FRANCIS FREELING
1798-1817
The name of Francis Freeling has been placed at the head of this
chapter, not because, in devising new means of correspondence or
extending means that already existed, he is to be classed with the
distinguished men who preceded him--with Palmer and Allen, with Dockwra
and Witherings--but because for more than a generation he exercised a
paramount influence in Post Office matters, and during this long period
whatever was done affecting the communications of the country was done
upon his advice.
The first act of importance in which Freeling was concerned after his
appointment as secretary was the establishment of the ship letter
office, an office which owed its origin to the suggestion of Frederick
Bourne, a clerk in the foreign department. Hitherto the packet boats,
where packet boats existed, had been the only means by which
correspondence could be legally sent out of the kingdom; and yet in the
neighbourhood of the Exchange there was hardly a place of public resort
at which letters for America and the West Indies, as well as other
places abroad, were not collected for despatch by private ship. There
was no concealment about the matter. At Lloyds, and the Jamaica, the
Maryland, the Virginia and other coffee-houses, bags were openly hung
up, and all letters dropped into these bags, including those for places
to which there was communication by packet, were taken on board ship,
and, without the intervention of the Post Office, despatched to their
destination, the captains receiving for their transport a gratuity of
2d. apiece.
Illegal as the practice was, Pitt was unwilling to suppress it. The Act
which made it illegal to send by private ship letters which might be
sent by packet had been passed in the time of Queen Anne, and he could
not reconcile it to himself to enforce a law some ninety years old which
had never yet been set in motion. Bourne's idea was to sweep all
ship-letters into the post, and to charge them inwards with a fixed sum
of 4d. and outwards with half the packet rate of postage. If with the
place to which a letter was addressed there was no communication by
packet, the rate was to be fixed at what presumably it would be if such
communication existed. Pitt favoured the idea and adopted it--subject,
however, to one important qualification. Instead of being compulsory the
Act, should an Act be passed, was to be permissive. On this point Pitt
was determined. It was only in return for some service that the Post
Office was entitled to make a charge. And what was the service here? To
seal the bags? This he could not regard as a substantial service--a
service for which a charge should be made. The ship was a private ship,
her commander was not a servant of the Post Office, and the bag of
letters he carried might be, and not infrequently was, for countries in
which neither the Post Office nor any other branch of the British
Government had an accredited agent.
Surely in such circumstances anything in the shape of compulsion was out
of the question, and all that should be done was to invite the merchants
to bring their letters to the Post Office, when the Post Office would
undertake to find a private ship that would carry them. A bill on these
lines was brought in and passed; and on the 10th of September 1799 the
ship letter office was opened, Bourne being appointed to superintend it
under the title of inspector. The new measure failed of its object. On
letters entering the kingdom fourpences were no doubt collected,
because, until these letters had been deposited at the local Post
Office, no vessel was allowed to make entry or to break bulk. But
letters leaving the kingdom left it just as they had been used to leave
it before the ship letter office was established. It was in vain that
the Post Office tempted the keepers of coffee-houses by the offer of
high salaries to become its own agents. All overtures to this end were
resolutely declined; and during many years the letters by private ship
that were sent through the post stood to those that were received
through the same agency in no higher proportion than one to eighteen.
In 1801 the Post Office was called upon to make to the Exchequer a
further contribution to the amount of L150,000. What would have struck
consternation to the hearts of most men was to Freeling a source of
unmixed pleasure. Not only had he a perfect craze for high rates of
postage, but it had long been with him a subject of lament that under
the law as it stood no higher charge was made for a distance of 500
miles than for a distance of 150. This in his view was a glaring defect,
and he now set himself to remedy it. The new rates--which, as he lost no
opportunity of making known, were exclusively of his own devising--were
adopted by the Government, and having passed the Houses of Parliament
came into operation on the 5th of April. As compared with the old rates,
they were as follows:--
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| BEFORE THE 5TH OF APRIL 1801. |
+-----------------------------------+-------+-------+-------+------+
| |Single.|Double.|Treble.|Ounce.|
| +-------+-------+-------+------+
| | _d._ | _d._ | _d._ | _d._ |
|Not exceeding 15 miles | 3 | 6 | 9 | 12 |
|Above 15 and not exceeding 30 miles| 4 | 8 | 12 | 16 |
| " 30 " 60 " | 5 | 10 | 15 | 20 |
| " 60 " 100 " | 6 | 12 | 18 | 24 |
| " 100 " 150 " | 7 | 14 | 21 | 28 |
|Exceeding 150 miles | 8 | 16 | 24 | 32 |
+-----------------------------------+-------+-------+-------+------+
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| ON AND AFTER THE 5TH OF APRIL 1801. |
+-----------------------------------+-------+-------+-------+------+
| |Single.|Double.|Treble.|Ounce.|
| +-------+-------+-------+------+
| | _d._ | _d._ | _d._ | _d._ |
|Not exceeding 15 miles | 3 | 6 | 9 | 12 |
|Above 15 and not exceeding 30 miles| 4 | 8 | 12 | 16 |
| " 30 " 50 " | 5 | 10 | 15 | 20 |
| " 50 " 80 " | 6 | 12 | 18 | 24 |
| " 80 " 120 " | 7 | 14 | 21 | 28 |
| " 120 " 170 " | 8 | 16 | 24 | 32 |
| " 170 " 230 " | 9 | 18 | 27 | 36 |
| " 230 " 300 " | 10 | 20 | 30 | 40 |
| " 300 " 400 " | 11 | 22 | 33 | 44 |
| " 400 " 500 " | 12 | 24 | 36 | 48 |
| " 500 " 600 " | 13 | 26 | 39 | 52 |
| " 600 " 700 " | 14 | 28 | 42 | 56 |
|Exceeding 700 miles | 15 | 30 | 45 | 60 |
+-----------------------------------+-------+-------+-------+------+
Thus the postage on a single letter was--from London to Brighton, 6d.;
from London to Liverpool, 9d.; and from London to Edinburgh, 1s. A
letter weighing one ounce is now carried from London to Thurso for 1d.
In 1801 the charge was 5s.
On letters to or from places abroad, "not being within His Majesty's
dominions," the postage was at the same time raised by 4d., 8d., 1s.,
and 1s. 4d., according as the letter was single, double, treble, or of
the weight of one ounce.
But there was worse to come. By the Act of 1801 the London penny
post--that post which had been established 120 years before, and which,
its founder had predicted, would endure to all posterity--was swept out
of existence. For us who are now living it is difficult to conceive that
such an enormity should have been possible. Yet there is the fact. After
the passing of the Act of 1801 the London penny post had ceased to be.
Where 1d. had been charged before, the sum of 2d. was to be charged now.
The same Act contained another provision, which it is impossible to
regard otherwise than as a wanton interference with trade. The
Legislature, from the earliest days of the Post Office, had shewn
indulgence to merchants' accounts not exceeding one sheet of paper, to
bills of exchange, invoices, and bills of lading. All these, in the
language of the Act establishing the Post Office--the Act of 1660--were
to be "without rate in the price of the letters"; and a similar
provision was contained in the Act of Anne. Owing, however, to a faulty
construction of the clause it was doubtful whether the exemption was
confined to foreign letters or whether it applied to inland letters as
well. The merchants contended that inland letters were included;
otherwise, as they pointed out, a letter might "go cheaper to
Constantinople than to Bristol." The postmasters-general, on the other
hand, insisted that the exemption applied only to foreign letters, and,
in order to set doubts at rest, they early in the reign of George the
Second procured an Act to be passed declaring their interpretation to be
the right one. As regards foreign letters, therefore, there had never
been the slightest doubt as to either the intention or the practice.
When enclosed in letters going or coming from abroad, merchants'
accounts not exceeding one sheet of paper, bills of exchange, invoices,
and bills of lading had from the first establishment of the Post Office
been exempt from postage; and now after an interval of more than 140
years this exemption, like the penny post, was swept away. Henceforth
these documents were to be charged as so many several letters.
Yet one more provision in the Act of 1801 it is necessary to notice as
introducing a novel principle. This Act gave power to the
postmasters-general to grant postal facilities to towns and villages
where no Post Offices existed, provided the inhabitants were prepared to
pay such sums as might be mutually agreed upon. As the postmasters-general
were already authorised to establish Penny Post Offices wherever
they might see fit out of London, the object of this fresh power
may not be very clear. It was not that the Post Office might be
able to charge for the local service more than 1d. a letter, for in
no single instance, so far as we are aware, was more than 1d. charged,
but that in arranging the local service the Post Office might have a
freedom of action which it did not possess under the statute empowering
it to establish penny posts. In short, the object of the power was to
enable the Post Office, in concert with the inhabitants of the towns and
villages concerned, to try experiments.
As a natural consequence of the high rates of postage, the illegal
conveyance of letters now became general. This was an offence to which
Freeling gave no quarter. Wherever information could be obtained that
letters were being conveyed otherwise than by post, there a prosecution
was instituted. The extent to which the policy of repression was carried
less than a century ago may seem incredible. In Scotland, for instance,
every carrier and every master of a stage-coach as well as many others
were served with notice of prosecution. In that part of the kingdom
alone no less than 1200 prosecutions were instituted simultaneously.
Even Parkin, the solicitor to the Post Office in England, was absolutely
aghast at the zeal of his colleague over the Border, and counselled
moderation. Freeling, on the other hand, expressed entire approval,
declaring that the Scotch solicitor was to be encouraged and not
restrained. Nor were the prosecutions merely nominal. An unfortunate
Post Office servant, or rider as he was called, had been detected in
carrying forty unposted letters. This man, whose wages did not exceed a
few shillings a week, was sued upon each letter, and adjudged to pay
forty separate penalties of 10s. apiece.
Lord Auckland and Lord Charles Spencer were at this time
postmasters-general. Spencer had been only recently appointed. Auckland
had held his appointment for a couple of years, and by virtue of his
seniority took the lead. Seldom, perhaps, has there been a more kindly
postmaster-general, or one who to an equal extent enlivened by sprightly
sallies the dull monotony of official work. The postmaster of Tring had
opened a letter from Freeling to Sir John Sebright. The postmaster
pleaded that the opening was accidental; Freeling maintained that it was
wilful, and recommended the man's dismissal. Auckland ordered him to be
reprimanded for culpable negligence. It may, no doubt, he said, have
been a wilful act; but it may also have been an act of inadvertence.
And then, in order to remove any feeling of soreness which Freeling may
have entertained at his recommendation being set aside, he
good-naturedly added, "_Multi alii hoc fecerunt etiam et boni_." "I
have," he continued, "a fellow-feeling on the occasion. My appetite for
reading is as much sickened as that of any man-cook for the tasting of
high sauces; and yet so lately as last night I tore the envelope of a
letter which a little attention would have shewn was not for me."
On another occasion two postmistresses--the postmistress of Faversham
and the postmistress of Croydon--simultaneously announced their
intention of marrying, each for the third time, and asked that their
offices, which as married women they would be incompetent to continue to
hold, might be transferred to their future husbands. Auckland gave the
permission sought, adding, in the case of the postmistress of Faversham,
"I meet the repeated applications of this active deputy with great
complacency, and in the words of Lady Castlemaine's answer to our
mutton-eating monarch--
'Again and again, my liege, said she,
And as oft as shall please your Majesty.'"
Bennett, the man to whom the postmistress of Croydon was engaged, had
been known to her for some time, and she bore testimony to his
qualifications for the post to which he aspired. "The Croydon lady, who
is also laudably prone to a reiteration of nuptials," wrote Auckland,
"rests her case on grounds less solid. I have no doubt of her judgment
and testimony respecting the ability of Mr. Robert Thomas Bennett; but
for the sake of the precedent the sufficiency should be certified either
by the surveyor of the district, or by the vicar or some principal
inhabitant."
With such pleasantries as these Auckland beguiled the tediousness of
official work; but in serious matters, matters affecting the interests
of the public, he appears to have exerted little will of his own. Once,
indeed, he expressed some misgiving as to the propriety of the course
pursued. It was in the case of the Scotch prosecutions. "I own," he
said, "that I was a little surprised to find that so large a measure as
that of commencing 1200 prosecutions has been undertaken without our
special cognisance; but this circumstance," he added, "is in some degree
explained." The reproof, if reproof it can be called, could hardly have
been milder; and yet as coming from Auckland it was a severe one. It had
not the effect, however--nor probably was it designed to have the
effect--of checking the general policy on which Freeling had embarked.
That policy was one of repression, and in England hardly less than in
Scotland prosecutions went merrily on.
Indeed, the repressive powers of the Post Office, large as they were
already, were yet not large enough to satisfy headquarters. Freeling
discerned clearly enough that, if only a sufficiently high consideration
were offered, persons would always be found to carry letters
clandestinely. Might it not be possible to strike at the source of the
mischief, and make it penal for persons clandestinely to send them? The
tempters would thus be reached as well as the tempted. At all events the
experiment should be tried.
With this object Freeling now devoted himself to the preparation of a
bill, one clause of which rendered liable to penalties persons sending
letters otherwise than by the post. The bill, which was throughout of a
highly penal character, eventually passed into law,[77] but not without
grave misgivings on the part of Eldon, the Lord Chancellor, and
Ellenborough, the Chief Justice. It was only in deference to the urgent
representations of the Post Office that these two eminent men consented
to the introduction of the measure, and, while waiving their objections
to it, they strongly recommended that "great lenity should be used in
its execution." It will be interesting to note how far this
recommendation was acted on.
[77] 42 George III. cap. lxxxi. (June 20, 1802).
Having settled the postage rates to his satisfaction, Freeling obtained
permission to carry out his favourite project of guarding the
horse-mails. The arguments in favour of this measure were overwhelming.
During the five years which had elapsed since the Treasury had refused
their assent, these mails had been stopped and rifled of their contents
on fifteen different occasions; and on the last of these--when the Lewes
mail was robbed in the neighbourhood of East Grinstead--bills had been
stolen to the amount of nearly L14,000. During the same period seven
persons had been executed for participation in these felonies; three
were awaiting trial; and the cost of prosecutions amounted to L2000 or
L3000 a year. The annual cost of Freeling's plan, as he now proposed to
modify it, would not exceed L1500. Moved by these considerations, the
Treasury gave at length the necessary authority, and the horse-posts
throughout the country, except on the less important roads, were
provided with a strong cap for the protection of the head, a jacket, a
brace of pistols, and a hanger.
We have said that during the last five years--the five years ending in
August 1801--the horse-mails had been robbed on fifteen different
occasions. One of these robberies occurred between the towns of Selby
and York. It was a commonplace robbery enough, with little or nothing to
distinguish it from any other; and yet for a reason which will presently
appear we give a copy of the letter in which the particulars were
reported to headquarters:--
To FRANCIS FREELING, Esq.
POST OFFICE, YORK, _Feb. 22, 1798_.
SIR--I am sorry to acquaint you the post-boy coming from Selby to
this city was robbed of his mail between six and seven o'clock this
evening. About three miles on this side of Selby he was accosted by
a man on foot with a gun in his hand, who asked him if he was the
post-boy, and at the same time seized hold of the bridle. Without
waiting for any answer he told the boy he must immediately unstrap
the mail and give it him, pointing the muzzle of the gun at him
whilst he did it. When he had given up the mail, the boy begged he
would not hurt him, to which the man replied he need not be afraid,
and at the same time pulled the bridle from the horse's head. The
horse immediately galloped off with the boy, who had never
dismounted.
He was a stout man dressed in a drab jacket, and had the appearance
of being a hicklar. The boy was too much frightened to make any
other remark on his person, and says he was totally unknown to him.
The mail contained the bags for Howden and London, Howden and York,
and Selby and York. I have informed the surveyor of the robbery,
and have forwarded hand-bills this night to be distributed in the
country, and will take care to insert it in the first papers
published here.--Waiting your further instructions, I remain with
respect, sir, your obliged and obedient humble servant,
THOMAS OLDFIELD.
Let us now go forward to the year 1876. In that year this identical bag,
for which a reward had been offered at the time without result, was
placed in our hands, having been found concealed in the roof of an old
wayside public-house situated not far from the scene of the robbery, and
then in course of demolition. The original documents were called for and
produced; and thus, after an interval of nearly eighty years, the bag
and the official papers in which its loss was reported have come
together and found one common resting-place. Of the identity of the bag
there is no question. Not only do the form and texture proclaim it to be
of the last century, but it bears upon it the word "Selby," and a
medallion with the letters "G. R."[78]
[78] This experience is not to be compared with that of Inspector
Dicker, who in 1839 wrote to the Secretary of the Post Office as
follows:--
"HONOURED SIR ... On arriving at Caxton, in the course of conversation
with the landlord of the Crown Public-House respecting the loss of the
above-mentioned bag, he informed me he had found a mail bag secreted
under an oak floor between the joists that supported the floor in one of
the upper rooms of his house, and that the letters it contained were of
very ancient date, as far back as the year 1702. I requested to be
allowed to see them, and, on his producing them, discovered it to be a
London bag labelled Tuxford. I desired to be allowed to take two of the
letters with me and a bit of the bag, which I gave to Mr. Peacock the
solicitor. The only intelligence I could gain as to the probable cause
of the bag being found there was that a post-rider was robbed and
murdered about the date of the above-mentioned letters." The two letters
are still with the official papers. One of them is undecipherable. The
other is nearly as legible as on the day it was written. In it the
writer announces to his uncle the death of his mother from "the Small
Pox and purples," and states that this disease is devastating the town
of Kirtlington.
The troubles which had long been brewing with the mail-coach contractors
now came to a climax. In 1797 an Act of Parliament had been passed
imposing a duty of 1d. a mile upon all public carriages. The mail-coach
contractors bitterly complained of this impost, and not without reason.
A penny a mile was all they received for carrying the mails, and the new
statute virtually took this 1d. away, leaving them without any payment
at all for their services. It had been overlooked that the mail-coach
was not as other coaches were. The ordinary stage-coach was at liberty
to carry as many passengers as its proprietor pleased, and it was no
unusual thing for eight or nine and even ten to be carried inside, the
number outside being limited only by considerations of safety. The
mail-coach, on the contrary, was rigidly restricted to five
passengers--four inside and one out--and the Post Office rejected all
proposals for so altering the construction of the coach as to admit of
its carrying more.
Then came the year 1799, a year of scarcity, during which all kinds of
horse provender reached unprecedented prices. The Government refused to
bring in a bill exempting the mail-coaches from the new duty; and it
only remained for the Post Office to raise the allowance which the
contractors received from 1d. to 2d. a mile, a measure involving an
additional payment of L12,000 a year. The second penny, however, was
granted only as a temporary allowance, terminable at the end of one year
and three-quarters, and, unlike most allowances given under a similar
condition, it actually ceased at the appointed time.
The clamour of two years before now broke out afresh and with redoubled
force. The tax on public carriages remained; and horse provender had
become no cheaper. Did not justice demand that the additional penny
should continue to be paid? The Post Office was disinclined to contest
the claim; but acting under orders from above--orders which assuredly
would not have been given had Pitt remained minister--it proceeded to
bargain, and at length, after much haggling, the contractors were
prevailed upon to accept one-half of the temporary allowance or an
additional 1/2d. a mile for a further period of eighteen months, viz.
from the 10th of October 1802 to the 5th of April 1804, when the
question was to be again considered. A temporary expedient of this
nature seldom answers; and the present was no exception to the rule.
Eventually the Post Office had to give rather more than need have been
given in the first instance, and after 1804 the mails were carried at an
average rate of 2-1/8d. the single or 4-1/4d. the double mile.
Other alterations followed. To the postmasters' salaries an increase was
made all round, an increase small indeed individually but large in the
aggregate. What had been done for Manchester eight years before was now
done for Liverpool. The Post Office there was remodelled and a penny
post established. An end was, about the same time, put to a most
objectionable arrangement. As a reward for their services in promoting
Palmer's plan, three of the surveyors had been appointed to
postmasterships, and these appointments they held in addition to their
own proper appointments as surveyor. Thus, one of their number was
postmaster of Gloucester, another postmaster of Honiton, and a third
postmaster of Portsmouth.
These appointments were now taken away, but under circumstances
calculated to leave the least possible soreness among those from whom
they were taken. Not only were the salaries of all three raised from
L100 to L150 a year, but the son of the surveyor who was postmaster of
Gloucester was appointed to Gloucester, and the daughter of the one who
was postmaster of Honiton was appointed to Honiton. The postmaster of
Portsmouth, who had neither son nor daughter to succeed him, was, in
accordance with a practice then very common, assigned the sum of L80 a
year out of his successor's salary. This sum he received in addition to
his own salary of L150 as surveyor.
In 1805, for the third time within eight years, the Post Office was
called upon to make a further contribution to the Exchequer; and again
Freeling devoted himself to the congenial task of revising and
increasing the postage rates. Unwilling to destroy the symmetry of his
own handiwork, he simply suggested that to the rates as prescribed by
the Act of 1801 should be added--1d. for a single letter, 2d. for a
double letter, 3d. for a treble letter, and 4d. for a letter weighing as
much as one ounce. The suggestion was adopted, and after the 12th of
March, the date on which the new Act was passed, the postage on a single
letter was--from London to Brighton, 7d. instead of 6d.; from London to
Liverpool, 10d. instead of 9d.; and from London to Edinburgh, 1s. 1d.
instead of 1s.
But this was by no means all. In London, as we have seen, the penny post
had, four years before, been converted into a twopenny post; and now the
twopenny post, in respect to letters for places beyond the general post
limits, was converted into a threepenny one. Thus, Abingdon Street,
Westminster, was within the limits of the general post delivery, but
Millbank was beyond them. Accordingly, a letter for Millbank, even
though posted no farther off than Charing Cross, was to be charged 3d.,
while the charge on a letter to Abingdon Street remained at 2d. as
before.
The Act of 1805 introduced a still further complication. Letters from
the country addressed to any part of London that was outside the limits
of the general post were to be consigned to the twopenny post, and, in
addition to all other postage, to be charged with the sum of 2d. Thus,
of two letters of the same weight delivered at the same time and by the
same person, one, originating in the country, would have to pay 2d., and
the other, originating in London, would have to pay 3d.
To record, therefore, that in 1805 the postage on a single letter--as,
for instance, between London and Plymouth--was 10d., although in one
sense correct, would give an imperfect idea of the real state of the
case. Plymouth was one of the towns which possessed village or
convention posts. Suppose a letter from one of the villages to which
these posts extended to have been addressed to Knightsbridge or any
other part of London situated outside the general post boundary. The
postage would have been not 10d. but 10d. + 2d. + whatever might have
been agreed upon for the village accommodation.
But more than this. There were certain towns through which, though lying
off the direct road, the mail-coaches passed for a consideration. Such
towns were Hinckley in Leicestershire, Atherstone in Warwickshire, and
Tamworth in Staffordshire. Here, in consideration of the accommodation
afforded by the mail-coach passing through, the inhabitants undertook to
pay in addition to all other postage 1d. on each letter. A day came when
they sought to be relieved from this impost. Vain aspiration! Had they
not agreed for a penny a letter? And, for any relief that the Post
Office would give, a penny a letter they should pay to the end of time.
It may safely be affirmed that at the present day no increase of postage
would produce a corresponding increase of revenue. Such, unhappily, was
not the case at the beginning of the century. People did not then write
unless they had something to say which could not be left unsaid without
loss or inconvenience. Trade, moreover, was rapidly expanding, and, as a
consequence of the war, the ports were closed. Thus, correspondence was
driven inland; and upon inland correspondence, unlike correspondence
with foreign parts, the Government received the whole of the postage.
But be the cause what it might, it must be owned that, in respect to the
returns which they brought to the Exchequer, the three increases of
postage made in 1797, 1801, and 1805 answered expectation. This, though
not a justification, is perhaps their best excuse. In 1796, the year
before the first of the three increases was made, the net Post Office
revenue was L479,000; in 1806, the year after the last of them, it was
L1,066,000. The same result is apparent in the case of what, for
distinction's sake, we will still call the London penny post, although
the London penny post had become a twopenny and threepenny one. In 1796
the net revenue derived from this source was L8000; in 1806 it was
L41,000.
Among those who about this time criticised the doings of the Post
Office was William Cobbett. Cobbett was regarded by Freeling as a base
calumniator with whom no terms were to be kept; and yet on a
dispassionate retrospect it is impossible to deny that on the whole his
criticisms were just, and that such of them as appeared in print[79]
were expressed in not intemperate language. At the present time far
stronger language is used every day under far less provocation. Of
Cobbett's numerous subjects of complaint we will mention only two--the
so-called "early delivery" of letters and the treatment of foreign
newspapers; and these have been selected because they serve to
illustrate, better perhaps than any others, the practice of the Post
Office eighty or ninety years ago. The latter of the two subjects serves
also to explain much that would otherwise be inexplicable.
[79] _Weekly Political Register_, Nos. 25 and 26, 21st and 28th Dec.
1805.
The "early delivery"--a species of accommodation confined to London--was
not what its name would seem to imply, because no letters were even
begun to be delivered before nine o'clock in the morning. It was really
a preferential delivery, a delivery restricted to those who chose to pay
for it. For a fee or, as the Post Office preferred to call it, a
subscription of 5s. a quarter or L1 a year, any one residing within
certain limits, including the whole of the city and extending westward
as far as Hamilton Place, could get his letters in advance of the
general delivery. It was managed thus. At nine o'clock or a little after
the letter-carriers started from Lombard Street; and those for the
remoter districts, in addition to their own letters, took letters for
the districts through which they passed in proceeding to their own and,
without waiting for the postage, dropped them at the houses of
subscribers. The postage was collected in the course of the week by the
regular letter-carrier of the district.
Against this preferential delivery, a delivery purchased by individuals
at the expense of the general public, Cobbett very justly inveighed.
Freeling, on the other hand, defended it as a priceless boon to
merchants and traders who desired to receive their letters before the
appointed hour. He omitted to explain, however, why a boon which could
be bought by some could not be given gratuitously to all. It is a
curious fact that this early delivery, essentially unfair as it was,
continued to exist for more than thirty years after the period of which
we are now writing. As late as 1835 and 1836 it was still in vogue, and
not only the merchants and traders of London but the denizens of the
squares were largely availing themselves of it. But it was chiefly in
the city that the practice flourished. Thus, on the morning of the 9th
of May 1828, out of a total of 637 letters for the Lombard Street
district no less than 570 were "delivered early."
The second of Cobbett's complaints, or rather the second which we
propose to notice, had reference to the treatment of foreign newspapers.
What this treatment was at the beginning of the present century may
appear hardly credible to us who live at the end of it. Except at the
letter rate of postage, no newspapers could either enter or leave the
kingdom unless they were franked;[80] and the power of franking them was
restricted to Post Office servants. This power was as old as the Post
Office itself; and so was the practice of exercising it for a
consideration. What was new was an arrangement or understanding between
Freeling and Arthur Stanhope, the head of the foreign department, by
virtue of which Stanhope in conjunction with his subordinates franked
newspapers for the Continent, and Freeling franked those for America and
the British possessions abroad.
[80] What we have here called "franked" newspapers went free in both
directions; but of course it was only newspapers outwards that bore a
signature on the superscription. On those inwards a signature was
immaterial, as they would in any case go, without being charged, direct
from the port of arrival to Lombard Street. Abroad, special arrangements
for their transit and delivery were made from London. Thus, the London
Office by means of its private agency could get an English newspaper
delivered in Paris for 2d. By post, the charge between Calais and Paris
would have been from 3s. to 4s.
Here was a mine of wealth. Newspapers were rapidly increasing in number
and postage was rapidly rising. Of course, so long as the price charged
for franking was kept well below the cost of postage, the demand for
franks would be brisk. Before the century was sixteen years old Freeling
and Stanhope were drawing from this source more than L3000 a year each.
Cobbett had had personal experience of the system. He had paid a visit
to America, and having while there been supplied with a newspaper from
England, he had on his return been presented with a bill for nine
guineas as the price of franking. Not only did he refuse to pay the
bill, and persist in his refusal in spite of repeated applications, but
he inveighed in his paper against the practice which made such a charge
possible. This was in 1802. He now, in December 1805, renewed his attack
upon the Post Office; but this time it was in respect to the manner in
which newspapers were treated on their arrival in England, a treatment
still more extraordinary than that which they received on despatch.
The matter is somewhat complicated, and in order to explain it we must
go back a few years. Till the breaking out of the French Revolution and
the Continental wars which succeeded it, foreign intelligence had long
been uninteresting and was little sought after. The few newspapers that
were published in London had confined themselves almost exclusively to
domestic matters. Then came a sudden change. Domestic matters fell into
the background. The whole country was eager to learn what was taking
place on the other side of the Channel. Newspapers multiplied apace.
Where there was one before, there were now half a dozen, all hungering
for foreign intelligence. Here was an opportunity for the clerks in the
foreign department of the Post Office. These clerks, in conjunction with
their comptroller, had the exclusive right of franking newspapers for
the Continent, just as newspapers circulating within Great Britain were
franked by the clerks of the roads. They had also, by virtue of their
position, unequalled facilities for getting newspapers from abroad, and
of these facilities they now availed themselves to the utmost.
It would not be correct to state that at this time they established a
foreign news-agency, for this they had done long ago; but what had
hitherto been an insignificant business now became a large and important
one. It may be interesting to trace its progress. At the time of which
we are writing--from 1789 onwards--the foreign correspondence was seldom
in course of distribution in London till the afternoon, owing to the
then established custom of waiting till two o'clock for any mail that
might be due. Thus, a foreign mail arriving at three o'clock in the
afternoon of one day might not be delivered until the same hour in the
afternoon of the following day.
Another curious custom prevailed at this time. It was considered right,
as a matter of international courtesy, that no foreign newspapers should
be delivered until the foreign ministers had received their
correspondence; and this correspondence, though delivered separately
from the general correspondence, was seldom delivered earlier. Meanwhile
the newspapers were held in reserve by the clerks, ready to be delivered
to their customers as soon as delivery was permissible by the rule of
the office. This was a state of things which readily lent itself to
malpractices. The person whom the comptroller appointed to distribute
the foreign newspapers was an old woman of the name of Cooper, and in
her custody they remained during the close time, the time during which
the foreign ministers' correspondence was preparing for delivery. This
woman had a son who assisted her in the distribution, a young man of
some ability and of no principle. He was not slow to take advantage of
his position. From the foreign newspapers, while in his mother's
custody, he jotted down the points of interest and sold his jottings to
the London newspapers. The profits he derived from this source assumed
such proportions that in the course of a few years he was reputed to
have amassed a not inconsiderable fortune. From one newspaper alone, the
_Courier_, he received no less than L200 in a single year.
Thus matters went on, save only that owing to the establishment of a
second delivery of foreign correspondence the interval during which
newspapers lay at the Post Office was shortened, until the year 1796,
when Stanhope's appointment as comptroller put an end to one scandal
merely to establish another. No sooner had Stanhope taken up his
appointment than the clerks, who had long protested in vain against
Cooper's conduct, broke out into fresh complaints; and the arrangement
was then made which called forth Cobbett's invective. Why, argued
Stanhope, should not that which Cooper has been doing clandestinely be
done openly and under official sanction? It is true a rule exists that
foreign newspapers must not be delivered in advance of the foreign
ministers' correspondence; but a carefully-compiled summary of the
contents of a newspaper is a very different thing from the newspaper
itself. This, surely, might be delivered to the London editors without a
breach either of the rule itself or of the considerations on which it
was founded.
Such were Stanhope's arguments, and he proceeded to put them into
practice. With few if any exceptions, the editors of the London
newspapers, both morning and evening, fell into the plan. French and
Dutch translators were engaged, and into their hands the foreign
newspapers were placed as soon as they arrived at the Post Office. For
each summary the charge was one guinea, and as there were generally two
summaries a week, the sum which each editor paid was a little over L100
a year. The entire proceeds, after payment of expenses, were divided in
certain proportions between Stanhope and his subordinates.
In 1801 and again in 1802 Cobbett had inveighed against a practice which
thus amerced the editors of the London newspapers; but he might as well
have preached to the winds. The practice was far too remunerative to be
abandoned without a struggle. It is true that no one need take a summary
unless he liked; but if he omitted to take one, it was at the cost of
having only stale news to publish.
At the close of 1805 circumstances were somewhat altered, and Cobbett
renewed his attack. Communication by Dover was closed, and
correspondence from the Continent could reach England only by Holland
and Gravesend. The best arrangements of which the circumstances admitted
were made for keeping up the supply of foreign newspapers and summaries;
but after a while they broke down, and the Post Office was forced to
seek the assistance of the Alien Office. This office had agents at
Gravesend, and undertook during the emergency to do what had hitherto
been done by the Post Office. Cobbett saw his opportunity, and was not
slow to take advantage of it. It had been dinned into his ears that it
was through the Post Office alone that foreign newspapers could be
legally obtained, and that the department could make what arrangements
it pleased for their distribution. But arrangements which in the hands
of the Post Office were tolerated only because they had, or were
supposed to have, legal sanction had now been transferred to the Alien
Office. What, then, asked Cobbett, had become of the law? To this
inquiry the Post Office did not find it convenient to vouchsafe a reply.
But a still more formidable antagonist than Cobbett was about to deliver
an assault. This was the _Times_ newspaper. The _Times_, although among
what Cobbett called "the guinea-giving papers," seldom made use of the
summaries which the guineas purchased, regarding them as meagre and
unsatisfactory. Drawing from other and more fertile sources, it
contrived in the matter of priority of intelligence to distance all
competitors. On one occasion, indeed--a remarkable feat for those
days--it even forestalled the "Court," or, as they were now called, the
"State" letters, which, unlike the ordinary letters, were delivered the
moment the mail arrived. It was in 1807, when George Canning was Foreign
Secretary. Canning had not yet opened his despatches, and was amazed to
find in his morning's paper information of which he had received no
previous notice, and which, as he afterwards found, the despatches
contained. Indignant that his intelligence should have been thus
anticipated, he instantly wrote to the Post Office demanding an
explanation. Angry as Canning was, the reply he received can hardly
have failed to evoke a smile. This reply was that the Continental
newspapers from which the _Times_ had derived its information had been
obtained not from the Post Office but from the Foreign Office, and that
they had reached this office in Canning's own bag under a cover
addressed to himself.
The _Times_ had long protested against the intolerable delay which
foreign newspapers sustained at the Post Office. Especially had it
protested against the absurdity of a system which, while withholding the
newspapers themselves, yet permitted a summary of their contents to be
published. But it had still more personal grounds of complaint. Letters
for the _Times_, sealed letters addressed by permission to the
Under-Secretaries of State, were excluded from the Foreign Office bag
and kept back for the general delivery because, forsooth, the clerks at
the Post Office were pleased to feel sure that these letters contained
foreign newspapers, and feared that by forwarding them they would damage
their own interests.
Such were the amazing liberties taken with correspondence in those days.
No wonder that the _Times_ proceeded to resent the outrage. In its issue
of the 9th of May 1807 appeared an article which, after charging the
Post Office with extortions and with sacrificing public convenience to
the avarice of individuals, proceeded to declare that its administration
was a disgrace to the Government. Freeling's indignation knew no bounds.
That the charge was just never seems to have occurred to him. In his
view it was nothing less than a libel--a libel of the most malignant
character. Never had man been more cruelly wronged than himself. The
postmasters-general, Lords Sandwich and Chichester, had been only four
days in office, and their chief-officer was as yet unknown to them.
Obviously the intention was to damage this officer's reputation in the
eyes of his new masters. But this intention should be frustrated. A
criminal information should be filed. No; not a criminal information,
for thus the aggressor's mouth would be closed. It should be a civil
suit or action at law; and then the aggressor would be at liberty to
tell his own tale, and all the world should see how little justification
there was for his aspersions.
At this time it was not known to Freeling that letters for the _Times_
sent under cover to the Under-Secretaries of State were being diverted
from the ordinary course; and when, a little later on, the fact of
diversion became known to him, the terms in which he expressed his sense
of the impropriety were such as even the aggrieved newspaper would
probably have held to leave nothing to be desired. But to apologise and
arrest proceedings--these were things which would appear not to have
come within the sphere of contemplation. An action had been begun, and
it must proceed to the bitter end. A righteous cause is not necessarily
one that can be defended at law. Such would seem to have been the case
in the present instance, for when the action came on for trial, the
_Times_ failed to appear, and judgment went by default.
Freeling was jubilant over the result. Here was a triumphant vindication
of his own and Stanhope's proceedings. A charge had been brought--a
charge as serious as any that could be levelled against a public
department, and not even an attempt had been made to substantiate it.
This was a happy termination of an unhappy business. So, at least,
thought Freeling; but, as a matter of fact, the business was far from
being terminated yet.
On the 27th of July, within three weeks of his reporting to the
postmasters-general the result of the action at law, appeared a second
article headed "Post Office," in which the iniquities of the system were
ruthlessly exposed. Strong language, indeed--language such as two months
before had brought the _Times_ within the meshes of the law--was
carefully avoided, and the article confined itself to a bare narrative
of facts. But the case against the Post Office lost nothing on this
account. The facts spoke for themselves, and these, stated in their
naked simplicity, constituted an indictment, to the weight of which no
words could add. We can well believe that from this period the _Times_
received its foreign newspapers in due course; but in other respects the
only effect which the appearance of the second article had upon the Post
Office was to spoil the triumph which it was celebrating over the result
of the first. As to changing their practice and setting their house in
order, this appears not to have occurred to either Freeling or Stanhope.
On the contrary, they regarded themselves as deeply-injured persons,
and, by dint of sheer importunity, induced the postmasters-general to
consent to a second prosecution. Wiser counsels, however, prevailed. The
attorney-general, to whom the official papers were sent, took care not
to return them, and to the present day the Post Office is without these
interesting records.
It is time we inquired what measure of success had attended the
experimental posts--the posts by which, under mutual agreement between
the Post Office and the inhabitants, small towns and villages were to be
connected with post towns. Village posts, they were sometimes called;
but more commonly fifth-clause posts, from the clause of the Act under
which they were established. At first they answered well, but in 1807 an
authoritative decision to the effect that franked letters and newspapers
conveyed by a fifth-clause post were exempt from charge tended
materially to disconcert arrangements. Franked letters, though exempt
from charge by the general post, were not exempt either by the penny
posts in the country or by the twopenny post in London; and it had been
taken for granted that they, as well as newspapers, would not be exempt
by the fifth-clause posts.
But it had now been decided otherwise, and this made all the difference.
In arranging these posts nothing more had been aimed at than to make
them self-supporting, and in adjusting the receipts and expenditure
franks and newspapers had been counted as so many letters; but if these
were to be eliminated, the balance would be on the wrong side. A service
that was not self-supporting was, at the beginning of the century,
regarded by the Post Office authorities as an abomination; and saddled
as they were with a number of fifth-clause posts which had ceased to
pay their own expenses, it became a serious question what was best to be
done.
A decision was precipitated by the action of the little town of Olney in
Buckinghamshire. Olney had at one time received from headquarters in
Lombard Street what was called "an allowance in aid of its post"; but
when fifth-clause posts were introduced this allowance ceased, and the
inhabitants, in consideration of their being supplied with an official
messenger from Newport Pagnel, agreed to pay over and above all other
postage the sum of 1d. on each letter delivered. This agreement had now
existed for several years, and the inhabitants had grown a little tired
of it, being of opinion that a private messenger of their own could be
procured on easier terms. Accordingly they petitioned headquarters to
reduce the rate they were paying from 1d. to 1/2d. a letter, and, the
request being refused, they proceeded to consider whether their
agreement should not be terminated.
This having come to Freeling's ears, he stopped the post at once, and
the inhabitants were left to get their letters as best they could. Not
even notice of his intention had been given. Nor was this all. These
capricious and discontented people, he said, should have imposed upon
them a penny post. Under a penny post they would still have their pence
to pay; and the pence would be payable, not, as under the fifth-clause
post, only on the letters delivered, but on those collected as well.
This, while operating as a punitive measure, would have the incidental
advantage of adding to the revenue. Freeling was a bold man, and yet,
bold as he was, his courage deserted him in this instance. At the last
moment, after arrangements had been made for converting the fifth-clause
post into a penny post, the order for conversion was revoked. To impose
a penny post, he argued, would be no injustice; it would not even be a
hardship, and yet these unreasonable people would be sure to represent
it as such. They would urge that at one time their town had received an
allowance in aid of its post; that then a foot-messenger had been
established, and they paid 1d. on each letter delivered; and that now
because they proposed to replace this messenger, as the Act of
Parliament gave them power to do, by a messenger of their own, who would
perform the service at a cheaper rate, an older Act was brought to bear
upon them which, while obliging them to pay 1d. on each letter collected
as well as delivered, made the employment of their own messenger
illegal.
Such were the arguments by which Freeling excused himself to the
postmasters-general, as though an excuse were necessary, for not going
on with the high-handed proceeding he had originally contemplated. In
the result, Olney was given a Post Office of its own, being made in
technical language a sub-office under Newport Pagnel, the post town. A
rule was at the same time laid down to the effect that fifth-clause
posts should no longer be maintained except in the case of small towns.
To connect these with post towns fifth-clause posts might still be
continued; but, in the case of villages and hamlets, they were to be
replaced by penny posts. From this rule the fifth-clause posts received
their death-blow. Such of them as were village posts were promptly
converted into penny posts; and such as were town posts, as the small
towns acquired Post Offices of their own, became gradually merged in the
general posts of the kingdom.
The Post Office, which during the last ten or fifteen years had done
much to impair its own utility, was now to receive a check from without;
and this in respect to a branch of its service which was perhaps least
open to criticism. The mail-coach system had continued to prosper. In
1811 the number of mail-coaches constantly running in Great Britain was
about 220, and the extent of road over which they travelled was between
11,000 and 12,000 miles a day. The country gentry and the commercial
classes vied with each other in demanding an extension of the system.
Towns lying off the main road were glad to pay 1d. a letter in addition
to the postage on condition of the mail-coach passing through them on
its way. The mail-coach, moreover, apart from the facilities it
afforded for communication, brought traffic in its train. It gave, in
the language of the time, publicity to the roads. Palmer had, more than
twenty years before, noticed this result and commented upon it. He found
as a matter of experience that wherever a mail-coach was set up other
traffic followed, and the post-chaises along the road were furbished up
and better conducted.
But popular as the new system was on the whole, there was one class of
persons with whom it was distinctly the reverse. These were the trustees
of the roads. With them the exemption from toll which the mail-coaches
enjoyed was a constant source of complaint. Nor was it calculated to
abate their discontent that the Post Office, in whose favour the
exemption was granted, possessed the power, a power which it constantly
exercised, of indicting the roads if they were not kept in proper
repair. The state of the trusts was at this time far from flourishing.
In the neighbourhood of London and other large towns where traffic was
considerable the tolls were low and the receipts high; but in the
remoter and less populous parts of the kingdom the exact converse held
good. There the tolls were high and the receipts low.
To take the kingdom as a whole, the case stood thus: In very few
instances indeed had any part of the debt on the turnpike trusts been
discharged, and in fewer instances still had a sinking fund been
established with a view to extinction of debt by process of time. With
these rare exceptions, nothing more had been done than to keep up
payment of the interest agreed upon, while in many instances no interest
at all was being paid or interest at a reduced rate. In some instances
indeed, the receipts from the tolls were not enough to defray even the
cost of maintenance and repairs.
It is not to be wondered at if in these circumstances the trustees of
the roads looked with longing eyes to the L50,000 a year which was the
estimated value of the tolls that, except for their exemption, the
mail-coaches would have had to pay. Of course the postmasters-general
were strongly opposed to the surrender of this large amount; and yet
there was one consideration which told heavily against them. It was
this, that in Ireland the mails were not exempt from toll. Under an Act
passed by the Irish Legislature in 1798, an Act which still remained in
force, an account was kept of all tolls leviable at the turnpike gates
through which the mail passed, and this account was paid quarterly by
the Post Office authorities in Dublin. Why, it was asked, could not a
similar system be adopted in Great Britain? It was also urged, and not
without force, that in the matter of weight the mail bore to the coach
which carried it a very small proportion. The coach with its loading
complete weighed from thirty-three to forty cwts., while the mail seldom
weighed more than one cwt. For the sake of so small a proportion was it
equitable that exemption should extend to the whole?
A strenuous and united effort was now made to force the mail-coaches to
pay toll. The question came before Parliament, and a Committee was
appointed to inquire and report. The result could hardly have been in
doubt. It was by the landed proprietors, the men who had seats in
Parliament, that the turnpike roads had been made, and they were
generally the creditors on the turnpike funds. The Committee was
unanimous in recommending that the exemption from toll which the
mail-coaches enjoyed should absolutely cease and determine.
On the Committee's report no action was taken in the session of 1811;
but if the Post Office supposed that the matter would be allowed to
drop, it was doomed to disappointment. Early in the following year
Spencer Perceval forwarded to Lombard Street for any observations the
postmasters-general might have to offer upon it a bill having for its
object to repeal the exemption. The postmasters-general suggested
certain alterations, but upon the subject-matter of the bill, coming as
it did from the Prime Minister, and their views being already well
known, they confined themselves to once more expressing a doubt whether
such a measure could be necessary. In May Perceval was assassinated;
and now the postmasters-general fondly hoped that the matter was at an
end. What then was their dismay at learning a month or two later that
the Government was resolved to proceed with the bill. The same letter
that conveyed this intelligence contained a suggestion as strange as it
was original. This was that, in order to meet complaints, the
mail-coaches on certain roads should be withdrawn. The postmasters-general,
little supposing that such a suggestion could take practical shape,
simply replied that not a whisper had yet reached them to the effect
that mail-coaches were considered in excess; that, on the contrary,
they were being constantly urged to increase the number.
The bill was finally withdrawn; but heavy was the price which had to be
paid. With those who were advocating the measure Vansittart, the new
Chancellor of the Exchequer, effected a compromise behind the back of
the Post Office. There was indeed ample room for a satisfactory
adjustment. For the conveyance of the mails the mail-coach proprietors
received from the Post Office L30,000 a year; they paid to the
Government for stamp duty L40,000 a year; and the exemption which they
enjoyed from toll was estimated to represent L50,000 a year. These
figures seem almost to suggest a feasible arrangement; yet the
compromise actually effected took another form. It was that, in
accordance with the suggestion of a few months before, mail-coaches
should be withdrawn.
Nor was this mere empty talk; Vansittart had pledged himself to specific
performance. And now began a general dis-coaching of the roads. The
mail-coaches running between Warwick and Coventry, between Shrewsbury
and Aberystwith, between Aberystwith and Ludlow, between Edinburgh and
Dalkeith, between Edinburgh and Musselburgh, between Chichester and
Godalming, between Dorchester and Stroudwater--all were discontinued at
once. Notice to quit was served upon the mail-coaches between Worcester
and Hereford, between Hereford and Gloucester, between Hereford and
Brecon, between Alton and Gosport, and between Plymouth and Tavistock.
And, what was hardly less important, numerous applications for
mail-coaches which, except for Treasury interference, would have been
granted, were refused. By Pitt the mail-coach had been regarded as a
pioneer of civilisation; in the eyes of Pitt's successors it was a
mischievous encumbrance.
Vansittart, having dealt one deadly blow at the Post Office, now
proceeded to deal another. The war with France had exhausted the
Exchequer, and, as part of the ways and means, he called upon the Post
Office for a further contribution of L200,000 a year. Once more the
screw was turned; and, oppressive as the postage rates were already,
they were as from the 9th of July 1812 increased as follows:--
+-----------------------------------+-------+-------+-------+------+
| |Single.|Double.|Treble.|Ounce.|
| +-------+-------+-------+------+
| | _d._ | _d._ | _d._ | _d._ |
| +-------+-------+-------+------+
|Not exceeding 15 miles | 4 | 8 | 12 | 16 |
|Above 15 and not exceeding 20 miles| 5 | 10 | 15 | 20 |
| " 20 " 30 " | 6 | 12 | 18 | 24 |
| " 30 " 50 " | 7 | 14 | 21 | 28 |
| " 50 " 80 " | 8 | 16 | 24 | 32 |
| " 80 " 120 " | 9 | 18 | 27 | 36 |
| " 120 " 170 " | 10 | 20 | 30 | 40 |
| " 170 " 230 " | 11 | 22 | 33 | 44 |
| " 230 " 300 " | 12 | 24 | 36 | 48 |
| " 300 " 400 " | 13 | 26 | 39 | 52 |
| " 400 " 500 " | 14 | 28 | 42 | 56 |
| " 500 " 600 " | 15 | 30 | 45 | 60 |
| " 600 " 700 " | 16 | 32 | 48 | 64 |
|Above 700 miles | 17 | 34 | 51 | 68 |
+-----------------------------------+-------+-------+-------+------+
This is the highest point to which the rates of postage have ever
attained in this country. Freeling would have resented so much as a
suggestion that the institution which had now for some years been under
his exclusive management was not in the most perfect order to which
human foresight and ingenuity could raise it; and yet to the
dispassionate observer it may be permitted to doubt whether eighty years
ago the Post Office was not in some important particulars more open to
criticism than at any time since its first establishment.
Let us compare for a moment the beginning of the nineteenth with the
end of the seventeenth century. In 1695 the postage from London to
Liverpool or to York or to Plymouth was, for a single letter, 3d.; in
1813 it was 11d. In 1695, wherever letters were being carried
clandestinely, the policy was to supplant; in 1813 the policy was to
repress. In 1695 the King would not consent to a single prosecution even
for the sake of example; in 1813, when the Post Office revenue had
passed from the King to the people, prosecutions were being conducted
wholesale. In 1695 a circuitous post would be converted into a direct
one, even though the shorter distance carried less postage; in 1813 a
direct post in place of a circuitous one was being constantly refused on
the plea that a loss of postage would result. In 1695 London enjoyed the
advantage of a penny post, and this post carried up to one pound in
weight; in 1813 the penny post had been replaced by a twopenny and
threepenny one, and, except in the case of a packet passing through the
general post, the weight was limited to four ounces. In 1813, moreover,
the complications were bewildering. In some places there were
fifth-clause posts, and in others penny posts; and the charge by these
posts was in addition to the charge by the general post. Some towns,
over and above all other charges, paid an additional 1d. on each letter
for the privilege of the mail-coach passing through them. Of two
adjoining houses one might receive its letters free of any charge for
delivery and not the other. This difference was to be found in towns
where building was going on--as, for instance, at Brighton--old houses
being considered within, and new houses without, what was called the
usage of delivery.
In London itself the complications, if possible, were more bewildering
still. The threepenny post began where the twopenny post ended. Thus far
the practice was simple enough. But the general post limits did not
coincide with the limits of the twopenny post: and the limits of both
the twopenny post and the general post differed from those of the
foreign post. Indeed, it is probably not too much to say that in 1813
there was not a single town in the kingdom at the Post Office of which
absolutely certain information could have been obtained as to the charge
to which a letter addressed to any other town would be subject. More
than ten years later Post Office experts examined before a Committee of
the House of Commons were unable to state what, even on letters
delivered in London, would in certain cases be the proper postage.
It may here be asked how it was that with rates so oppressive and so
vexatiously levied the public were induced to tolerate them. The
mail-coaches were popular except with the road trustees; and there is
reason to think that even these, or at all events the principal persons
among them, only professed a dislike which they did not really feel. The
Post Office packets were also popular, and well they deserved to be,
distinguishing themselves as they were about this time by deeds of even
more than usual daring.
But these considerations, added to the personal popularity which
Freeling himself enjoyed, are altogether insufficient to account for the
extraordinary patience of the public under the treatment which eighty or
ninety years ago they endured at the hands of the Post Office. The
explanation we believe to be that the heavy rates of postage, and not a
few of the vexations incidental to the levying of them, were tacitly
accepted as a part, a necessary part, of the load of taxation which the
people were called upon to bear as a consequence of the war in which
England was engaged. We further believe that, in respect to its acts of
aggression, the Post Office escaped criticism mainly because its
proceedings, irritating as they were to individuals, were not generally
known. This want of publicity is specially noticeable in the matter of
prosecutions. At the present day a single prosecution undertaken by the
Post Office would be the subject of comment in every newspaper in the
kingdom. Eighty or ninety years ago, numerous as the Post Office
prosecutions were, there was not a newspaper in the kingdom that
gratuitously published particulars or even announced the fact. Often
did the postmasters-general lament this reticence, believing as they did
that to make known their repressive measures, and the amount of
penalties inflicted, must have a deterrent effect upon the illicit
traffic; and at length, for want of any better means of securing
publicity, they gave directions that, wherever a prosecution took place,
hand-bills giving full particulars were to be struck off and affixed to
the doors of the local inns.
The question which two years before had agitated the minds of the road
trustees was now revived in Scotland. Among those who pressed for the
establishment of mail-coaches none were more persistent than the large
landed proprietors north of the Tweed; and as soon as their demands were
acceded to, none were louder in their denunciations of the injustice
which exempted mail-coaches from toll. The Government yielded at length
to the pressure that was brought to bear, and in 1813 an Act was passed
repealing, so far as Scotland was concerned, exemption from toll in the
case of mail-carriages with more than two wheels. The same Act, in order
to indemnify the Post Office for the loss it would thus sustain, imposed
an additional postage of 1/2d. upon every letter conveyed by mail-coach
in Scotland.
The Post Office was not quite fairly treated in this matter. No sooner
had the Act passed than the trustees of the roads raised the tolls. At
the old rates the mail-coaches, had they not been exempt, would have had
to pay L6865 a year; at the new rates, now that they were exempt no
longer, they had to pay L11,759 a year, or more by nearly L6000 than the
additional 1/2d. of postage had been estimated to yield. Nor was this
all. Some of the Road Acts contained a clause empowering the trustees to
demand the sum of 1d. for every outside passenger. This power had never
yet been exercised; but now the demand was rigorously enforced in the
case of passengers by the mail-coaches, and by these coaches only.
Thus unhandsomely dealt with, the Post Office proceeded to do in
Scotland what under other circumstances it had done two years before in
England. It reduced the number of its coaches. This excited many
murmurs. From Glasgow, for instance, a mail-coach had been running
through Paisley to Greenock. This was now replaced by a horse post, and
the district was not only relieved from the payment of the additional
postage of 1/2d. a letter, but--a boon which had long been earnestly
sought--was given three posts a day instead of two. Yet all three towns
refused to be comforted, and bitterly reproached the postmasters-general
for depriving them of their mail-coach. The convenience of travellers,
however, was not a matter of which the Post Office took any account. The
Post Office was concerned with the transmission of letters; and wherever
these could be transmitted with the same or nearly the same expedition
and at less expense by other means, the mail-coaches were discarded.
About this time two measures were introduced which shew a strange
forgetfulness of what had gone before. Of these one was a reorganisation
of the returned letter office, and the other the passing of a fresh Ship
Letter Act. Hitherto, of the letters which could not be delivered only
those had been returned to the writers which contained property or
enclosures of apparent importance. The others had been torn up and sold
as waste paper. Now all were to be presumed to be of importance to the
writers and to be returned accordingly. The propriety and even the
legality of charging such letters had been questioned in Palmer's time,
and Pitt had decided that they were not to be charged. This was now
forgotten, and the Post Office proceeded not only to return every letter
that could not be delivered, but to charge it with postage. To Freeling,
who regarded the Post Office as a mere engine of taxation, the
temptation was no doubt a strong one. The measure, before being
definitively adopted, had been tried experimentally for one year; and it
was found that out of 189,000 letters returned to the writers more than
135,000 were accepted, producing a clear revenue of L4421.
By the new Ship Letter Act the charge on a single letter arriving by
private ship was raised from 4d. to 6d., and, what was far more
important, no letters were to be sent by private ship except such as had
been brought to the Post Office to be charged. The directors of the East
India Company, who would seem to have strangely overlooked the bill
during its passage through the House, implored the Government to get the
Act repealed. It was true, they urged, that their official
correspondence was exempted from the operation of the Act; but dependent
on them in the East was a small army of servants whose private letters
had hitherto gone free, and, under the provisions of the Act, would go
free no longer. With the East Indies there was no communication by
packet, and surely it was introducing a new principle for the Post
Office to make a charge where it did not perform a service. Did not the
charge in such a case become a mere tax upon letter-writing?
Freeling, on the other hand, maintained that no new principle was
involved, inasmuch as the previous Act, the Act of 1799, recognised the
sending of letters by ships other than packet boats and charging them
with postage. This was perfectly true; but he forgot to add that,
whereas the Act of 1799 was permissive, the Act of 1814 was compulsory,
that under the one Act it was optional with the senders of letters
whether they would take them to the Post Office or not; and under the
other, if they did not take them to the Post Office, they rendered
themselves liable to severe penalties. He might indeed have gone
further, and said that in 1799 Pitt and the whole of the administration
of which Pitt was the head scouted the very idea of anything in the
shape of compulsion being employed in the matter.
The Ship Letter Act of 1814 proved a complete failure. It contained no
provision obliging private ships to carry letters, and the private ships
between England and India were almost entirely in the hands of the East
India Company. No wonder, therefore, that the Company, when asked
whether it might be announced to the public that bags would be made up
at the Post Office to be conveyed by their ships, replied in the
negative. The Court of Directors, their letter said, are not without
hopes that Parliament will consent to revise the Act, and meanwhile they
"do not see fit to authorise the commanders or owners of any of their
ships to take charge of any bag of letters from the Post Office
subjected to a rate of postage for sea conveyance." Freeling was filled
with dismay. "A vital impediment," he exclaimed, "to the execution of
the Act."
The expectations of the India House were not disappointed. In the next
session of Parliament the Act of 1814 was replaced by another which
granted larger exemptions to the Company and disarmed its opposition.
The later Act gave power to the Post Office to establish a line of
packets to India and the Cape of Good Hope, and, until a line should be
established, to employ as packets any ships it pleased, including ships
of war. The mails were to go once a month. By packet--in which term is
included the ship which the Post Office might be pleased to designate as
packet for the occasion--the postage on a single letter was fixed at 3s.
6d.; by private ship it varied according to direction, outwards 1s. 2d.
and inwards 8d.
Such were the main provisions of the Act of 1815; but there were others
which introduced new principles. As a result of the action of the East
India Company in the preceding year, it was now for the first time made
compulsory upon private ships to carry letters when required to do so by
the Post Office,[81] and the Post Office was empowered to pay for their
carriage a reasonable sum. This sum was to go by way of remuneration to the
owners of the vessels, and to be in addition to a gratuity of 2d. a letter
which the commander was to receive as his own perquisite. A still more
important provision, a provision which assuredly could not have emanated
from the Post Office, was one in favour of newspapers. By packet the
postage on a letter to India or the Cape weighing as much as one ounce was
to be 14s.; on a newspaper of no greater weight, if stamped and in a cover
open at the side or end, it was to be 3d. This was the first enactment
that provided for newspapers going outside the limits of the United
Kingdom for less than the letter rate of postage.
[81] One of the first, if not the very first, against whom proceedings
were taken under this provision of the statute was Robert Wetherall,
master of the ship _Albinia_, from Gravesend to the Cape of Good Hope.
Wetherall had at the last moment refused to take the mails on board,
consisting of 173 letters. On the advice of the law officers the Post
Office contemplated proceeding against him by indictment; but the
Government decided to proceed by information, with a view apparently to
give to the case greater importance and notoriety.
What was virtually a most interesting experiment was now about to be
tried. To India and the Cape the Post Office had no packets of its own;
and before private ships could be employed as packets, the consent of
the owners had to be obtained and the amount of payment to be agreed
upon. Practically, the Post Office was at the mercy of others. Mails had
to be sent once every month; ships of war could not always be employed;
and should the shipping interest combine, the postmasters-general would
have to pay pretty much what owners chose to demand. To the credit of
that interest nothing in the shape of combination took place. During the
first sixteen months the mails were despatched five times by His
Majesty's ships, four times by ships of the East India Company, and
seven times by ships belonging to private owners. His Majesty's ships
carried the mails, of course, without charge. The East India Company,
with admirable generosity, placed their ships at the disposal of the
Post Office and refused to receive any payment. And the ships belonging
to private owners were engaged, the first of them for L500 and the other
six for sums ranging from L50 to L150. Altogether, the sum expended
during more than a year and a quarter in transporting the mails to India
and the Cape of Good Hope did not exceed L1250; and the postage during
the same period amounted to L11,658. In the following year, the year
1817, even better terms were obtained, the owners of private ships
engaged as packets receiving in no case more than L125, and in one case
as little as L25.
The East India Company's generosity was not reciprocated by the Post
Office. His Majesty's ship _Iphigenia_, which was lying at Portsmouth,
had been appointed to carry out the mails, and the India House had sent
down its despatches to be put on board. In strictness these despatches
should have been sent through the Post Office, inasmuch as the
_Iphigenia_ had been appointed a packet for the occasion; but as the
India House paid no postage on its correspondence, whether sent by
packet or by ships of its own, it was a mere technical irregularity.
Freeling maintained, however, that there was an important distinction
which ought to be observed. It was true that no question of postage was
involved. It was also true that the India House would have been at
liberty to put its despatches on board the _Iphigenia_ had she been
sailing for India without being appointed a packet boat; but as she had
been so appointed, the intervention of the Post Office was necessary,
and without that intervention the commander ought not to have received
them. Accordingly, Freeling urged upon the Government, though happily
without success, that orders should be sent to Portsmouth to have the
despatches removed from the ship to the local Post Office, to be there
kept until instructions should be received from Lombard Street that they
might be again taken on board.
On the close of hostilities in 1815 domestic matters began once more to
occupy a place in men's thoughts; and it was next to impossible that the
Post Office should escape attention. Its heavy and capricious charges,
its high-handed proceedings, its disregard of the public requirements,
its prosecutions, its constant indictment of roads which it largely used
and yet contributed nothing to maintain, and, above all, the fact that
its administration was virtually in the hands of one man, and that man
not the nominal head, who could be reached by constitutional
means--signs were not wanting that these and other matters had created
an amount of dissatisfaction which must sooner or later find
expression. Yet Freeling either could not or would not see. Were not his
immediate superiors, the postmasters-general, satisfied with his
management, so satisfied indeed that they seldom, if ever, found it
necessary to pay a visit to Lombard Street? And had not the
contributions which, under his guidance, the Post Office kept pouring
into the Exchequer raised him high in the Chancellor's favour? If so,
what more could a loyal and industrious public servant desire?
That Freeling was elated with what he considered his unbounded success
is clear from a letter which about this time was written to the
Treasury, enclosing a return of the Post Office revenue, and shewing how
it had responded to the successive increases of rate which had been
imposed during his tenure of the office of secretary. This letter,
drafted by himself, as all the official letters were, though signed by
the postmasters-general, concluded thus: "We flatter ourselves that we
shall not be considered as exceeding the limits of our duty in drawing
your Lordships' attention to a circumstance which has made a strong
impression on ourselves in the course of our inquiry, namely, that the
office of secretary during the whole of this flourishing period has been
executed by the same faithful and meritorious servant of the Crown." The
return, with a copy of this letter appended, was afterwards presented to
Parliament.
There is no more tolerant assembly in the world than the House of
Commons; and yet even the House of Commons is intolerant of egotism. It
may have been, and probably was, a mere coincidence, but the fact
remains that from the date of the presentation of this return Freeling's
influence began to wane.