The Inland and Foreign Post Offices were now combined under the
management of John Manley, to whom they were farmed for a sum of
£10,000 a year. This was in 1653, and the grant was limited to a
period of two years. Manley was a Justice of Peace for the county of
Middlesex, and is referred to in some contemporary records as Justice
Manley. He made himself useful on the bench to Cromwell's party in
connection with many political cases brought before him for trial. It
is probable that he had previously been a soldier, as he is sometimes
referred to as Captain Manley. In 1655, when Manley's term was up,
the office changed hands. On the 3rd of May in that year, an Order
in Council was passed, to the effect that the management of the Post
Office should be performed by John Thurloe, Secretary of State,
"security being given for the payment of the present rent of £10,000 a
year, and for keeping the conditions of the contract with the present
farmer, etc., beginning from the expiration of Manley's contract."
Manley's contract fell to expire on the 30th June following. In
pursuance of this Order, Thurloe succeeded Manley in the management of
the Posts.
During Thurloe's possession of the office an Act was passed for
settling the postage of England, Ireland, and Scotland (June 1657).
The Act sets forth that "Experience having shown that the settling a
Post Office is the best means to maintain trade, convey dispatches, and
discover dangerous designs, it is enacted that there shall be but one
Post Office, and one Postmaster-General and Controller to settle Posts,
who shall carry all letters except those sent by known carriers, or
merchants' letters of advice sent by ship-masters; also, except private
letters sent by messengers. He is to have the horsing of all who ride
by post." The rates of postage for letters were as follows, viz.:--
Single. Double. Per Oz.
To or from any place within 80 miles } 2d. 4d. 8d.
of London }
" " at a greater } 3d. 6d. 1s.
distance }
" Scotland 4d. 8d. 1s.6d.
" Ireland 6d. 1s. 2s.
Within Ireland.
To or from any place within 40 miles } 2d. 4d. 8d.
of Dublin }
" " at a greater } 4d. 8d. 1s.
distance }
Foreign.
To Leghorn, Genoa, Florence, Lyons, }
Marseilles, Smyrna, Aleppo, and } 1s. 2s. 3s.9d.
Constantinople }
" Bordeaux, Rochelle, Nantes, Bayonne, } 9d. 1s.6d. 2s.
Cadiz, and Madrid }
" St. Malo, Morlaix, and Newhaven[2] 6d. 1s. 1s.6s.
" Hamburgh, Frankfort, and Cologne 8d. 1s.4d. 2s.
" Dantzic, Leipsic, Lubeck, Stockholm, }
Copenhagen, Elsinore, } 1s. 2s. 4s.
and Queenesbrough[3] }
For every through post, or persons riding in post, 2-1/2d. the
mile for each horse, besides the guide groat for every
stage.
All persons save the Postmaster-General or his deputies were forbidden
to supply post horses on pain of a fine of £1000 a month--half to the
Protector and half to the discoverer. Many other provisions are set
down which need not be quoted here.
Two months later, 27th August 1657, on a report from the Committee
on the Postage, it was ordered that a lease be granted of the office
of Postmaster-General to Thurloe, at a rent of £10,000, to be paid
quarterly; "he to be at all charges, take no greater rates of postage
than expressed in the Act, and send all Government letters free: the
grant to be for as many years as His Highness thinks fit, not exceeding
11, or one life."
During Thurloe's time, the Post Office was made very serviceable in the
discovering of "dangerous designs"; for it is said that the control
of the office gave him an "immense advantage in intercepting letters
and collecting intelligence, abroad as well as at home." The truth
is, that not only in Thurloe's time, but in the years immediately
preceding the Restoration, during the settlement of the kingdom after
the Restoration, and probably for long after that, the Post Office
was regarded as the pulse of all political movements, the deputy
postmasters in the country serving as a hydra-headed agency for the
State--seeing, hearing, and reporting everything of importance that
transpired in their districts; while the opening of letters in the Post
afforded a means of securing evidence against the enemies of the ruling
powers for the time being. One or two examples of how these things
were done may be interesting. On the 9th August 1659, the Council
approves of "Col. Crompton's stopping the Irish mail, not knowing of
how dangerous consequence some of the letters might be, and judging it
fit that they be perused before passing further." Then Major-General
Lambert, to whom this communication is addressed, is desired to
"examine all the letters, send up any that are dangerous, and send the
rest forward to Ireland." On the 9th January 1662, the postmaster of
Northallerton reports to the Postmaster-General, that "four disaffected
Scottish ministers,--Dunkinson, Ord, Douglas, and Jamieson,--thought
to be spies and deluders of loyal subjects, are at Northallerton,
and write many letters to Berwick and different parts of Yorkshire.
Asks whether the letters should be received, and, if so, whether they
should be opened in presence of a magistrate." These facts being
communicated through Secretary Nicholas to the king, the former writes
to the postmaster as follows:--"The king being acquainted with his
letter to Col. Bishop, about Scottish ministers and disaffected persons
now in Northallerton, and corresponding with others in Berwick and
elsewhere, wishes him to carry to Sir W. Penniman, a deputy lieutenant,
all letters from the four ministers whom he names; to be opened,
perused, and sent up to London if they contain anything prejudicial
to the public peace; otherwise to be forwarded as addressed." On the
31st January 1662, a warrant was issued to the head of the Post Office
"to permit John Wickham and John Hill to search the next mails from
Holland for counterfeit gold, and, if any be found, to accompany them
with it to Secretary Nicholas, it being reported that much base gold
has lately been imported by the mails." These incidents show how the
interception and perusal of letters in the post were carried out--all
under sufficient authority.
There were no newspapers in these days, as _we_ know them, and no
telegraphs; all news, except such as might be conveyed by special
messengers, or clandestinely by carriers, passed in letters through the
post. The possession of the office was therefore, under the conditions
previously stated, of the first importance to the powers holding the
reins of government; and as parliamentary parties, having various and
conflicting political views, were constantly changing positions at this
time, the control of the Post Office changed hands with almost equal
frequency.
To return to John Thurloe. Thurloe was Secretary of State under both
Oliver and Richard Cromwell; and, after the resignation of the latter,
he continued to hold his Secretaryship till the 14th January 1660.
"In April 1659, he used his utmost efforts to dissuade the Protector
from dissolving the Parliament; a step which proved fatal to his
authority." He had previously been "very obnoxious to the principal
persons of the army, to whose interests, wherever they interfered
with those of the civil government, he was a declared enemy"; and it
is not improbable that this antagonism led to his being relieved of
the farm of the Post Office. But his deprivation of the office of
Postmaster-General and Farmer of the Post did not take place till
later in the year, and under circumstances which Thurloe describes in
his State Papers. In a document of February 1660, he writes:--"I humbly
offer to consideration, that within less than a fortnight of the 29th
Sept. last"--that is, a fortnight after--"my farm was, by virtue of
an Act of Parliament dated the 11th Oct., made null and void; and the
office itself, as it stood at that time, set aside; and consequently no
more rent payable; and it was then lawful for any other person to set
up other posts for the carrying of such letters as should be brought to
them, which very many accordingly practised."
The State records during the closing period of the interregnum are
very imperfect, but sufficient has been left to enable us to trace the
position of affairs as relating to the Posts. Two months before the
passing of the Act just mentioned,--namely, on the 8th of August,--the
Council of State resolved that the Post Office should be farmed, that
is, let out to some farmer other than Thurloe; but, until Thurloe
should be removed, this could not be arranged.
Now, as a consequence of these proceedings, and of the Act of the 11th
October, the office passed into the hands of Dr. Benjamin Worsley, to
whom the farm was then granted for a term of seven years, at a rental
of £20,000. This seems a large advance upon the previous rent of
£10,000; but Thurloe states that he improved the office £4000 per annum
to the State voluntarily, which he might have put in his own purse; and
the rent he was paying when he vacated the farm must have been £14,000
a year. But Worsley did not long enjoy the position, for shortly
thereafter he was "violently turned out." Worsley had been selected,
as one of several persons, for nomination to Parliament as a general
officer by the Committee of Safety in July 1659. In October following,
the government was in the hands of a Committee of Safety composed for
the most part of officers; and Worsley being a military man, the Post
Office might be supposed to be in safe hands if placed under his care.
We have been unable to discover to what family Dr. Worsley belonged.
It is not improbable that he was connected by family ties with Charles
Worsley, who had been one of the colonels of Cromwell's own regiment
of foot. According to the Journals of the House of Commons, Benjamin
Worsley was, in July 1647, appointed to be one of the Physicians,
General-Surgeons, and Apothecaries of the Army in Ireland, and was
then sent to Dublin. In March 1650, he was appointed Secretary to
the Commissioners under the Act for regulating Trade, and, in 1653,
Secretary to the Commissioners for Ireland. He was then selected as a
fit person to accompany Viscount Lisle, as secretary, in a projected
embassy to Sweden; but the embassy, so far as Lisle was concerned, did
not proceed.
Now, on the 26th December 1659, the Rump was again in the ascendant,
and constituted themselves a House. On the 3rd January 1660, Parliament
appointed a new Council; on the 9th January, the House of Commons
resolved to take the Post Office into its own hands, and that it should
"be managed for the best advantage of the Commonwealth"; on the 10th
January, Thomas Scott, a member of Parliament, one of the Council of
State, and a hot-headed republican, was appointed by the House of
Commons "to receive informations of private and public intelligence,
as the Secretary of State heretofore had and used, and present them to
the Council of State"; and, a week later, he was appointed Secretary of
State to the Commonwealth. Now these events, taken in connection with
the fact that, on the 21st January 1660, the Council of State issued
an order "to apprehend Benj. Worsley and bring him in custody before
the Council," may warrant us in concluding that this is the time when
Worsley was "violently turned out" of the Post Office.
In succession to Worsley, Secretary of State Scott seems to have become
Postmaster-General, but his connection with the Post Office was of
brief duration; for a Parliament more favourable to the Restoration
commenced sitting on the 3rd March 1660, and all persons who had been
active in their opposition to the Royal House began to consider what
was best for their own preservation. Scott was one of the men who had
signed the death-warrant of King Charles I., and no doubt he would be
forward in clearing out. That Scott was virtually Postmaster-General
for a time seems to be proved by a warrant, issued by the Council of
State on the 9th March 1660, "for intelligence, from the proceeds of
the Post Office, paid by Wm. Scott and Isaac Dorislaus, whilst they
managed it under Thomas Scott, £1000."
Like most of the Postmasters-General of these early days, Scott had
an experience of imprisonment. After the Restoration he was taken; he
had been excepted out of the general indemnity given by Charles II.;
and on the 17th October he suffered death, with several others, in the
presence of the king. Evelyn thus refers, in his diary, to the closing
scene in the career of Postmaster-General Scott:--"I saw not their
execution, but met their quarters, mangled and cut and reeking, as
they were brought from the gallows in baskets on the hurdle. Oh! the
miraculous providence of God!" So much for a royalist exclamation, and
the laying of responsibility on the shoulders of Providence. For a
short period after Secretary Scott quitted the Post Office, it is not
very clear how it was managed; but a State paper of 3rd August 1660
shows that an account was rendered of its business from 25th March to
25th June of that year by Job Allibond and Francis Manley--the former
a clerk in the office, and the latter Riding Purveyor to His Majesty.
The receipts for the quarter were stated to be £5578, 9s. 5d., and the
disbursements, £5431, 9s. 6d. Manley speaks of himself as being late
Manager.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: Havre-de-Grace.]
[Footnote 3: Königsberg.]