Читать книгу The History of the Post Office, from Its Establishment Down to 1836 - Herbert Joyce - Страница 20

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Of the packet service prior to 1686 we have no particulars; but that some such service had long existed, though probably on a very limited scale, hardly admits of a doubt. To Ireland, as to other parts of the kingdom, a regular post had been established in 1635; and it is difficult to suppose that a mail on arriving at Holyhead would be left to a chance vessel to carry it across the Channel. The probability of some organised means of transport is still stronger in the case of Dover. Dover was the town through which all letters for the Continent passed; and our trade with the Continent had for a century and more been considerable. Hence it was that the post through the county of Kent had been carefully nursed while as yet no other part of the country had any post at all. But if, as seems certain, both Dover and Holyhead were packet stations long prior to 1686, it is almost equally certain that these were the only two in the kingdom.

In that year the arrangements, whatever they were, for carrying the mails between England and France came to an end, and a new service was established between Dover and Calais and between Dover and Ostend or Nieuport. This was succeeded in the following year by a similar service between England and Holland. Both services were to be carried on by contract. In the one case the contractor was to receive £1170 a year, and also to have the management of the letter office at Dover. In the other the payment was to be £900 a year, for which sum three hoys were to be maintained, two of sixty and one of forty tons, and carrying six men each. For the service to Holland the packet stations were, on this side of the water, Harwich, and, on the other, the Brill.

To the letters which came to this country by regular packet must be added those that were technically termed ship letters—letters which were brought by ships arriving at uncertain times from any part of the world. These letters, according to the provisions of the Act of 1660, were to be given up to the postmaster at the port of arrival, so that they might be forwarded to London, and thence despatched to their destination after being charged with the proper amount of postage. In this particular, however, the Act proved of little effect. Masters of ships were offered no inducement to deliver the letters to the postmaster, and incurred no penalty for omitting to do so. The Post Office was then in farm; and desirous as the farmers were to make what they could out of their undertaking, they soon found that it would be well worth their while to incur some expense which should secure obedience to the law. Accordingly they undertook that for every letter which a shipmaster should bring to this country, and deliver to the postmaster at the port of arrival, he should receive the sum of one penny. This was the origin of ship letter money—a form of payment which has since received legal sanction, and exists at the present day.

It was into the port of London that ship letters chiefly came, and here the number which found their way to the Post Office in Lombard Street was seriously affected by the establishment of the penny post. That this was only natural will appear from a simple illustration. From Marseilles to London the postage was 1s. for a single letter. On one hundred such letters, therefore, the charge would be £5. But if, instead of taking these hundred letters to the General Post Office, a shipmaster on his arrival in the Pool dropped them into the penny post, they would all be delivered for 8s. 4d. It is true that he would thus lose his gratuity of one penny a letter; but the difference between the two rates of postage was such as to leave an ample margin of profit, even after making him full—and more than full—compensation for his loss. Indeed, if he had been bent on cheating his employer as well as the Post Office, he might with very little risk of detection have put the whole of the difference into his own pocket. In 1686 the number of ship letters accounted for to the Post Office was 60,447,[20] a number which, forming as it did the basis of a payment, may be taken as absolutely correct, because the Post Office would take good care not to pay more, and shipmasters not to receive less, than was absolutely due. It is to be regretted that no similar account is forthcoming for previous years, so that it might be seen what was the extent of the influence which the penny post exercised; but that this influence was considerable is certain from the continual references made to it by successive postmasters-general during a long series of years. It is to be observed, however, that they always speak of it as a thing that was past and gone, a thing baneful enough while it lasted, but as having been of only short duration. The explanation is no doubt to be found in the fact that in 1696 two officers were appointed, whose duty it was to collect letters from all vessels arriving in the port of London. The boat employed in this service had assigned to it special colours of its own, on which was depicted a man on horseback blowing a post horn.[21]

In 1689, on the breaking out of the war with France, the Dover boats ceased to run, and, in order to provide for the letters to Spain which had hitherto passed through that country, a service was established between Falmouth and the Groyne. On this service two boats were employed of two or three hundred tons each. They carried from eighty to ninety men besides twenty guns, and ran once a fortnight.

The Harwich boats were at the same time increased both in number and in strength. The three hoys were replaced by four boats—boats of force as they were called, carrying fifty men each. It may well be believed that, with so large a crew under his command, the captain of a well-armed vessel was loth to confine himself to the monotonous task of carrying the mails to and fro, and went in quest of adventure. But be that as it may, William, who since his accession to the throne had taken an extraordinary interest in the Harwich service, was not satisfied with the performances of these boats. It was his opinion that the first requisite in a mail packet was speed and not strength. Strength might indeed enable it to engage an enemy, but speed would enable it to avoid one. Accordingly, by the King's direction, the Post Office with the assistance of Edmund Dummer, the Surveyor of the Navy, built four small boats of its own—boats "of no force," but remarkable for their speed. The change was not carried out without much grumbling. The boats were low built, and, except in the calmest weather, shipped a good deal of water. The sailors complained that they seldom, from one end of the voyage to the other, had a dry coat to their backs. The absence of any armament was still more unpalatable to them. They dared not leave the harbour, at least so they said, when the enemy was to windward; and, as though to confirm their words, they sometimes after leaving returned. We shall probably do them no wrong if we distrust these excuses. No British sailor, or soldier either, cares to turn his back on the foe, and that this was expected of them, that they were required to run and not to fight, we suspect to have been the real grievance. Eventually, but not until some had refused to serve and others had deserted, matters quieted down. An increase of wages was given all round, raising the pay above that given in the Royal Navy, and, in order to compensate for the additional cost, the complement of the crew was reduced from thirty to twenty-one. It is a striking confirmation of the soundness of William's view that during the next twenty-four years, although no less than nineteen of them were years of war, only two of these boats were taken.

Until 1689 the Harwich packets had been self-supporting, the receipts from freight and passengers being enough to cover the cost. In that year, as a consequence of the war, the fares were raised. Passengers to Holland who had hitherto paid 12s. were now to pay 20s., and those who had paid 6s. were to pay 10s. Recruits and indigent persons passed free. In 1695 the carriage of goods and merchandise was prohibited. This prohibition afterwards became common in times of war, but in the present instance it was imposed in the vain hope of stopping the exportation of silver. In exchange for silver, gold had long been pouring into the country, as much as 200 ounces coming by a single packet; and advices had been received from Amsterdam and Rotterdam that future consignments would not be restricted even to that quantity. The reform of the currency, which alone could check this movement of the precious metals, was expeditiously accomplished; but the prohibition against the carriage of merchandise remained.

On the conclusion of peace in 1697 the service between Dover and Calais and between Dover and Ostend recommenced, but only to be discontinued again on the resumption of hostilities in 1702. During these five years the relations between the English and French Post Offices had at no time been friendly, and latterly had become very highly strained. Under the terms of a Treaty concluded with France in 1698, the mails, as soon as they arrived on this side at Dover and on the other at Calais, were to be forwarded to the respective capitals by express. England faithfully fulfilled her part of the engagement. By France the engagement was treated as a dead letter. The mails from England, on their arrival at Calais, instead of being forwarded to Paris by express, were kept back for the ordinary post; and this post went only once a day, leaving at three in the afternoon. If, therefore, the packet arrived at four or five o'clock, the letters were detained for the best part of twenty-four hours. At Lyons the letters between England and Italy were being treated after much the same fashion. On arrival in that town—such at least was the complaint in the city—instead of being forwarded with all despatch, they were forwarded seldom in due course and sometimes not at all.

M. Pajot was then director of the French posts; and in this capacity he had signed the Treaty. In vain Cotton and Frankland called his attention to the breach of its provisions. Their letter was not even acknowledged. For the transit of British mails across French territory England had agreed to pay to France the sum of 36,000 livres[22] a year, and a remittance in payment of the instalment due was sent to Paris; but not even of this could an acknowledgment be obtained. Let the nature of the communication to him be what it would, Pajot maintained an obstinate silence. When war broke out afresh, all intercourse between the two Post Offices had ceased for nearly three years, and the debt due to France had accumulated to the amount of 105,600 livres.

The cessation of the Dover packets in 1702 was soon followed by that of the packets between Falmouth and the Groyne, but the want of any regular means of communication with the Peninsular proved so inconvenient that, before many months had passed, the service was re-established in a slightly altered form. The boats, instead of stopping short at the Groyne, were to run on to Lisbon; and two years later their number was increased from two to five. This increase was due to political rather than commercial reasons. It is true that an important commercial treaty was about this time concluded with Portugal; but, what was considered of far greater moment, the Archduke Charles after passing through London had recently proceeded to that country in furtherance of his pretensions to the throne of Spain. It was at once resolved that communication with Lisbon should henceforth be weekly instead of only once a fortnight, and for this purpose less than five boats were deemed insufficient.

But of all the packet services in existence at the beginning of the eighteenth century none perhaps possesses more features of interest than the service to the West Indies. In James the Second's reign a Post Office had been established in Jamaica, and rates of postage had been settled not only within the island itself but between the island and the mother country. This was a new departure. In the original scheme of postage as propounded by Witherings no charge had been imposed except in return for some service. The same principle had been scrupulously adhered to in the Acts of 1657 and 1660. Under these Acts, except where a service was rendered or where payment for a service was made to another country, no charge was provided for. Yet between England and Jamaica, although the Crown was not at the cost of maintaining means of transport, postage rates were fixed of 6d. a single letter, 1s. a double letter, and 2s. an ounce. This was a pure tax, and the precedent, bad as it was and of questionable legality, was soon extended to the case of letters to America.

The war of 1702, while deranging other services, called the service to the West Indies into being. The West India merchants, a designation even then in vogue, were a large and important body, and, as opportunities of intercourse by private ship became rare and uncertain, a demand arose for some established means of communication. With the assistance of Dummer, Surveyor of the Navy, sloops were provided to carry mails to the Plantation Islands, and by way of helping to defray the cost, the postage rates were increased by about one-half. The vessels sailed at uncertain intervals, but otherwise the service was performed with regularity, the voyage out and home occupying from 90 to 116 days.

Dummer was so well satisfied with the result of his management that, rather than continue as mere agent for the postmasters-general, he desired to perform the service on his own account. For the sum of £12,500 a year he undertook to provide a monthly communication, and for this purpose to build and equip five boats of 140 tons each, and carrying twenty-six men and ten guns. These boats were to have two decks, and any of them that should be lost or taken by the enemy were to be replaced at his own cost. Of the £12,500 no more than £4500 was to be paid down. Freight, which was limited to five tons out and ten tons home, passenger fares, and postage were to go in part payment, and from these Dummer expected to make up the difference. Postage alone he set down at £6000; and that it might produce this sum he made it an express stipulation that the rates to the West Indies should be raised to the same level as those to Portugal, namely 1s. 3d. a single letter, 2s. 6d. a double letter, and 6s. an ounce. To double the postage, he took for granted, was to double the returns. Abler men than he and men living nearer to our own times have fallen into the same error; but seldom, probably, has it been sooner or more strikingly exposed.

The new rates came into operation in England in March, and in the West Indies in April. The effect of the alteration, as would now be predicted with confidence, was only slightly to increase the amount of postage and largely to reduce the number of letters. It is so seldom that in matters of this kind cause and effect are brought into such close approximation, that we offer no apology for giving the postage which the correspondence produced immediately before and immediately after the change:—