Читать книгу The History of the Post Office, from Its Establishment Down to 1836 - Herbert Joyce - Страница 21
ОглавлениеTo the West Indies.
| Date on which the Packet | ||||
| sailed from England. | Amount | of Postage. | ||
| Jan. 25, 1705 | £44 | 1 | 4 | |
| Feb. 22 " | 59 | 10 | 7 | |
| Mar. 29 " | 100 | 5 | 3 | (New rates) |
| Apr. 26 " | 129 | 2 | 6 | |
| May 31 " | 93 | 7 | 9 | |
| June 28 " | 75 | 19 | 3 | |
| July 26 " | 62 | 2 | 0 |
From the West Indies.
| Date on which the Packet | ||||
| arrived in England. | Amount | of Postage. | ||
| Feb. 10, 1705 | £316 | 19 | 0 | |
| Apr. 18 " | 622 | 11 | 6 | (New rates) |
| Aug. 6 " | 629 | 15 | 6 | |
| Sept. 3 " | 384 | 19 | 6 | |
| Oct. 1 " | 369 | 6 | 6 |
Of course, the mails immediately after the change would carry what may be called surprised letters, letters which had been posted before the issue of the new regulations or before these regulations had become generally known; and the mail arriving in August would bring also the letters which had accumulated since the preceding April.
What at the present time is calculated to excite surprise is not that the aggregate amounts of postage should not have increased in proportion to the rates, but that these amounts should have been as high as they were. Trade with the West Indies was, no doubt, considerable. And yet, after making ample allowance on that score, of what sort can the correspondence have been to produce postage of between £300 and £400 by a single mail; and why should the amount in one direction have been nearly five times as heavy as the amount in the other? The answer, we think, is to be found in a letter which the postmasters-general wrote about this time. A small box for the Commissioners for the Sick and Wounded had come from Lisbon charged with postage of £26:2s. From this charge the Commissioners sought to be relieved on the ground that the box contained nothing but office accounts, which, besides being of no intrinsic value, were on Her Majesty's business. To such arguments, however, the postmasters-general turned a deaf ear. With the contents of the box they were not concerned. All they knew or cared to know was that it weighed eighty-seven ounces, and this weight, at the rate of 6s. an ounce, gave £26:2s. Forego the charge in the present instance, and how, they asked, could charges be any longer maintained on other packets not less on Her Majesty's business than this box, packets from the Prize Office, the Salt Office, the Customs and the Navy, and also, they added, on the large bundles of muster-rolls from the regiments stationed in the West Indies? In short, we entertain little doubt that the postage by the homeward mails was largely derived from official correspondence, correspondence which at the present time bears no postage at all.
The good fortune which had attended Dummer while acting as manager for the postmasters-general entirely deserted him as soon as the service came into his own hands. During the first twelve months the postage fell short of his expectations by about one-third; and freight and passengers, which he had estimated to produce £2000, produced little more than one-sixth of that amount. Nor was this the worst. The very first packet that sailed under his contract was taken by the enemy. Another, not many months later, was cast away on the rocks off the Island of Inagua; and a third fell into the hands of a privateer in the Channel. A series of disasters which would have daunted most men seems only to have inspired Dummer with fresh energy. Of the ultimate success of his undertaking he entertained no doubt. He held as strongly as we can hold at the present day, that trade and correspondence act and react upon each other; and that these should thrive he considered nothing more to be necessary than speed and regularity of communication.[23] With good heart, therefore, he applied himself to replace the boats which had been lost, fully determined that on his part no efforts should be wanting to supply the conditions on which alone he conceived success to depend.
The packet stations at this time were four in number. Dover was closed. Harwich and Falmouth were in full activity. Holyhead was a mere home station for the transmission of the Irish correspondence; and, the service being under contract, suffice it to say that the mails to Dublin went twice a week and were transported with marked regularity. Of the Harwich and Falmouth stations, managed as they were by the postmasters-general, we propose to give some account.
Each station was presided over by an agent, whose province it was to see that the packets were properly equipped and victualled, to arrange the order of sailing, to keep the captains to their duty, and generally to maintain order and regularity among the unruly spirits of which the establishment was composed. The outward mails, on their arrival from London, were to be despatched, if for Holland or for Portugal, immediately, and if for the West Indies, within two days; and, as soon as they were put on board, weights were to be attached to them so that they might be sunk at once if in danger of being taken by the enemy. So important was this precaution held to be that, although enjoined in the general instructions, it was continually insisted upon in particular cases. "Be sure," write the postmasters-general to one of their agents, "that before the captain sails, he prepares everything to sink the mail in case he shall be attacked by the enemy that he can't avoid being taken"; and to another, "We would have you take care to affix a sufficient weight to the mail so soon as 'tis on board"; and to a third, "We do not doubt but the mails will be ready slung with weights sufficient to sink them in case of danger of falling into the enemy's hands." Another rule to which the postmasters-general attached great importance was that more than two mails were not to go by the same boat. This rule, however, could not always be observed, for the boats had an awkward habit of finding themselves on the wrong side, and, by the time one had arrived, there was an accumulation of mails to be disposed of.
The inward mails, as soon as they reached the port of arrival, were forwarded to London by express. From Harwich the letters for the Court, or State letters,[24] as they were now beginning to be called, were sent in advance of the ordinary mail, arrangements having been made at the Brill to put these letters into a special bag by themselves. From Falmouth, where no provision had been made for distinguishing one class of correspondence from another, the same express carried the whole. When, as was sometimes the case, packets of documents reached the port unenclosed with the rest of the letters, these were to be chained to the "grand mail"; and on the label was always to be inserted the number of passengers that had arrived by the boat, so that the postmasters along the line of road might know for how many persons they had to provide horses. Between Falmouth and London the mails when sent express travelled at the rate of about five miles an hour; and this speed appears to have been regularly maintained. Expresses to carry a single letter or a message, or to overtake the Lisbon mail, were continually passing to and fro, and these of course went faster. From Harwich the mails would sometimes reach London in eleven hours, being at the rate of six and a half miles an hour; but on this line of road there was so much irregularity that the time ordinarily occupied in the journey cannot be stated with certainty.[25]
The seamen on board the packets were paid in no case more than 30s. a month and generally less; but the employment carried with it one great advantage. This was exemption from impressment. Even the carpenters hired to do odd jobs when the boats were in harbour were furnished with protection orders.[26] Partly on this ground, and partly, no doubt, on account of the gains to be derived from contraband traffic, admission to the packet service appears to have been eagerly sought. At one time, indeed, it threatened to become a matter of patronage; but the consequences of a first step in that direction effectually prevented another. The Godolphin packet had been taken and carried by the enemy into St. Malo. Her captain, a brave and experienced officer, did not hesitate to attribute the loss of his vessel to sheer cowardice on the part of the crew. One, at the first shot that was fired, had run down to the doctor and declared that he was wounded, whereas no sign of a wound was to be found upon him; another had taken shelter behind the mainmast; a third had been heard to declare that he would not hazard the loss of his little finger to save the packet. This conduct, as unprecedented as it was scandalous, led to a searching investigation, when it transpired that the so-called sailors were, many of them, no sailors at all, but mere landlubbers who had been taken on out of complaisance to the local gentry.
Each packet boat carried its own surgeon. A surgeon was also provided for the care of the sick on shore. This medical supervision was remunerated by means of a capitation allowance, an allowance of so much per head; but whereas it would now be in respect to all persons under the surgeon's charge, whether well or ill, it was then only in respect to those that were ill—1s. a day for each sick person and 6s. 8d. for each cure—a mode of payment which did not perhaps conduce to a speedy recovery. To provide for casualties, a fund was established, towards the support of which each seaman contributed 10d. a month out of his pay. If he were killed in action, provision was made for his widow, and, if he were wounded, he received a small annuity or, as it was called, Smart and Bounty money, the amount of which was nicely apportioned to the nature of his injury. Thus—
| For each arm or leg amputated above the elbow | ||||
| or knee he would receive | £8 | 0 | 0 | a year. |
| For each arm or leg amputated below the elbow | ||||
| or knee | 6 | 13 | 4 | " |
| For the loss of the sight of one eye | 4 | 0 | 0 | " |
| For the loss of the pupil of the eye | 5 | 0 | 0 | " |
| For the loss of the sight of both eyes | 12 | 0 | 0 | " |
| For the loss of the pupils of both eyes | 14 | 0 | 0 | " |
It is a ghastly bill of fare; and yet the sailors laid great store by it. On one occasion, indeed, until assured that the transfer of a boat to Dummer's management would not affect their claim to these annuities, they absolutely refused to go to sea.
With few exceptions, no passenger was allowed on board a packet boat without a pass from the Secretary of State. The exceptions were shipwrecked seamen, recruits, and officers in charge of recruits. Shipwrecked seamen went free, free from any charge for passage-money or for maintenance. Recruits and officers in charge of recruits not being above the rank of lieutenant were charged for maintenance but not for passage-money. All others, though furnished with a passport, paid or were expected to pay for both.
Of these rules, however, there would seem to have been no public announcement, and this led to constant dispute and bickerings. An interesting event was expected in one of the many English families which at this time flocked to the Court of Portugal, and Dr. Crichton was despatched to Lisbon with a cow. Furnished with a pass by the Secretary of State he stoutly maintained his right to a free passage; and this right the postmaster-general as stoutly disputed. Nor, assuming the right to exist, could they conceal their surprise that under the circumstances it should have been claimed. To demur to a paltry charge of £4 indeed! Was it not notorious that for his mission to Portugal he was to receive £1000? Lord Charlemont with a number of attendants had crossed from Lisbon to Falmouth. The passage-money had been paid, and, pleased with his entertainment, he desired to gratify the captain. The captain's answer was to present a bill shewing what the entertainment had cost, and, on payment being refused, he detained some valuable silks which Lord Charlemont had consigned to his care. Lord Charlemont, on his arrival in London, at once proceeded to Lombard Street and complained of this treatment, when he learned for the first time that the passage-money, which he had supposed to cover everything, was simply the Queen's due, and that his entertainment had been provided at the captain's own cost.
Even the packet agents themselves appear to have been insufficiently instructed. On one occasion the Queen's domestic servants on their return from Lisbon, whither they had been despatched in attendance on the Archduke Charles, were allowed to pass free. On another, passage-money was omitted to be collected from some workmen who had been sent to Portugal by the Board of Ordnance. In both cases the act of their subordinate was repudiated by the postmasters-general. Proper as it might be that the Queen's domestic servants should have their passage provided—was this to be done at the expense of the Post Office? Forego payment in this instance, and where were they to stop? They must press their demand; and the demand was eventually satisfied. From the Board of Ordnance they did not even attempt to recover, aware probably of the futility of any such step; but the act of their agent in letting the workmen pass free evoked an earnest remonstrance. Does not the Board of Ordnance, they asked, charge us for the very powder we use; and yet, forsooth, you take upon yourself to give to their workmen a free passage. "Every office," they added—and the maxim might still, perhaps, be observed with advantage—"ought to keep its own accompt distinct."
But it was with officers of the army who were continually passing to and fro that the most frequent disputes arose. They apparently did not understand, and possibly the Post Office might have had some difficulty in explaining, why lieutenants in charge of recruits should be exempt from payment of fare and not officers of higher rank when employed on similar business; or why indeed officers engaged in fighting their country's battles should not have a free passage on board Her Majesty's packets. It had been the custom not to collect the fares until the end of the voyage; but it was found that, the voyage once accomplished, payment of the fares was not uncommonly refused. Accordingly it was determined that they should be collected beforehand, and that no officer not being a recruiting officer and producing a certificate to that effect should be received on board on trust. Recourse was thereupon had to every sort of artifice in order to evade payment. Officers above the rank of lieutenant would represent themselves as being of that rank, and they would even enrol their own servants as recruits to make it appear that they were engaged in recruiting business.
Through Harwich, now that Dover was closed, lay the only route to the Continent; and among the passengers frequenting this route were some to whom, for one reason or another, special attention was given. Baron Hompesch and Brigadier-General Cadogan are on their way to Holland. The packet is to be detained "till Thursday noon, at which time they think to reach Harwich." M. Rosenerantz, the Danish envoy, is returning to his own country. No passengers are to be admitted on board until he and his suite have been accommodated. A Queen's messenger is coming with "one Castello," who is in custody. This person is to be made over to the captain of the packet that sails next, and on arrival at the Brill is to be set on shore. Dirick Wolters is expected from Holland, if indeed he be not already arrived and secreted in Harwich. No pains are to be spared to discover and apprehend him, and to secure the sealed box he carries "directed to a person of note in London."
Goods, like passengers, were not allowed to be carried by the packets without the express permission of the Secretary of State; and this permission was seldom given except in the case of presents to royal personages and of articles for the use of persons of note residing abroad. Hence, such things as the following were being continually consigned to the care of the postmasters-general, with a request that they might be forwarded by the next boat:—
Fifteen couple of dogs for the King of the Romans.
Necessaries for Her Majesty the Queen-Dowager's service at Lisbon.
Three pounds of tea from Lady Arlington for the use of Her Majesty the Queen-Dowager of England.
Two cases of trimming for the King of Spain's liveries.
Two bales of stockings for the use of the Portuguese Ambassador.
Three suits of clothes for some nobleman's ladies at the Court of Portugal.
A box of medicines for the use of the Earl of Galway.
As the packets and everything on board of them were exempt from examination by the Customs authorities, there are no means of knowing how far a pass, where a pass had been obtained, was confined to its ostensible object. But it is impossible not to entertain suspicions on the subject. On one occasion the Portuguese envoy obtained permission to send by the packet six cases, which he certified to contain arms for the use of his Sovereign. The lightness of the packages when brought to the scale excited suspicion, and on examination they were found to contain not arms but dutiable goods. To a tradesman at Truro, in exception to rule, a pass had been granted which authorised him to send by the Lisbon packet ten tons of hats. Ten tons weight of hats, or what purported to be hats, had long been exported, and yet more and more hats were being regularly despatched by every packet.
But although without passes goods and passengers were prohibited on board the packets, it is certain that the prohibition was habitually infringed. The packet agents' instructions were to keep a record of the names and quality of all passengers, and to transmit a copy to London. Even if this were a complete and faithful record, the postmasters-general could not know that each passenger had produced his pass. The Secretaries of State, however, appear to have possessed some means of information unknown to the Post Office, and, in the matter of passengers, they were continually complaining of the regulations being broken. At one time it is Mr. Joseph Percival, a merchant of Lisbon, who comes over without a passport—which, from the tenor of Lord Sunderland's letter, the postmasters-general apprehend to be "an affair of moment." At another it is a Mr. Jackson who, also without a passport, crosses from Harwich to Holland. In this case Mr. Secretary Boyle affirms that the packet agent received a bribe of two guineas. To let passengers come by the Harwich packets without passports, he declares later on, has become a common practice.
In the matter of goods the evidence of irregularity is still stronger. Captain Culverden of the Queen packet boat brings into Falmouth thirty-six bags and seven baskets of salt, and there lands it clandestinely. Captain Rogers smuggles over twenty bags and one cask of the same material. Captain Urin from the West Indies makes Plymouth instead of Falmouth. Stress of weather is pleaded in excuse; but the postmasters-general feel sure that he might have made Falmouth, had he not "had private instructions otherwise." "We are uneasie," they say, "thus to find the West India boats for the most part driven to Plymouth, or to Liverpool or some port contrary to what is prescribed by our instructions."
But of all the captains there was none who in the audacity of his proceedings equalled Francis Clies. Clies had recently succeeded his father in the command of the Expedition packet boat. On his very first voyage home from Lisbon he was much behind time, having according to his own account been driven upon the coast of Ireland. On his second voyage he was later still. The time of his arrival at Falmouth had long passed, and serious apprehensions began to be entertained for his safety. At length a letter came from him dated at Kinsale, explaining that want of provisions had obliged him to put in there. "We have," wrote the postmasters-general, "very impatiently expected the arrival of the Expedition, which has been very long wanting, and are much concerned to find the second voyage even more tedious than the first; but are glad to find her at last safe arrived." "We would know," they added, "for how many days provisions had been put on board, and whether the Expedition sails not as well as formerly." Before a reply could be received to this pertinent inquiry, the Commissioners of Customs had lodged at the Post Office a formal complaint, in which Captain Clies was charged with bringing over from Ireland several bales of friezes and other woollen manufactures. The postmasters-general were deeply shocked. Not only was this a breach of the packet boat regulations, but to transport goods from what would now be one part of the United Kingdom to another was at that time prohibited by law under heavy penalties. If this charge be proved, they wrote to their packet agent at Falmouth, "we shall not be much to seek why the captain should be two succeeding voyages forced upon the coast of Ireland, when we have not had above one instance of that kind besides himself during this war." Narrow as was Clies's escape on this occasion, not four months elapsed before the postmasters-general were again condoling with him on another "very tedious voyage."
It may here be mentioned, as an instance of the inconsistency of human nature, that, although the packets were not provided with chaplains, there were two boats on board of which prayers were regularly said every morning and evening, and that of these two boats the Expedition was one.
Outwards as well as inwards the packet boats were, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, carrying goods in defiance of regulation and of law. Sir Paul Methuen, the author of the famous Commercial Treaty which bears his name, was at that time our ambassador to Portugal. His attention had been arrested by the large quantities of merchandise which the packet boats were continually bringing over from England, and in 1705 he made to the postmasters-general a formal representation on the subject. "In Lisbon," he stated, "there is a public market for English goods as often as the boats come in." Nor was the allegation denied by the persons implicated. They must, they said, live somehow. And this plea, generally the refuge of the idle and worthless, had in it in the present instance more force than might at first be supposed. The crews of the packets were paid only once in six months, and, as a check upon their conduct, six months' pay was always kept in arrear. Thus, before receiving any pay at all they had to work twelve months, and even at the expiration of twelve months there was not always money at hand with which to pay them.
At Harwich, there can be no doubt, the same malpractices were going on as at Falmouth; but, owing to the almost unequalled facilities which the east coast affords for clandestine traffic, detection less speedily followed. In the movements of the packet boats there was much that was mysterious. Their frequent disappearance for long periods together when the wind was blowing from the quarter most favourable to their return, and their occasional punctuality when the wind was contrary and they were least expected, involved a contradiction which the postmasters-general found it hard to reconcile. "In our whole experience," they wrote to the packet agent on the 3rd of October 1704, "the passage of the mails was never so unconstant as it has been this last year." "You must be very sensible what reproach we have been brought under" in consequence. The ink was hardly dry on their pen before information reached them that on the 2nd of the month two packet boats had returned to Harwich, of which one had been gone since the 10th and the other since the 19th of September. Meanwhile the winds had been fair, and had carried out the men-of-war and transports from Spithead. "We have writ you so often," wrote the postmasters-general to the laggard captains, "upon these neglects of yours," and you have paid so little regard to our admonitions, that "you may expect to find when too late that we are not to be trifled with." The effect of this caution, if effect it had, was of short duration. "We are," they wrote only a few months later, "under a perpetual uneasiness and distrust," on account of the irregularity of the Harwich boats. "Our reputation has very much suffered in consequence, and we are looked upon at Court as remiss in our duty." Hitherto we have ever been ready to "take any appearance of reason or probability to excuse the commanders, but do now, having had these frequent provocations so often repeated, resolve to do justice to ourselves, and to have no other regard than the merit of the service." "Pray make inquiries," they say on another occasion, when no less than three boats are unaccountably behind time. It is of no use writing to Mr. Vanderpoel, "for he always favours the captains' pretences." Mr. Vanderpoel was packet agent at the Brill. He had stood high in William's favour, and was still drawing an allowance of £100 a year which, as an act of grace, that King had bestowed upon him in addition to his salary. "When we last waited on the Lord High Treasurer and Secretary of State," wrote the postmasters-general again on the 14th of June 1705, "we found them in their former opinion that there must be some secret more than ordinary that the boats should so frequently when least expected make their passage, and when the winds have in all appearance been most favourable, the mails then most delayed." A secret no doubt there was; but, profoundly dissatisfied as the postmasters-general were, no suspicion appears to have crossed their minds that the packet boats were engaged in other and more exciting pursuits than the transport of mails.
The captains of the packet boats were strictly forbidden to give chase. Their instructions were to fight, if fight they must, to avoid fighting wherever possible, and in no case to go in quest of adventure. In the case of the Falmouth boats, carrying as they did a considerable number of men and of guns, there can be little doubt that the prohibition was habitually infringed. Even Cotton and Frankland, with all their credulity, would seem to have entertained suspicions on the point; and yet when notice was given them that a fat prize had been captured, their instincts as Englishmen prevailed, and with a chuckle of satisfaction they would accept the result of their servants' prowess without too minutely inquiring into the circumstances under which that result had been achieved. "Well done," they would say in effect. "We heartily congratulate you. It has indeed been a tedious voyage; but of course you did not pursue. This, as you are aware, would be contrary to our instructions, which are to do nothing that might retard or endanger Her Majesty's mails. We shall make known your gallantry to the Lord High Treasurer, and move His Royal Highness the Prince to bestow on you some signal mark of favour." The Prince was at this time Lord High Admiral, and the captains of the packet boats having only sailing commissions, were not, like the captains in the Royal Navy and the commanders of letters of marque, entitled as of right to the prizes they took. These were the perquisites of the Lord High Admiral, and were by him resigned to the Queen.
When a prize was captured, it was seldom taken in tow. This would have retarded the progress of the mails. The practice was for the two captains, the victor and the vanquished, to agree upon the amount of ransom, and to give and receive bills for the amount, one or more hostages being taken as security for payment. The agreement was reduced to writing and made out in duplicate, so that each captain might have a copy, and it set forth where and to whom the money was to be paid. As a rule, the conditions appear to have been honourably observed. Some few exceptions, no doubt, there were. In 1708 the James packet was captured, and, after the amount of ransom had been inserted in the agreement, the French captain fraudulently altered the figures. A still worse case occurred on the English side. The Prince packet boat captured a vessel which was ransomed for 2500 pieces of eight.[27] This vessel, as it afterwards transpired, was plundered both before and after the ransom was agreed upon; and, more than this, the English captain refused or neglected to give her a protection order, the consequence being that, subsequently falling in with some merchant ships, she was taken and plundered again. But these were exceptions, and it is some satisfaction to know that the last-mentioned captain was soon driven out of the service.[28]
Pending payment of the ransom, the hostages were kept in prison. Ordinarily, their confinement was not of long duration; and if we cite an instance to the contrary, it is because it aptly illustrates the rough-and-ready sort of justice which was administered in those days. Clies, the captain of the Expedition, after many desperate engagements in which he had come off victorious, had been forced at last to strike his colours. Four French men-of-war had surrounded him, and having lost his masts, he had no choice but to yield. The ransom agreed upon was £550, and as security for payment of this amount the master of the Expedition and Clies's son, who was a midshipman on board the same vessel, were taken as hostages. This was in February, and they did not return to England until November. Meanwhile they had been imprisoned at Cadiz, where they endured the severest privations. Cold and damp and the want of the common necessaries of life, while affecting the health of both, had permanently disabled the master and brought him to the point of death. This appeared to the postmasters-general to be a case for compensation. And yet whence was compensation to come? They were not long in solving the question. It was a mere accident, they argued, that these particular hostages had been selected. The selection might have fallen upon any others of the ship's company. Yet these others had been receiving their pay and enjoying their liberty. Surely it was for them to compensate those at whose cost they had themselves escaped captivity and its attendant horrors. Accordingly the ship's company were mulcted in a whole month's pay, amounting to £118, of which sum the midshipman received £20 and the master £98; and the decision appears to have evoked neither murmur nor remonstrance.
In one respect the two packet stations were conducted on different principles. At Falmouth the agent was also victualler. At Harwich victuals and all other necessaries were provided by the Post Office. Neither plan was entirely free from objection. Where the agent was victualler, he naturally desired to make what he could out of his contract; and hence arose frequent complaints from the seamen as to both the quantity and quality of their food. Nor were such undertakings well adapted to those days of violent fluctuations of prices. The years 1709 and 1710 were years of scarcity, during which the cost of all provisions was nearly doubled. Fortunately, when the first of these years arrived, the packet agent's contract to victual for a daily allowance of 7d. a head had just expired, or the consequences to him or to the seamen must have been disastrous. But, from a public point of view, the chief drawback to the union of the offices of agent and victualler was that the victualling arrangements were apt to interfere with the movements of the boats. The Prince packet boat was due to start on a particular day, and to an inquiry whether she would not be ready, the answer which the postmasters-general received was, "No; our beer is not yet brewed."
At Harwich the inconvenience of a contrary system, a system under which the Post Office undertook its own victualling, was illustrated in a striking manner. There no bill for provisions represented what the provisions had really cost. To the actual cost was habitually added a further sum, which, under the name of percentages, went into the pockets of those by whom the order had been given. Of the extent to which these overcharges were carried we are not informed in the particular case of victuals; but other cases in which information is given will perhaps serve as a guide. Holland-duck for the use of the packet boats was brought over from Holland freight-free. Yet in Harwich the Post Office was charged for it 2s. 2d. a yard. In London a yard of the same material, freight included, cost 2s. In London the price of 1 cwt. of cordage was 30s.; in Harwich it was 40s. For piloting a packet boat from Harwich to the Downs the Post Office was charged £7. Inquiry at the Admiralty elicited that for ships of the same size belonging to the Royal Navy the charge never exceeded £3:15s. The plain truth seems to be that both at Harwich and at Falmouth the packet agents were in the power of the captains, and the captains in the power of the packet agents, and that they all combined to impose upon the postmasters-general.
Of the number of letters which the Harwich and Falmouth packets carried we know little or nothing. In the one case we have absolutely no information. In the other there remains on record a single letter-bill applicable to a particular voyage. Of this letter-bill we will only observe that, for reasons immaterial to the present purpose, it became the subject of a good deal of correspondence, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that, had the number of letters entered in it been much above or much below the average, the point could hardly have escaped remark. The document is as follows:—
28 April 1705.
Received on board the Prince Packet Boat the following Packets and letters.
Zech: Rogers … Commander.
From my Lord Ambassador … a Bag of Letters directed to Mr.
Jones.[29] Sixteen Packetts and letters for Her Majestie's Service. From the King of Spain … a very large Packett. For London and Holland … Double and Single letters … Two hundred and ninety six. Thirteen Packetts Do. Devonshire letters … Double and Single … Twenty nine … and three Packetts. For Falmouth … Double and Single letters … six. Two mails for London.
Outward-bound.
No Passengers.
Homeward-bound.
One English Merchant.
Three Dutch Gentlemen.
Four poor sailors discharged from Her Majestie's Ship Antelope being incapable for the Service.
There were persons who thought that the packet boats might well be employed to do something more than carry to and fro a mere handful of letters. Among those who held this opinion was Colonel Stanwix. He contended that the Lisbon packets should be required to carry not only the mails, but recruits for the English forces in Portugal. By transport the fixed charge for each recruit was £4. This expense would be saved to the public, and the regiments would receive additions to their strength not fitfully, but at regular intervals. Subject to certain conditions, the postmasters-general resolved to give the plan a trial. The conditions were that not more than fifty recruits should go in one boat, and that, instead of passing free, as Colonel Stanwix had proposed, they should be charged £1 apiece—that is, 10s. for victualling, and 10s. for freight. The experiment was attended with deplorable results. It was midwinter. The recruits had been huddled together in Pendennis Castle, under a strong guard, to prevent desertion. Half-naked and only half-fed they were led or driven to the boat, and hardly were they on board before the distemper broke out among them. Many fell victims to it; many others, on arrival at Lisbon, were carried to the hospital, and even the strongest among them were barely able to stagger ashore. The return voyage was hardly less disastrous. The crew now took the disease, and as they lay dying and dead upon the deck, a vessel of French build was to be seen bearing down upon them. Resistance in the circumstances was out of the question, and nothing remained but to save the guns. These, ten in number, were with difficulty thrown overboard, and no sooner was the task accomplished than the vessel, which had by this time come within speaking distance, proved to be Her Majesty's ship Assurance.
The liberty allowed to the Royal Navy to employ for its own purposes prizes taken at sea did not extend to the packet service. The Post Office was forbidden, under severe penalties, to use foreign bottoms. Often had convenience and economy to yield to the stern dictates of the law. Now it is a French shallop, admirably adapted for a packet boat, which has to be discarded simply because it is French; and now an express to Lisbon is on the point of being delayed because the regular packets are on the wrong side, and the only boat to be hired in Falmouth is not English built.
On the 20th of September 1707 the Queen, attended by her Court, set out for Newmarket. In this visit there was nothing unusual, but it will serve as well as any other to demonstrate that the close connection which had once subsisted between the posts and the Crown was not yet completely severed. In attendance upon his royal mistress was Court-post. This office, to which appointment was made by patent, had until lately been held by Sir Thomas Dereham. Court-post's duty was to carry letters between the Court and the nearest stage or post-town, a duty deemed so arduous that his stipend had been recently doubled, and now stood at £365 a year. At Newmarket and at Windsor, indeed, he had no long distance to traverse, these towns being post-towns; but when the Court was in London or at Hampton his journey was longer. In London he had to carry the letters between Kensington or Whitehall and Lombard Street; and when at Hampton, Hampton not being a post-town, he had to carry them to and from Kingston.
Besides Court-post there was now in the royal train the comptroller of the London sorting office, William Frankland, son of one of the postmasters-general. What Frankland's precise functions were we are not informed, but he was, in the language of the time, "in attendance on Her Majesty in the care of her letters." At Harwich, as soon as the mail arrived from Holland, the seals of the bags were to be broken, and the letters for the Court to be picked out and sent to Newmarket by express. This was, in effect, to establish a cross-post at a time when cross-posts did not exist. Moments, which would now be judged precious, appear to have been then of little account. Of the letters before they left Harwich the addresses were to be copied; and on arrival at Newmarket the express was to take them, not to the Palace, but to the Post Office, whither they were to be addressed under cover to Frankland. The Post Office once reached, how Frankland and Court-post were to adjust their respective duties is a point as obscure as it is, perhaps, unimportant. At the present day, when the palace possesses no postal facilities which are not enjoyed by the cottage, a single provision in the Statute-book is all that is left to remind us that at one time the posts were centred in the Sovereign. This provision, in exception to the practice which jealously excludes the Sovereign's name from all parts of an Act of Parliament except, indeed, the preamble, prescribes that the posts shall be settled, not as the Secretary of State or the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury may direct, but according to the directions of Her Majesty. To Her Majesty alone the law still leaves the supreme control over the posts, although it may well be believed that the ministers would claim to act on her behalf.[30]
After the battle of Ramillies, which put the Confederates in possession of Ostend, the packet service between England and Flanders, which had been suspended four years before, was re-established. The result disappointed expectations. The Government appear to have thought that it was only necessary to revive the service and the correspondence would at once resume its old proportions. But meanwhile the letters from Flanders to England had found a new channel. No sooner had Ostend been closed than they were diverted through Holland. To reverse this arrangement, involving as it would a readjustment of the internal posts, must, in any case, have been a work of time; and it was a work on which the Flemish authorities were little likely to embark so long as the neighbourhood of Ostend or any considerable portion of it remained in the enemy's hands. Of all this the postmasters-general were perfectly well aware, and they can have felt no disappointment that, on the first reopening of the Ostend route, the letters passing that way were extremely few; but the ministers, who had not the postmaster-generals' experience to guide them, grew impatient with a service which was maintained at heavy cost, and produced little or no return. Accordingly, having restored the service in June, they discontinued it in August; and no sooner were the boats dispersed than orders were given to restore it again.
This sudden change of purpose, we think there can be little doubt, was due to the influence of the Duke of Marlborough, who began about this time to take a lively interest in the postal communication with Flanders. Though not surprised at the meagreness of the correspondence, the postmasters-general were little prepared to find that, after the Confederates became masters of Ostend, the passage between that port and Dover would be even less safe than it had been before. Yet such was the case. The Flemish seamen, no longer able to obtain employment at home, flocked across the French border and joined with their foes of yesterday in preying upon the English shipping. As a consequence the Channel now swarmed with privateers. On the 25th of January a Dover packet, named Ostend after the port to which she ran, was taken by a Nieuport privateer of ten guns and eighty men. The captain who brought this intelligence had himself had a narrow escape. Five privateers had extended themselves from Nieuport to Ostend in order to intercept him, and, after a sharp engagement, in which he was nearly captured, had forced him to make Harwich.
In this conjuncture the postmasters-general acted with remarkable energy, but with little regard to what would now be considered official propriety. Not content with making representations to the Secretary of State, they wrote direct to the English ambassador at the Hague, desiring him to urge upon the States of Flanders and Brabant the necessity of at once fitting out three or four ships of the Ostend squadron, with the twofold object of recalling the seamen to their duty and of clearing the coast. They at the same time waited upon M. Van Vrybergh, the envoy extraordinary from the States-General to the Court of St. James', and exacted from him a promise that he would exercise his influence in the same direction. But relief was soon to come, and from an unexpected quarter. Lewis the Fourteenth, by way of creating a diversion in the Netherlands, resolved to assist the Pretender in making a descent upon Scotland, and with this view he assembled a squadron before Dunkirk. England had no choice but to follow suit. Within an incredibly short space of time she equipped a fleet, and this fleet, under the command of Sir George Byng, left Deal for Dunkirk in the spring of 1708. How the Pretender evaded Byng, and how Byng pursued the Pretender and frustrated his object, are matters of history; but what concerns us at the present moment is that, before starting in pursuit, Byng detached a squadron for the purpose of bringing over some of the English troops which were about to be embarked at Ostend. It is probable that this squadron, after its immediate object had been accomplished, remained in or about the Channel, for after this time we hear no more of depredations on the Post Office packets.
Experience shews that there is a class, and not an inconsiderable class, of persons who, in time of war, find it hard to reconcile themselves to the pursuits of peace. John Macky, the packet agent at Dover, was one of these. The proximity of the battle-field, its easy access from Dover, and the stirring accounts arriving by every packet fired his imagination and filled him with martial ardour. Under the influence of this excitement he addressed a memorial to the postmasters-general, praying that he might be commissioned to go over to Flanders and settle posts for the army. This application he appears to have supported by the most unfortunate arguments. He urged not that it was a thing in itself reasonable and proper that the army should have posts of its own, and that his experience might be useful in establishing them, but that at Dover, though his salary was comparatively high, he had little or nothing to do, and that the commission for which he asked would give him employment more congenial to his tastes. The postmasters-general could not conceal their astonishment at the audacity of the proposal and the grounds on which it was based. "We were never before made sensible," they wrote, "that the business of the agent to the packet boats at Dover was so very inconsiderable as you have represented it to be, nor do we think that for so inconsiderable a business so high a salary can be needed." "We can only say," they added, "that if the present allowance be too much for the work, or if the employ be too mean for your expectations, we doubt not but that we shall be able to find those who will thankfully accept the post with an allowance that is much less."
But Macky's restlessness was not to be subdued by a mere admonition. As he could not prevail on the postmasters-general to send him to Flanders on official business, he asked to be allowed to go on his own account. This permission they readily gave, accompanying it, however, with a remarkable caution. "We must expect," they said, "that you do not intermeddle in any ways upon the business of the Flanders correspondence, or enter into any sort of treaty for the port of letters or jobbing of places which may bring us under any inconveniencys or our authority under any disreputation. We expect you take particular caution of these matters and wish you a good journey."
Within four months from the date of this caution Macky's relations to the Post Office had greatly altered. To the position of packet agent he now added that of contractor, having undertaken himself to provide for the Dover and Ostend service. For the sum of £2000 a year he was to supply four boats between twenty and thirty tons each, and to be at all risks from sea and enemy. One effect of this arrangement, by which Macky the contractor was to be controlled by Macky the packet agent, was to prolong his visit to Flanders. Under the pretext of keeping the captains to their duty he remained there until March or April 1708, when he returned to England, after an absence of eight or nine months. Meanwhile the packets to Ostend, like those to Holland and to Portugal, had been engaged in illicit practices. According to a complaint received from the Commissioners of Customs immediately before Macky's return, clandestine traffic was being systematically carried on, and the very last boat that had arrived had brought parcels of lace concealed in the flap of the mail. The postmasters-general were deeply annoyed. "Let this go on," they exclaimed, "and the mails themselves will be searched, to the great scandal of the office and of our management."
We have been thus particular in recording Macky's movements, because in connection with the service under his control an incident now occurred which brought the Post Office into serious discredit. The postmasters-general, in virtue of their office, which gave them control over the communications of the country, were in the habit of receiving priority of intelligence; and this at a time when intelligence travelled slowly and the means of disseminating it did not exist or existed only in the rudest form. Hence they acquired an importance which the mere office of postmaster-general, as that office is now understood, would not have conferred. An interest attached to them as to men who were reputed to possess exclusive information. They were welcome at Court, and not only welcome but often anxiously expected. Indeed, to act as purveyor of news to the Court had come to be regarded as one and by no means the least important of their duties; and with a view to its more effectual discharge their agents throughout the country had standing orders to send to headquarters the earliest intimation of any remarkable event that might happen in their locality. When any one of these persons was venturesome enough to send to his chiefs a present, the thanks he received were of the coldest—"We thank you for the snuff," or, "We thank you for the port wine," and then was pretty sure to follow a sharp rebuke for some trifling irregularity, which, except for the present, would probably have passed unnoticed. But when a piece of news was sent, the thanks were warm and hearty; and woe betide the unfortunate agent who had news to send and omitted to send it. "We observe you give us no advice of the fleet under Sir George Byng being seen off Falmouth the 28th, tho' we saw letters from Falmouth which advised thereof. We are desirous to have the first advice of any remarkable news." "We received two Flanders mails on Sunday morning, and therewith your letter of the 5th advising of the Duke of Marlborough's being arrived at Flushing, for which account we thank you." "We do heartily congratulate your safe return, and do thank you for being so full and particular in the advices you have given us of what occurrences have come to your knowledge." "We are obliged to you for the news of the Nassau and Burford's prizes of which we had received advice before by some galleys from Gibraltar, and for your kind promise of communicating to us any considerable occurrences that may happen in your parts." "We thank you for sending us an account of all news and remarkable occurrences in your letters which we desire may be sent in the mails or annext to the labels." "We cannot but take very ill the captain's conduct on this occasion, for Mr. Bowen's intentions in sending his son over to bring so great a piece of news as that of the victory[31] to us ought to be esteemed as a great piece of civility, and, if the captain had not refused to sail when Mr. Bowen pressed him, we might have had the satisfaction of carrying the first account of that victory."
It was in the early summer of 1709, when this greed after news was at its height, that intelligence of vast import to the country was expected to arrive in London. Preliminaries of peace, after being arranged in Flanders, had been forwarded to Paris for confirmation. Would the King sign them? Or must the war which had already lasted more than six years be continued? A period of anxious suspense followed. The exhaustion of France, and the humiliating terms which were sought to be imposed upon her, made it certain that there would be neither ready acceptance nor ready rejection; and yet the latest date had passed on which a decision was expected and none had arrived. London was in a fever of expectation. Each mail from Ostend, as it reached the Post Office in Lombard Street, was eagerly seized and opened. The month of May was drawing to a close. On Saturday the 28th there was not only no news but no mail. Sunday came and, to the consternation of the postmasters-general, there was still no mail. The wind was in the right quarter. At Harwich the packets from Holland were arriving regularly. What could hinder the passage from Ostend? At length on Monday the 30th a mail arrived, and with it the news. The King had refused to sign the preliminaries of peace. Frankland and Evelyn[32] hurried off to the Lord Treasurer. Little were they prepared for the reception that awaited them. Godolphin's words have unfortunately not been preserved, but we know the substance of them. The news, he said, had reached the city the day before, having been conveyed there clandestinely. The packet agent or sub-agent at Ostend had sent it. Of this he held in his hand conclusive evidence. What means had been employed, and whether others were concerned in the nefarious transaction, it was for his hearers to ascertain; and the sooner they addressed themselves to the task the better. In short, the power of the purse had again prevailed, and the Post Office had been outwitted by the Stock Exchange.
It is difficult to suppose that the intelligence can have been conveyed from Ostend to London without Macky's connivance. And yet Frankland and Evelyn believed or affected to believe that he had had no hand in the business. Their position was, no doubt, one of embarrassment. Organised as the Post Office then was, they possessed no means of making an independent investigation. They contented themselves, therefore, with calling upon Macky to ascertain and report how it was that a letter from Ostend had reached London on Sunday, although on that day there had been no mail. The result might easily have been foreseen. Brown, the sub-agent at Ostend, whose letter it was, stood self-condemned, and Macky was required to dismiss him. And here the scandal ended. Macky's own character, with himself as reporter, may be presumed to have been cleared. At all events he appears to have been taken back into confidence, and, before many weeks were over, the postmasters-general had despatched him on an important mission.
This mission was no other than to lay down posts for the army in Flanders. The tardiness with which intelligence arrived from the seat of war had long been matter of complaint. In the city especially the dissatisfaction had been intense, and the recent scandal had not been calculated to allay it. With a view to remedy this state of things, Godolphin called upon the postmasters-general to devise some means for securing more rapid communication. The army was now in the neighbourhood of Lisle, and operations were about to begin anew. There was, therefore, no time to be lost. The postmasters-general had recourse to Macky, and in a few days he produced a plan with which Godolphin expressed himself highly pleased. Between Lisle and Ostend, and between Ostend and other places where the army might be, stages were to be settled; at each stage were to be relays of horses with postilions ready to start at any moment; responsible persons were to be appointed to collect and deliver the letters and to receive the postage; and the postage was to be regulated by distance and to be at the same rates as in England, and to go to the English Post Office.
Macky, to his extreme gratification, was commissioned to carry out his own plan. He was to repair at once to Flanders, to report himself to the Duke of Marlborough, and, having obtained his sanction, to proceed with the arrangement of details. Above all, he was to keep a close watch upon the sailing of the packets from Ostend, and to insist upon a rigid punctuality. From this time no more complaints were heard of the tardy arrival of intelligence from the seat of war. As postilions were employed on one side of the water, so expresses were employed on the other; and these, with punctual sailings between port and port, constituted a service which for those days might be considered excellent.
At first, indeed, the employment of expresses from Dover to London appears to have been a little overdone, and the postmasters-general, eager as they were to obtain early intelligence, found it necessary to regulate the practice. An express had arrived bringing a letter from Macky in Flanders. "Altho' we should be very well satisfied," they wrote to his deputy at Dover, "to receive an extraordinary piece of good news by a messenger hired for greater dispatch' sake, yet on ordinary occasions it might be more warrantable and make less noise and expectation to have the same sent by a flying pacquet under cover to us annext to the labell." This was written in August 1709, within six weeks of Macky's arrival in Flanders; and we know of no passage in the whole of the Post Office records which more forcibly brings home to us the difference between the London of to-day and the London of 180 years ago. Crowds no longer congregate at the doors of the Post Office eagerly waiting for news; nor is the neighbourhood of St. Martin's-le-Grand transported with excitement at the approach of a man on horseback.
On the cessation of hostilities at sea, which took place in the summer of 1712, although the Treaty of Utrecht was not signed until the following year, the postmasters-general proceeded to put the packets on a peace footing. The boats from Harwich to the Brill and from Dover to Ostend were reduced in number. The routes between Dover and Calais and between Dover and Dunkirk were reopened. The service between Falmouth and Lisbon, which during the war had been once a week, was now to be only once a fortnight; and the five boats engaged on this service, as carrying more hands than would any longer be necessary, were to be disposed of by public sale and their place to be taken by three of the largest from Harwich. The result of these several changes was to reduce the establishment, in point of numbers, by rather more than 120 men, and, in point of cost, from £21,960 to £15,632. As affecting the cost, hardly less important than the reduction of numbers was the permission now given to the packet boats to resume the carriage of merchandise. This was a source of profit to which the postmasters-general had long been looking as some set-off against the heavy expense.
Meanwhile Dummer's contract for the West India service had come to an abrupt termination. That contract had not been long in force before he began to realise how onerous was the condition that, out of a total sum of £12,500, he should receive only £4500 in money, and depend, for the difference on fares, freight, and postage. The postage, which from the first had fallen short of his expectations, did not increase; and the fact of his having, within a few months from the commencement of his undertaking, lost three of his boats, procured for him—what in the world of commerce is almost incompatible with success—the reputation of an unlucky man. The West India merchants enjoined their correspondents on no account to send goods by Dummer's boats. Thus the profits which he had expected to derive from freight had no more existence in fact than the profits from postage. Hoping against hope, Dummer struggled on; but ill-luck continued to pursue him. In little more than five years he lost no less than nine boats. In order to replace them he mortgaged his property to the full extent of its value and obtained advances on his quarterly allowance. This, of course, could not go on, and at length the crash came. The day had arrived for the West India mail to be despatched, and there was no boat to carry it. The whole of Dummer's property, boats included, had been seized for debt. The rest is soon told. The mortgagees, believing that they had the postmasters-general in a corner, refused to continue the service except at a preposterous charge, which Frankland and Evelyn declined to pay. Fortunately three private ships with consignments for the West Indies were then loading at Teignmouth and other ports in the south-west of England, and these relieved the Post Office from what might otherwise have been a serious dilemma.
Bankrupt and broken-hearted, Edmund Dummer died in April 1713, within eighteen months of the termination of his contract. It is his honourable distinction that he succeeded in all that he undertook for others, and that it was only in what he undertook for himself that he failed.
