provisions being carried into effect the statute mile proved to be

shorter, much shorter, than the reputed or Post Office mile.[48] So

great indeed was the difference that the Post Office may be said to have

been almost ridiculously out of its reckoning. Thus, from London to

Berwick-upon-Tweed the distance, according to Post Office computation,

was 262 miles; according to measurement, it proved to be 339 miles. To

Holyhead the actual distance proved to be 269 miles; the Post Office had

computed it at 208 miles. To Manchester the distance, according to the

Post Office, was 137 miles; the actual distance was 165. Bristol, which

proved to be 115 miles from London, had been reckoned as 94; Birmingham

as 89 instead of 116; Warwick as 67 instead of 84; and so it had been

throughout the kingdom. In every case the Post Office mile proved to be

an unduly long one; and of course, as soon as milestones were erected

authoritatively recording the statute miles, the postmasters charged

accordingly. This change excited many murmurs. The traveller to Warwick

who, at the rate of 3d. a mile, exclusive of a guide, had hitherto paid

for the use of a horse 16s. 9d., had now to pay 21s. To Birmingham he

had now to pay 29s. instead of 22s. 3d.; to Bristol, 28s. 9d. instead of

23s. 6d.; and so on.

[48] This, although unknown probably to the postmasters until now, was

no new discovery. As far back as 1674 John Ogilby had called attention

to the erroneous reckonings in vogue. Ogilby had been commissioned by

Charles the Second to survey and measure the principal roads of England,

and having performed his task he published the result of his labours in

a large folio volume. In the preface to an abridgment of this work,

published in 1711, he thus wrote: "The distances are all along reckoned

in measur'd miles and furlongs, beginning from the Standard in Cornhil,

so that the reader must not be surprized when he finds the number of

miles set down here exceed the common computation. For example, from

London to York are computed but 150 miles, whereas by measure the

distance is 192 miles. And computation being very uncertain, it must be

granted that no exactness could be observed but [by] adhering constantly

to the standard-mile of 1760 yards, which contains eight furlongs."

The King's messengers fought hardest against the innovation, but without

success. Finding the expense of their journeys to Berwick and Holyhead

appreciably increased, they appealed to the Treasury for redress, and

the Treasury invited the postmasters-general to explain under what

authority they had raised their charges. The postmasters-general

replied, as they had replied scores of times before on occasions of

complaint from the public, that they had really nothing to do with the

matter; that it was the postmasters who made the charges; and that in

the opinion of the Attorney-General these officers were clearly entitled

to be paid according to the new measurements. It had been expressly

provided by Act of Parliament that all persons riding post should pay

after the rate of 3d. for every British mile, and the British mile was a

known statute measure common to all His Majesty's dominions. The

Treasury were not satisfied, and insisted that the King's messengers

should be charged according to the old scale. But this, as the

postmasters-general pointed out, was not feasible, the Act of Parliament

by which they were governed making no exception in favour of particular

persons, but on the contrary enacting that all persons without

distinction should pay at the rate of 3d. a mile.

At the headquarters in Lombard Street it was long feared that, on

finding that the reputed mile exceeded the statute mile, those

postmasters whose remuneration had been fixed according to the distance

over which they carried the mails would claim an increased mileage

allowance; but this, to their credit be it said, they never did. Such

forbearance, however, had one ill effect. It tended to perpetuate error.

For many years afterwards two sets of distances remained in vogue, the

one right and the other wrong; the new set applicable to travellers, and

the old set to mails and to expresses sent on the service of the

State.[49]

[49] This explains why in the Road Books of the time the distance

between two places is stated differently in two parallel columns under

the initials C and M, the one being the computed and the other the

measured distance.

The feeling against the Post Office, which had long been gathering

force, now displayed itself in a remarkable manner. It had been the

constant and uniform practice ever since the Post Office was established

to charge letters containing patterns or samples with double postage. To

this the merchants now demurred. They did not deny that such letters if

weighing as much as an ounce should be charged as for an ounce weight;

but they contended that if weighing less than an ounce they should be

charged as single and not double letters. This contention was founded on

the wording of the Act of Anne, which, after prescribing the postage

which "every single letter or piece of paper" not being of the weight of

one ounce was to pay, enacted that "a double letter" should pay twice

that amount. Was a letter to be charged double because it had in it any

enclosure--a sample of grain, for instance, or a pattern of cloth or of

silk? or to constitute a double letter must not the enclosure be of

paper?

This question the merchants now resolved to try; and accordingly at

Bristol, at Manchester, and at Cirencester proceedings were commenced

against the local postmasters for demanding and receiving more than the

legal postage. It affords striking evidence of the widespread

dissatisfaction then existing that in 1753 a practice as old as the Post

Office itself should have been challenged for the first time, still more

that it should have been challenged at three separate places, distant

from one another, simultaneously. The action against the postmaster of

Cirencester came on first. It was tried at the Gloucester Assizes before

a special jury, when a special verdict was found upon the words of the

statute, whether a letter containing a pattern or sample and not being

of the weight of one ounce ought to pay double or single postage. The

postmasters-general, anxious to avoid a multiplicity of suits, now

opened communications with the merchants of Bristol and Manchester.

Would it not be well that their suits should be abandoned? One special

verdict would serve as well as a hundred such verdicts would do to

settle the point of law between the Crown and the subject. Having

succeeded in one county, what more could they expect in another? Or what

advantage would follow that had not been already secured? These

overtures came too late. The merchants were determined to fight to the

bitter end. The suits came on both at Bristol and at Manchester; and at

each of those places a special verdict was given in almost identical

terms with that which had been returned at Gloucester.

Meanwhile the attorneys both in London and the country had passed

resolutions to the effect that, if the point of law were decided in the

merchants' favour, they would refuse to pay double postage on letters

containing writs. The postmasters-general became alarmed. Single instead

of double postage on letters containing writs as well as patterns and

samples meant, according to the most moderate computation, a reduction

of the Post Office revenue by L10,000 or L12,000 a year. This was a

serious reduction, and how to prevent it was the question to which the

postmasters-general now addressed themselves. It is characteristic of

the time that the first expedient they devised with this object was

simply to refuse to carry any more letters containing patterns and

samples unless the senders of them should agree beforehand to pay double

postage. They argued that, in view of the importance to the merchant to

have his letters carried, any unwillingness on his part to enter into

such an agreement would be easily overcome. A notice to give effect to

their intention was already prepared; but before issuing it they took

the precaution to consult the Attorney-General. His advice to them was

that, admirable as the expedient might be, it was distinctly illegal.

Should they, then, bring one of the special verdicts on to be argued in

Westminster Hall and abide by the judicial decision? To this the

Attorney-General could raise no objection, but he warned them that the

decision was pretty sure to be against the Crown. Driven thus into a

corner, the postmasters-general adopted a most questionable course. They

advocated the passing of an Act which should declare a letter containing

any enclosure, even though not of paper and not weighing as much as an

ounce, to be a double letter; and this advice was followed. In a bill

then before Parliament, having for its object to prevent the fraudulent

removal of tobacco, a clause was inserted which effectually prevented

the merchants from sending their patterns or samples and the lawyers

their writs for single postage.[50]

[50] 26 Geo. II. cap. xiii. sec. 7.

It would be difficult to conceive a more irritating course. No doubt

there was precedent for it. Early in the reign of George the First an

Act had been passed enacting that bills of exchange written on the same

piece of paper as a letter, and also letters written on the same piece

of paper and addressed to different persons, should be charged as

distinct letters: and, possibly enough, it might have been difficult to

explain why a bill of exchange should pay double postage and not a

pattern or a writ. It is also true that the fact of three several judges

and three several juries in distant parts of the kingdom having been

unable to agree as to the intent and meaning of a statute implied a

real doubt. And yet it can hardly be denied that to solve that doubt by

the brute force of an Act of Parliament, instead of bringing one of the

special verdicts before the Courts to be argued, was a most provoking

step. Nor would it have been calculated to appease the merchants if they

had known, as the postmasters-general knew, that the entire rates of

postage, as they then existed, rested on no legal sanction. The existing

rates were imposed by the Act of Anne; and that Act imposed them for a

period of thirty-two years, a period which had now expired, and after

which it was expressly provided that the former and lower rates were to

revive. It is true that early in the reign of George the First a further

Act had passed, making perpetual the Post Office contribution of L700 a

week to the Exchequer; but by a clumsiness of legislation, which is not

unknown even in our own day, the latter Act, while making perpetual both

the contribution and the power to levy it, had omitted to re-enact the

rates out of which the contribution was to be paid. Virtually,

therefore, these rates had lapsed through effluxion of time.

And what during the last forty or fifty years had the Post Office

done--done, that is, independently of Allen--to promote the public

convenience or to make amends for so much that had given offence? It had

done four things, and, so far as we are aware, four things only. It had

introduced the contrivance, with which we are all familiar, of external

apertures in Post Offices, so that letters could be posted from the

outside. It had brought the system of expresses up to a standard which,

compared with what it was at the beginning of the century, might perhaps

be considered high. It had, indirectly, been the means of eliciting from

the Courts of Law an important decision. And it had accelerated the

course of post between London and Edinburgh. In 1758 the time which the

mail took to accomplish the distance was, at the instance of the royal

boroughs, reduced between London and Edinburgh from 87 hours to 82, and

between Edinburgh and London from 131 hours to 85.

The date at which apertures on the outside of Post Offices were first

introduced is unknown to us even approximately. All we can do is to fix

two distant dates at one of which the contrivance existed, and at the

other it existed not. On the 3rd of November 1712 Oxford, the Lord

Treasurer, received an anonymous letter, and, being anxious to discover

the writer, he invoked the assistance of the postmasters-general with a

view to ascertain where and by whom it had been posted. Any such inquiry

at the present time would be absolutely futile. One hundred and eighty

years ago the postmasters-general, after an interval of twenty-four

hours, were able to reply not only that the letter had been posted "at

the receiving office of Mrs. Sandys, a threadshop two doors within

Blackfryars Gateway," but that it had been posted "by a youth of about

seventeen years old, in a whitish suit of cloathes, who was without a

hat." It is difficult to believe that apertures can have existed then,

and that the letter was not posted inside the office. That in 1757 the

contrivance had come into existence, though possibly in a rude form, is

beyond question. In that year an unfortunate woman was put on her trial

for stealing a letter, and the sender was called upon to prove the

posting. "On Tuesday the 7th of December 1756," he said, "I put this

letter into the Post Office at the house of Mrs. Jeffreys at Bloomsbury,

at about nine o'clock at night.... There is a window and a slip to put

it into a little box from out of the street. I was not in the house. It

is a very narrow box, and I was afraid my letter was gone down to the

ground.[51] I asked Mrs. Jeffreys if my letter was safe after I had

dropped it into the slip. She said your letter is safe and gone into the

box." If the value of a contrivance depended upon the amount of

ingenuity displayed in devising it, these apertures would be hardly

deserving of mention; but in view of the convenience they afford, this

short notice of them may not perhaps be considered out of place.

[51] The box into which the letters fell was at this time an open one,

_i.e._ without a cover and movable. It was not until 1792 that the

letter-box was closed, fixed, and locked.

The Rebellion of 1745, while disarranging the posts, brought into vogue

the system of expresses; and this system once established was not long

in extending itself. An express cost 3d. a mile, and, no doubt,

travelled faster than at the beginning of the century. The roads had

since been improved; and it may well be believed that the postmasters,

as their custom increased, kept better horses. It was probably the speed

of the express as compared with the tardiness of the post which induced

the wealthy, about the middle of the last century, largely to employ

this mode of conveyance for their letters. It had indeed one drawback, a

drawback such as in our own time has attended the use of telegrams. It

was apt to excite alarm. "Let me," writes the good-natured Charles

Townshend to his sister-in-law, Lady Ferrers, under date September

1759--"Let me now desire you to conclude whenever you receive an express

that it brings you good news, for otherwise I shall be obliged to defer

one day sending you any such account if it should not come to me on a

post day, least the express should alarm you. I should not chuse to

detain you one minute from the news I know your heart beats for, and yet

I should not chuse to frighten you by the sudden manner of its arrival,

for which reason I desire you will remember to receive whatsoever

express I send with confidence and as a friend."

But the purpose for which an express might be employed was jealously

restricted. A man might employ an express to carry a letter; but woe

betide him if he employed the same agency for the purpose of

disseminating news. The licensed carriers at Cambridge had recently been

prosecuted and the postmasters on the Great West Road taken severely to

task for doing this very thing. What are we to think of the intolerable

state of bondage in which men were content to live when even the gentle

Allen could give the following instruction? "At every stage," he writes

to one of his surveyors, "you must forbid the deputies to send any

express except to the General Post Office in London, unless it be for

His Majesty's immediate service; and all other intelligence must be

conveyed either by the common post or particular messenger."

In the middle of the last century, and for about thirty years before and

after, the mails were being continually stopped and robbed by

highwaymen. The reward which the Post Office offered on these occasions

for the apprehension of the robber was invariably L200, this being in

addition to the reward of L40 prescribed by Act of Parliament; and if

the robbery took place within five miles of London, there was a third

reward of L100 by proclamation. Numerous and diverse as the

robberies[52] were, there is only one of which we propose to speak; and

in this case an exception may well be made on account of the important

decision which it was the means of evoking from the Courts. A highwayman

had stopped the Worcester mail at Shepherd's Bush and rifled it of its

contents. Finding himself in possession of a large number of Bank of

England notes he adopted a novel expedient for disposing of them. He

hired a chaise and four and proceeded along the Great North Road as far

as Caxton, passing the notes as he went; and in order to give himself a

wider field of operations he took the precaution of going one way and

returning another. To Caxton he went through Barnet, Hatfield,

Stevenage, and Bugden, and he returned by way of Royston, Ware, and

Enfield. Except at Barnet, which was probably thought to be dangerously

near to London, there was hardly a postmaster along the whole line of

road who had not one or more of the notes passed upon him. The question

now arose who was to bear the loss,--the person by whom the notes had

been sent by post or the postmasters who had changed them into cash. At

the present time the law on the subject is so well ascertained that no

doubt could exist as to the answer; but such was not then the case. In

order to try the point, it was arranged that the notes should be

stopped, and that the sender of them should bring an action against the

Bank of England to recover their value. The trial came on before the

King's Bench in 1758, and, after learned pleadings on both sides, the

Lord Chief Justice pronounced the decision of the Court. This was that

any person paying a valuable consideration for a bank note to bearer in

a fair course of business is unquestionably entitled to recover the

money from the Bank.

[52] Among these robberies there was, so far as we are aware, only one

which possessed any feature of interest; and in this case the interest

was of a psychological nature. Gardner, a postman, was stopped by three

highwaymen on Winchmore Hill, and, on his refusing to give up his

letters, they murdered him. Atrocities of this kind had been frequent,

and executions had failed to check them. But the resources of

civilisation were not exhausted. Lord Lovell--or the Earl of Leicester,

as he had now become--waited upon the King and procured His Majesty's

assent that, after execution, the highwaymen's bodies should be hung in

chains. To be hanged was one thing; after hanging, to have one's body

suspended in chains was another. This was an indignity to which no

respectable criminal should be called upon to submit. Such would seem to

be the idea conveyed in the following letter which Leicester received:--

To the Right Hon. the EARL OF LEICESTER, at HOLKHAM, NORFOLK.

THURSDAY, _Oct. 1753_.

MY LORD--I find that it was by your orders that Mr. Stockdale was hung

in chains. Now, if you don't order him to be taken down, I will set fire

to your house and blow your brains out the first opportunity.

Stockdale was clerk to a proctor in Doctors Commons.

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, 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. The plain truth is that during

these years, except in the matter of bye and cross-post letters, the

Post Office had retrograded rather than advanced. The rates of postage

were higher now than at the beginning of the century. More, probably,

than one-half of the public Acts of Parliament which passed during the

reigns of the first two Georges were Acts for repairing and widening the

roads. The roads had kept steadily improving; and the posts had failed

to keep pace with them. While travellers travelled faster than in the

reign of Queen Anne, letters were still being conveyed at a speed not

exceeding five miles an hour. The friendly relations which had existed

between the postmasters-general and the merchants existed no longer.

These had been replaced by feelings of estrangement and animosity. Under

Cotton and Frankland and under Frankland and Evelyn the Post Office

enjoyed a reputation for personal integrity; but even this claim to

distinction had now disappeared. Barbutt, the secretary, had recently

retired under a cloud. Bell, the comptroller of the inland office, had

been arrested on a charge of fraud.[53] Denzil Onslow, the

receiver-general, had been declared a defaulter to the amount of

L10,000; and Stone, Onslow's successor, after two or three years' tenure

of the appointment, had died in debt to the Crown. The Post Office, when

George the Third ascended the throne, was thoroughly discredited, and,

despite Allen's exertions, men were beginning to ask themselves, Why

cumbereth it the ground?

[53] Elsewhere we have expressed a desire to avoid, as far as possible,

the use of technical terms, and the propriety of this course will

probably not be disputed when we state that the charge against Bell was

that having "crowned the advanced letters" he failed to account for the

proceeds. An "advanced" letter was one on which the postage had been

advanced, a letter which, having been undercharged in the country, was

surcharged in London. To "crown" a letter was to impress it with the

stamp of the Crown, denoting that the surcharge had been made.

Virtually, therefore, the charge against Bell was that he had embezzled

the surcharges.

Allen died in 1764, leaving behind him a name which is still venerated,

and justly venerated, in the city of Bath. For many years before his

death he is reputed to have made out of his contract with the Post

Office not less than L12,000 a year; and the greater part of this noble

fortune he spent in acts of benevolence. As early as 1735 riches must

have come pouring in upon him, for in that year he built for himself the

stately house of Prior Park, not indeed for ostentation's sake, but in

order to prove that the stone dug from his quarries on Combe Down was

not the sorry stuff which interested persons in London had represented

it to be. That house still stands; but, as was said at the time--and the

statement holds good to this day--"his charity is seen further than his

house, though it stands on a hill, aye, and brings him more honour too."

In 1742 Allen served as Mayor of Bath; and in 1745, the year of the

Rebellion, he raised a company of volunteers, which he clothed at his

own cost. At Prior Park he dispensed a more than decent hospitality,

numbering among his guests Pitt, Pope, and Fielding, Charles Yorke, and

Warburton. Fielding has immortalised Allen's character but not his name

in the person of Squire Allworthy; and Pope has immortalised both his

name and his character in the lines--

Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame,

Do good by stealth and blush to find it fame.

Among Post Office reformers Allen stands absolutely alone in one

particular. His connection with the Post Office, long as it endured, was

not abruptly terminated. This we attribute partly to a natural sweetness

of disposition, which provoked no enemies, and still more to that which

on the part of reformers is the rarest of virtues, an entire abnegation

of self. So long as a thing which he thought desirable was done, he

cared not that others received the credit.[54]

[54] Of Allen's personal appearance the only account, so far as we are

aware, is to be found in the correspondence of Samuel Derrick, Master of

the Ceremonies at Bath. Derrick writes, under date May 10, 1763: "I have

had an opportunity of visiting Mr. Allen in the train of the French

Ambassador. He is a very grave, well-looking old man, plain in his

dress, resembling that of a Quaker, and courteous in his behaviour. I

suppose he cannot be much under seventy."--Vol. ii. p. 94.