[77] Iredell, _Laws of North Carolina_.
The correspondence of the period shows when the post became an
established fact. About 1700, letters begin not with the names of the
bearers, but with expressions such as the following: "The post is just
blowing his horn and cannot help it that I write no more
particularly."[78] "I had not time to say more by the last post than I
did." "Sent by post last week." "Having no letter from you by the post."
Individual bearers were still made use of, often probably for the reason
which Logan gives in a letter to Penn, written February, 1708.[79] "I
send this chiefly to accompany the enclosed to Wm. Aubrey, I therefore
request thee to peruse it ... and to let it be sealed up, directed in
some hand like mine, as J. Jeffreys, and delivered. I send it thus
without cover to save postage, which is now very high to Boston." It is
to be hoped that Lovelace's description of the first post as "active,
stout and indefatigable," would apply equally to his successors, for
they too went laden with "letters, portable goods and divers bags." Wait
Winthrop writes from Boston to Fitz-John Winthrop, "Gov{r} of his
Maj{ts} Collonye of Conecticott in New London," "I have had yours by the
post with little bundle;" "If Sudance can bundle up John's freise Jacket
& Mingoe's cloth Jacket in an old towell pray let the post bring them."
"Post will bring you a pair of Simpsons ... could not goe to direct the
man about the glass, or els it had gone by this Post" and "If Anthony
has lamed the horses he may dispatch them quite that they may be no
further trouble; but if their legs are fit to bring them, I desire they
may be sent by the post, unless some safer opportunity present in two or
three days."[80]
[78] _Mass. Historical Collections_, 6th Series, Vol. V., pp. 64, 65,
66, 70.
[79] _Penn and Logan Correspondence_, Vol. II., p. 257.
[80] _Mass. Historical Collections_, 6th Series, Vol. V., pp. 52, 101,
116, 140.
The early history of the colonial post office ends in 1710. With Queen
Anne's Act of that year a new era began, introducing a system of greater
uniformity, of greater detail and of closer connection with the home
government.