Читать книгу The History of the Post Office in British North America - William Smith - Страница 10

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Communications in Canada prior to the Conquest—Extension of colonial postal service to Canada—Effects of colonial discontents on post office.

Having described the several arrangements, which were made to enable the older British colonists to correspond with the mother country and with one another, we shall now turn to Canada.

In the first place an account must be given of the route pursued by the courier, who was shortly to begin regular trips between New York and Montreal. The route is the oldest in North America and the best known. Before either Frenchman or Englishman came to America, the Indian tribes, dwelling on the stretch of land which lies between the waters running south and those running north, passed and repassed over this natural highway in the prosecution of their perpetual wars; and in the long struggle between France and England for mastery of the continent, many of the most decisive battles were fought at different places on the route.

The forts erected by each nation at the several strategic points on the route within its territory indicate their conviction that this was the ordinary course of passage from one country to the other.

A glance at the map confirms this view. From New York to the boundaries of Canada, the few miles of watershed between the Hudson and the lake Champlain systems are the only part of this long route, which could not be easily travelled by vessel. The first long stretch on the journey from New York to Montreal was that between New York and Albany. This part of the trip was made in one of the sloops, which were employed by the merchants of Albany to carry furs, lumber and grain to New York, and which usually returned to Albany empty or with a cargo of brandy, which was considered necessary in their dealings with the Indians. The trip up the river occupied about three days.

From Albany northward, there was a good road on the west side of the Hudson as far as fort Edward, which stood at the bend of the river, where it made a sharp turn to the west. At fort Edward there was a choice of routes, one leading directly north to lake George, and the other to the north-east to Wood Creek, from which there was a navigable course into lake Champlain.

The lake George route also led into lake Champlain, though the difficulties of the passage from one lake to the other subjected the traveller to the inconvenience of a portage. Lake Champlain offered an uninterrupted course to St. John's in Canada, from which point there was a pleasant trip by carriage to Laprairie, followed by a sail across the St. Lawrence to Montreal. The time taken by travellers over this route was from nine to ten days.

The population of Canada at the period when it became a British province was about seventy thousand, all of whom dwelt on the shores of the St. Lawrence and its tributaries. Travellers between Montreal and Quebec taking the river passage were wont to declare that they seemed to be passing through one long village, so closely were the settlements on each side of the river drawn to one another.

Below Quebec, the country on the north shore in the seigneuries of Beauport and Beaupré, as far east as Cap Tourmente, was as thickly populated as any part of Canada. Beyond that point settlement rather straggled on to Murray Bay. On the south shore from Levis eastward, the census of 1765 showed a population of over ten thousand. A gentleman travelling from Rivière du Loup to Quebec a few years later stated that there were from twelve to sixteen families to every mile of road.

Although people travelling in Canada preferred making their journey by boat, there was a good road from Montreal to Quebec and, what was unique in America at the time, there was a regular line of post houses over the whole road, where calèches or carrioles were always kept in readiness for travellers.

Each maître de poste had the exclusive privilege of carrying passengers from his post house to the next, which was usually about nine miles distant, his obligation being to have the horse and carriage ready on fifteen minutes' notice during the day, and in half an hour, if he were called during the night.

This facility for travel, the advantages of which are obvious, was a gift from France, where it had been in operation since the fifteenth century. When the road between Montreal and Quebec was completed in 1734,[66] the post road system was at once established upon it. It was a convenience which cost the government nothing, the habitant who was appointed maître de poste receiving his pay from the persons whom he conveyed within his limits. The government confined its attention to seeing that the maître de poste furnished the horses and vehicles promptly.

In September 1760, when the English became masters of Canada by the capitulation of Montreal, Sir Jeffery Amherst, commander-in-chief of the British forces, issued new commissions to the maîtres de poste, and fixed the rate at which they should be paid for their services, but gave directions that they should let their horses to no person, who was not provided with a written order from the governor.[67]

A question of much interest is suggested by the fact that the post road between Montreal and Quebec had its origin during the French regime. In France the post roads were part of the postal system of the country, and the question occurs, by what means were letters conveyed within Canada during the period of French rule? It is probable that there was a considerable correspondence between Canada and France, and the lines on which the business of the country was conducted would seem to call for a fairly large interchange of letters within the colony itself. Though the great mass of the people were unable either to read or to write, they differed but little in this respect from the same class of people in other countries. It was not the custom of the time to look to the working classes for patronage for the post office, though even here it is to be observed that the girls of Canada had many opportunities for securing the elements of education, which did not fall in the way of the young men, and with the instinct for graceful expression, which is nature's endowment to French women, it is probable that many letters came from this class. From the towns, however, there would be a relatively large correspondence. Although the populations of Quebec and Montreal were less than that of many of our country towns, and Three Rivers would not bear comparison in that respect with many villages, the social life in these towns was on a high plane. From Charlevoix to Montcalm, every visitor to Canada expressed his astonishment at the refinement and even elegance which he found in the towns. This society, with its seigneurs, military officers, clergy and civil service, would beyond doubt have an extensive correspondence with friends at home. Indeed, mention of the clergy brings up that remarkable series of letters written by Jesuit missionaries from the wilds of Canada, known as the Jesuit Relations, which forms so large a part of the foundation on which the history of the country in the seventeenth century rests. The commercial correspondence was, also, considerable. All the trade between Canada and France was carried on through the merchants of Quebec. Montreal from its situation at the junction of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers had been the chief town for the Indian trade in furs for over a century, but it did not send its furs directly to France. The Quebec merchants had been the intermediaries for this trade, and they held jealously to the profitable privilege. The imports from France which included a large part of the necessities and conveniences of life, were also handled by the Quebec merchants, who acted as wholesalers to the merchants in Montreal and the other parts of the colony.

It will be obvious from a view of all these circumstances that there must have been a large volume of correspondence to and from as well as within Canada during the French regime. The greater part of it would be between Quebec and the ports of France and the means by which this was carried on, are known. In the Royal Almanach for 1723, it is announced that on letters to Canada there would be a charge of seven sols (about seven cents) which would pay for the conveyance from Paris to Rochelle, while between Rochelle and Canada, letters were carried free of all charge. Between Old and New France, therefore, there was little restriction on correspondence. If a letter going to France were destined for Paris, it would be carried there for seven cents; if for other parts of France, local and personal arrangements would have to be made for their delivery. The case was the same with letters coming to Canada, but addressed to other places than Quebec. Persons living in Montreal, Three Rivers or any other place, who had correspondence with France would arrange with friends in Quebec to take their letters from the captain of the incoming ship, and send the letters to them by the first opportunity. Kalm, the Swedish naturalist, who was travelling through Canada as the guest of the governor, states that, on the way up to Montreal on the governor's bateau, they put in at Three Rivers in order that the officer in charge might deliver some letters, which had been entrusted to him.

The question of establishing such a postal system as existed in France was laid before the governor as early as 1721. In that year Nicholas Lanoullier, a clerk in the treasury, made application for the exclusive privilege of carrying on a postal system between Montreal and Quebec. He pointed out that the only means for the conveyance of letters between Quebec, Three Rivers and Montreal was the canoe, and as there was no regular canoe service, a person desiring to send a letter had either to hire a canoe, or wait until some person would be found willing to take the letter in the course of his journey. Either mode was obviously unsatisfactory. Lanoullier proposed to open post offices at the three towns, for letters and couriers, and to maintain messageries or an express service, and a line of post houses. There was no road between Montreal and Quebec at this time, and as Lanoullier's scheme involved the construction of a road, the governor granted the application, and in addition gave Lanoullier the exclusive privilege of establishing ferries over the rivers, which would cross the road he undertook to build. As the total population of Canada in 1721 did not exceed 25,000, and the towns of Quebec, Three Rivers and Montreal contained no more than 2300, 325 and 3200 people respectively, an enterprise of that magnitude could not possibly be profitable. Lanoullier no doubt realized this, for he did nothing in pursuance of the scheme. It was ten years after this period before any serious effort was made to construct a continuous road from Quebec to Montreal, and by that time Nicholas Lanoullier's connection with the work had ceased entirely. By a somewhat curious coincidence, when the governor and intendant resolved that the road should be constructed, the duty of superintending the work fell upon a brother of Lanoullier, who was appointed grand voyer or general overseer of the roads of the colony. The office of grand voyer had existed in the colony since 1657, but until Lanoullier's time, it seems to have been neglected, and when the habitants along the road were called upon to work upon it, they obeyed with much reluctance. Lanoullier's difficulties were increased by the hostility of the seigneurs through whose estates the road was to pass, and who resented his making his surveys without deference to their wishes and opinions. He pushed forward the work with much energy, however, and by 1734 the road was opened. The intendant, Hocquart, who had followed the road building with much interest, reported to the king that he himself had made the journey in a carriage from Quebec to Montreal in four days. As soon as the road was declared fit for travel post houses were placed upon it at intervals of about nine miles, and ferries were established for transportation across the broader rivers which crossed the road.

But although no regular postal system was in operation during the French regime, an arrangement existed from an early period, by which the letters of the governor and intendant were carried by an appointed messenger, who was permitted to take with him, in addition to the official letters, any that might be entrusted to him by private persons. The fee allowed the messenger by the intendant's commission was ten sous for a letter carried from Quebec to Montreal and five sous to Three Rivers, with proportionate charges for greater or shorter distances. The commission which was issued in 1705 by Raudot, the intendant, to Pierre Dasilva dit Portugais, made no provision for regular conveyance, but as the messenger conveyed all the governor's despatches within the colony, it is probable that he made his trips with fair frequency. Another messenger, Jean Morau, received a commission in 1727, though he had been performing the duties of the service for ten years before that date.[68]

A curious fact is disclosed in a memorandum prepared during the period between the capitulation of Canada in 1760 and the treaty of Paris, which settled definitively the possession of the country. The writer, who had hopes that the country would be restored to France, was discussing several measures for improving the administration, when the French returned to the government. Among these was the establishment of a royal post office. In submitting his suggestion he pointed out that the system of royal messengers was expensive to the country, as the letters of private persons were carried and delivered free of charge. By the establishment of a post office, the charges of maintaining it would fall on the persons whose letters were carried, and the treasury would be relieved of the expense.[69]

As has been already stated, when Franklin learned that Canada was to remain a British possession, he came to Quebec to arrange for the establishment of a postal service between Quebec, Three Rivers and Montreal, and for a regular exchange of mails between those places and New York. At Quebec he met with Hugh Finlay, a young Scotchman who had been in the country for three years and who had been performing the very important duties of justice of the peace. In 1765, Finlay was made a member of the governor's council, and until his death, thirty-six years later, took a leading part in the affairs of the colony. Franklin opened a post office in Quebec with Finlay as postmaster and put under his charge subordinate offices at Three Rivers and Montreal. A monthly service by courier was established between Montreal and New York, whose duty it was to have the Canadian mails in New York in time to place those for Great Britain on board the outgoing packet. In making his arrangements for the exchange of mails between the Canadian offices themselves, Finlay sought and obtained the co-operation of the governor, who directed the maîtres de poste to provide saddle horses for the mail couriers at sixpence a league, which was just half the charge made to the public for the same service, and who issued orders to the ferrymen along the route to pass the couriers over their rivers promptly and without charge.[70] The captains of boats running on the river were instructed in their duty to deliver the letters in their hands to the nearest postmasters who would pay them one cent for each letter. The courier's trips between Montreal and Quebec were made weekly each way, and each trip took about thirty hours. As the distance is one hundred and eighty miles, the advantages of the post house system in facilitating the movements of the couriers are manifest.

A difficulty for which provision had to be made was the extreme magnitude of the postage charges. In 1763 the American post office was still working under the act of 1710, which was enacted at a time when Canada as an English colony was not in contemplation.

The system for which provision was made by the act extended from Piscataway (now Portsmouth, New Hampshire) to Charlestown; and if letters were sent beyond the range of this system, the charge for single letters conveyed up to sixty miles was fourpence; and when the conveyance was from sixty to one hundred miles the charge was sixpence. At the rate of sixpence for one hundred miles, it cost two shillings to send a single letter from New York to Montreal and three shillings from New York to Quebec.

This rate was quite prohibitive. Governors Murray of Quebec, and Gage of Montreal, in 1760, represented to the home government[71] that the people of Canada were almost destitute of cash, and that they would not write to their friends in England until they found private occasions to send their letters to New York. The governors suggested that every interest would be better served if the rates could be made so that the charge on letters between any two places in America might not exceed one shilling and sixpence for a single letter.

In 1765, the act of 1710 was amended to meet the governor's views.[72] The scale of fourpence for sixty miles and sixpence for one hundred miles was not changed, but an addition was made to it by providing that for each one hundred miles or less beyond the first hundred miles, the additional charge was to be twopence.

The reduction for the longer distances was very considerable. Between New York and Montreal, the act of 1765 lowered the charge for a single letter from two shillings to one shilling, and between New York and Quebec from three shillings to one shilling and fourpence.

Halifax, which had had a post office since 1755, had until this time but little benefit from it owing to the excessive charges. But the amendment of 1765 provided a rate of fourpence on single letters passing between any two seaports in America, and thus put Halifax in comparatively easy communication with Boston and New York.

Here then in its entirety is the postal system of North America as it was completed by the inclusion within it of the new province of Canada. The most important communications were those between America and Great Britain. Of these there were three: with New York, Charlestown and the West Indies. Between each of these places and Great Britain, packet boats carried the mails once a month. These several divisions were united with one another by a small packet from Jamaica to Charlestown, and by a courier from Charlestown to Suffolk, Virginia, where he met with a courier from New York.

Within the northern district, the centre of which was at New York, there was a well-organized mail service, in which all existing travelling facilities were employed to the limit of their usefulness.[73] Mails were transported regularly as far south as Virginia and as far north and east as Quebec and Halifax. Within the better settled parts of the country, the service was excellent. Before the Revolution, two trips were made weekly between New York and Boston, and three between New York and Philadelphia. From Quebec to Montreal, there were two trips every week. The courier service at this time was quite equal, if not superior, to the service in England.

The financial affairs of the American post office flourished. For the three years ending July 1764, there was a surplus revenue of £2070.[74] The succeeding years, though satisfactory, were not equal to those up to 1764.[75]

But the political troubles were rendering the post office an object of unpopularity, and making it a duty on the part of the patriots to employ agencies other than the post office for the transmission of their letters. As these unofficial agencies were usually satisfied with a much lower compensation than the post office demanded, the pleasant circumstance arose for the patriot that the line of interest coincided with the line of duty.

During the period between the establishment of the post office in Canada in 1763, and the outbreak of the war of the Revolution in 1775, the post office pursued on the whole an even, uneventful course. Canada did not entirely escape the influence of the sentiments which in the older colonies were leading to the Revolution; and, as the war approached, the post office was made to feel the effects.

There were, at the time of the peace of 1763, along with the seventy thousand Canadians which made up nearly the whole of the population, a number of the older British subjects, most of whom had come from the British American colonies. At this time they numbered about two hundred, and when the war broke out in 1775, the number had doubled.

These new-comers to Canada were not without the usual practical ability of Americans, and they very soon gathered into their hands the greater part of the business of the colony. They were, however, a source of much trouble and offence to the governor, and to their Canadian fellow subjects. The governor reported that their arrogance, and repugnance to the social and religious customs of the new subjects—the former subjects of France—as well as the factious opposition they displayed to the mode of government then existing, retarded seriously the progress of the efforts which were made towards conciliating the Canadians to the new regime.

Nothing short of the complete domination of these few hundred English-speaking people over the French Canadians would have satisfied them. The spirit of rebellion grew no faster in the older British colonies than among the few of English extraction in Canada, and the mutual distrust between these people and the government hampered the work of the post office a few years later.

In 1767 Finlay was called upon to remove a certain friction which had arisen between the maîtres de poste and the travelling public. The regulations, which confined travelling by post to persons having special permits from the governor, were no longer insisted upon. Any person desiring to do so was at liberty to hire horses and carriages at any of the post houses for travel to the next post house.

The easing of restrictions enlarged the business of the maîtres de poste. But it evidently did not give unmixed satisfaction, as complaints were made that many persons riding post imposed upon the postmen, "threatening and abusing them contrary at all law."

Finlay had no actual warrant for interfering on behalf of the maîtres de poste, but as postmaster of the province, he had a strong motive for picking up the reins of authority where he found them lying in slack hands. He required the services of the maîtres de poste to help him with the conveyance of the mails, and as those services were rendered for half the charge which was made to the travelling public, he kept the maîtres de poste under his influence by constituting himself their champion. Finlay pointed to the fact that in England the postmaster general was also general master of the post houses, and declared that as deputy of the postmaster general he would take the same position in Canada.

There was the essential difference between the situation in England and in Canada that the postmaster general had statutory authority for exercising control over the post houses in England, whereas there was no such authority for control over the post houses in Canada. However, Finlay was a member of the legislative council, and he assumed, without opposition or question, the charge of the maîtres de poste, and in 1767 issued public notice that the post house system was to be under the same regulations as were in force in England.[76] The maîtres de poste were confirmed in their monopoly, and protected against imposition on the part of the public.

Finlay's energetic management of the affairs of the Canadian post office attracted the attention of his superiors, and as Franklin had resided continuously in England since 1764 as agent for Pennsylvania and other of the American colonies, the expanding scope of the American post office demanded a greater degree of supervision than Franklin's associate, Foxcroft, was able to give.

It was resolved to create another office, until then unknown in America, called a surveyorship. The duties of the surveyor in England are the same as those of the inspector in the Canadian or United States services, and call for a general control over the postal service within certain defined limits. The office of surveyor was established in 1772, and Finlay was appointed to the position. He was allowed to retain his charge of the post office in Canada, though his salary here underwent an abatement.

The first duty assigned to Finlay as post office surveyor was to explore the uninhabited country beyond the last settlements on the river Chaudiere extending over the height of land into New England.[77] The purpose of the trip was to ascertain the practicability of a direct road between Quebec and New England. The merchants of Quebec had made much complaint of the slowness and irregularity of the ordinary communication with New York, which was by way of Montreal, and they hoped that the proposed road would materially shorten the journey to the principal places in the northern colonies.

The road which the merchants of Quebec desired to see built was a project which had occupied public attention at various times for over a century before this time. When Louis XIV, Colbert his minister, and Talon the intendant, were devising schemes for the creation of a New France in North America, they observed that the long Canadian winters, which shut up the port of Quebec, made it desirable that there should be free access to an ocean port.

The treaty of Breda confirmed England in 1667 in its possession of New York and New Jersey, and also established the right of France to Acadia, which in the French view comprised not only Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, but also that section of the state of Maine which lies east of the Kennebec river. In 1671[78] the king directed Talon to see what could be done towards constructing a road between the mouth of the Chaudiere and fort Pentegoet at the mouth of the Penobscot, which was the headquarters of the French governor in Acadia.

The purposes of the king were not unlike those of the fathers of the present confederation. Canada was French and so was Acadia, and the association of the inland with the maritime settlements could not but be productive of good. The populations were small: Canada had six thousand seven hundred, and Acadia four hundred and forty-one,[79] but, for a short period, imperial ideas prevailed.

Talon in 1671 despatched two explorers to Pentegoet. They took different routes, although following the watercourses, and their reports confirmed Talon as to the desirability of establishing permanent communication between the two provinces. His plans embraced a line of settlements on the Penobscot and Kennebec rivers with a view to imposing a barrier to the advances of the English. But Talon's health gave way, and he returned to France in the fall of 1672, and as the king's ardour towards Canada was cooling off, owing to his absorption in his European wars, the road was abandoned.

The project was revived eleven years afterwards by de Meulles, a later intendant. He was persuaded that if communication were opened, the merchants of Quebec might secure the trade of the Acadians which went entirely to New England, and the Acadians would become attached to Canada. The road would have to be settled upon, and de Meulles' plan was to place old soldiers upon it, as he did not think the Canadians could be induced to give up their comfortable lives, to enter upon a venture of that kind. De Meulles' proposition, however, fell upon deaf ears, as did all others calling for the outlay of money, and the scheme was allowed to lie until Finlay took it up.

From the New England side a movement towards the height of land separating Canada from the English colonies was made in 1754.[80] Governor Shirley of Massachusetts in the early part of that year, set out from Falmouth (now Portland) with eight hundred men on an expedition up the Kennebec river. His purpose was to dislodge any Frenchman who might be settled on the height of land, and to establish a fort to secure the country against attack.

Fort Halifax was erected at the junction of a stream called the Sebastoocook with the Kennebec, and the Plymouth company built a storehouse at the head of navigation on the Kennebec. A carriage road was laid between the fort and the storehouse. The governor anticipated that with fort Halifax as base he might secure the mastery of the Chaudiere and even threaten Quebec.

As Talon in 1671, and Shirley in 1754, so Finlay in 1772 was persuaded that a direct road from Quebec to New England was altogether desirable, and that it might be made without unusual difficulty. It was not, however, in the scheme of things that Finlay should succeed any more than his predecessors. His preparations were soon made. He explained his views to lieutenant governor Cramahe, who headed a subscription to pay Finlay's expenses, and inside of twenty-four hours he had ample means at his disposal for his purpose.[81]

Finlay set out in September 1773 with a party of Indians, and reached Falmouth after seventeen days of canoeing and following trails. Having become satisfied as to the practicability of the road, he addressed himself to the task of securing the co-operation of those who might be supposed to benefit by the enterprise.

At Portsmouth, New Hampshire, he discussed the subject with governor Wentworth. The governor was eager to help with the scheme of establishing a further connection between Canada and the colonies to the south, but was of opinion that the best route would be over the tract of country between the Connecticut river and the St. Francis river in Canada.

This route had several advantages. It avoided the watercourses which made the road from Montreal to New York, and the proposed Kennebec road, useless for so long a period every year; the passage over the height of land was easy, and the country along the line of the route between the height of land and the St. Francis was favourable for settlement.

As Finlay was prepossessed with the governor's plans, the governor set about putting them into execution. He laid a carriageable road along the Connecticut to the boundary of his province, and by April 1774 had a line of settlements along the road so that the post rider would always have a stage at which to pass the night, and generally have one within four hours' travel from any point on the road.

Governor Wentworth lent to Finlay the services of his own surveyor to explore the country on the Canadian side of the route, but before anything could be accomplished in this way, the discontents in the south had broken out in acts of rebellion, and the post office was the first of the institutions of government to be suspended.

At Boston, Finlay laid his plans before governor Hutchinson.[82] The interview was not encouraging. The governor declared that, in the existing temper of the people, it would be enough for the legislature to know that the governor favoured a scheme, to ensure its defeat. The New Englanders had, besides this, but moderate grounds for assisting in establishing further communication with Canada.

The proposed road would be beneficial to Massachusetts in so far as it aided colonization in the northern parts of the province, but as the tract through which the proposed Kennebec road would run lay largely in the grants of the Plymouth company, it would be this company which would be the chief beneficiary of the enterprise, and the legislature considered that the company should bear the burden of the expense.

The company were not averse from assisting, but they indulged the hope that with their interest in the legislature the government might be induced to bear the cost. Another circumstance that tended to cool the interest of the legislature was the belief that in a short time this northern country was to be detached from Massachusetts, and erected into a separate government. Altogether Finlay concluded that unless the British government undertook the scheme on the New England side, it would not be accomplished at all.

Finlay's tour of exploration was ended by his arrival in Falmouth at the beginning of October. He then entered upon the more extensive duty of inspecting the whole postal service from Maine to Georgia.[83] He travelled southward from Falmouth, inspected every post office, studied the conditions under which the mails were carried, and made a full report of his investigations to the postmaster general.

It is plain from his report that the service had deteriorated seriously since Franklin and Foxcroft had made their last inspection ten years before. Franklin, it will be remembered, had resided in England since 1764, and Foxcroft undoubtedly found it impossible to give proper attention to the post offices throughout the country, and at the same time to keep abreast of the official routine at the head office.

The postmasters on the whole impressed Finlay favourably. They understood their duties and seemed to be making a commendable struggle against the demoralization which confronted them however they turned. Only a small proportion of the letters which circulated within the colonies passed through the post office, although their conveyance by any other means was illegal. The consequence was that the revenues of the post office were small.

At Falmouth the greater part of the letters from Boston were delivered by the masters of sailing vessels. The postmaster on one occasion attempted to enforce the law against illegal conveyance by seizing the letter bag on one of the incoming ships; but the populace made so marked a manifestation of its displeasure that he did not venture on that course a second time.

It was not so much, however, by direct defiance of the postal law, although instances of this were not wanting, as by evasions of it, that the monopoly of the post office was broken down. But in many cases the evasions were so palpable that they could deceive nobody. A popular mode of escape from the penalties attaching to the breach of the monopoly was to seek shelter under one of the exceptions which the post office act allowed.

In none of the acts, for instance, is objection made to a person sending a letter to a correspondent by his own servant, or by a friend who happened to be journeying to the place where the letter should be delivered. Another exception to the monopoly was made in favour of letters which accompanied merchandise to which letters related. Thus a merchant in filling an order for goods has always been at liberty to send with them the invoice, or any other communication, having presumable reference to them. This was the excepted article, which served the turn of those eluding the monopoly.

What Finlay saw at New Haven illustrates fairly what was going on throughout the colonies. Riders came in from other towns, their carts laden with bundles, packages, boxes and canisters, and every package had a letter attached. Some of the parcels consisted of no more than little bundles of chips, straw, or old paper, but they served their purpose. If the postmaster made objection to the number of letters they carried, the riders asserted their right to carry letters accompanying goods, and the public saw to it that neither postmaster or magistrate took too narrow a view of what constituted goods.

On the route between Boston and Newport the mail carrier was a certain Peter Mumford, who did a much larger business in the illegal conveyance of letters than as the servant of the post office. At Newport the postmaster declared that there were two post offices—the king's and Mumford's—and the latter did the larger business. There was no remedy, as the postmaster declared that whoever should attempt to check the illegal practice would be denounced as the friend of slavery and oppression and the declared enemy of America.

Many of the couriers did so large a carrying business that the conveyance of the mails became a mere incident with them. As he approached New Haven, Finlay was accosted with the inquiry whether he had overtaken the post bringing in a drove of oxen, which the courier had engaged to do, when he came in with the mail.

In all respects but one, the situation described by Finlay presented no unexpected features. There had been no general inspection since Franklin made his tour in 1763, at the time he opened the post office in Quebec. This fact fully explains the shortcomings of the postmasters and couriers. That the postmasters were chargeable with so few irregularities in their accounts, or were open to so little censure for faults in management, is high testimony to their intelligence and fidelity to duty.

Mail couriers have always been less completely identified with the postal service than postmasters. They are held by contract, not by appointment, and their engagements are for short terms. There is nothing irregular in their practice of combining the conveyance of the mails with other means of gaining a livelihood, but in the absence of supervision there was a constant tendency to give undue attention to what should have been merely auxiliary employments of carrying passengers and parcels.

People employing the couriers demanded prompt service, while there was no person to insist on the prior claims of the post office, and indeed there were probably few people in any community at that time to whom an hour more or less was of any consequence in the receipt of their letters.

The evasion of the postmaster general's monopoly also was too common to excite particular remark. It was beyond doubt a breach of the law, but that it was wrong was a proposition to which few even good citizens gave assent, at least by their practice. Thomas Hancock made a merit of his saving the colony of Connecticut from thirty to forty shillings a year through the interest he had with certain captains, which enabled him to secure the colonial letters, as they came over in the ships, and thus prevent their passing through the post office.

In England, also, the practice was wellnigh universal. The increased rates imposed by the act of 1710 gave an immense impetus to clandestine traffic. Every pedlar and driver of public coaches lent himself to the profitable business of carrying letters for a few halfpence a letter. In London an effort was made to stop the practice by having officials of the post office frequent the roads leading into the city, for the purpose of searching the vehicles of those who had made themselves objects of suspicion.

It is interesting to note that the work for which the post office surveyors or inspectors were first appointed was to detain the mail couriers in the course of travel, and check the contents of the mail bags, and thus prevent postmasters from becoming parties, as they too frequently were, to frauds on the revenue, to their own great advantage.

As late as 1837, when Rowland Hill[84] laid his penny postage scheme before a public which was impatient for its adoption, Richard Cobden declared to a committee appointed to report on the scheme, that five-sixths of the letters passing between Manchester and London were conveyed by private hand. This state of things continued until the postage rates were brought down to a point, at which the service offered by the post office was cheaper as well as better than any other. The only certain means by which a government monopoly in a free country can maintain its position is to outbid its rivals. There is no safe dependence to be placed in legal process.

In ordinary times, then, the evasion of the exclusive privilege of the postmaster general by any community would deserve no more than passing mention. It is as part of a general boycott of the government that the action of the Americans is worthy of note.

From the time of the passage of the stamp act in 1765, the attitude of the colonies towards all schemes in which taxation by Parliament could be detected was one of resistance active or passive. When this act went into operation, the Americans bound themselves to import nothing from England, a self-imposed obligation which in the undeveloped state of their manufactures entailed much inconvenience and even distress.

There was an essential difference between the English and the American methods of avoiding the penalties for infractions of the post office law. In England, and to some extent doubtless in America as well, men engaged in the illegal conveyance of letters did their best to conceal their operations from the authorities. The efforts of a public coach driver were directed to rendering the search made by the post office inspectors fruitless. If letters were found in his possession, he suffered the legal penalties as the smuggler does to-day. It was one of the chances of his trade.

In the colonies men who were bent on circumventing the post office pursued another course. They indulged their taste for legal technicalities by carrying their letters openly, and maintaining that the packages which accompanied them took them outside the monopoly, and they gave scope to their humour by making the packages as ridiculous as possible. They incurred no great risk, for the active spirits in every community threatened a prosecutor with a coat of tar and feathers.

The stamp act was repealed in the year following its enactment, and for the moment trade resumed its wonted course. But it was not for long. The British government was determined that the legislative supremacy of parliament should be recognized in America, and the colonies were equally persistent in their denial of this supremacy; and in the conflict which ensued the principle weapons employed by the Americans until the outbreak of the war were non-importation and non-exportation agreements.

As the British merchant exercised a preponderating influence with the government, the stoppage of trade with America, as the result of a constitutional dispute, was an effective instrument in making the government consider the situation seriously. The difficulty with the government was to understand the attitude of mind which prevailed among the Americans.

The government had no quarrel with the principle that representation should be a condition of taxation. It would have asserted the principle on any occasion, but it could not see that the course it was pursuing was a violation of that principle. Parliament, it declared, was the great council of the nation, representing those parts beyond the sea as well as those at home, and its measures bound the whole nation.

It was still, it must be remembered, half a century before the time when the agitations which preceded the great reform bill of 1832 had familiarized the country with the distinction between virtual and actual representation. The British parliament was far from being, and indeed made no pretence of being a representative assembly in the sense in which the phrase is now used. The right to send members to parliament had for centuries been exercised by the electors of counties and certain ancient boroughs, and no enlargement of the representation was made from 1677 until 1832,[85] in spite of the great changes in population and industrial importance which had taken place in the course of time.

Great manufacturing towns such as Manchester and Leeds sent no members to represent them in parliament, while Old Sarum which did not contain a single house elected two members. To a people, who saw nothing in this state of things inconsistent with the theory of representative government, the colonial view would be quite incomprehensible.

The colonist on the other hand with his strict representation in town meetings and colonial assemblies, and without the historical aids to an understanding of the point of view of the home government, saw little of a truly representative character in the British system. But he did see, what the home government did not, that a body of distinct and separate interests had grown up in America of which parliament had a very inaccurate conception, and with which it was in no way qualified to deal.

The attitude of the colonists did not appear to the government to be quite free from insincerity. For half a century and more, the government declared, the colonists had been subject to taxes in the shape of post office charges imposed by the act of 1710, and they had never raised a question.

In the Newcastle correspondence, there is a paper, dated 1765, containing a discussion on the legality of a tax on the trade with the Spanish West Indies. In the course of the paper it is asserted that parliament, by the post office act of Queen Anne, imposed an internal tax on the colonies without their presuming to dispute the jurisdiction of parliament over them.

The disturbances in America which followed upon the attempts to enforce the stamp act surprised and alarmed the government, and a committee of parliament was appointed to consider what their future course would be. Franklin who, as the representative of several of the colonies, had been in London for a considerable time, was among the witnesses examined by the committee. His examination took a wide range, but the point of interest was the question as to what ground in principle the Americans stood upon in objecting to the stamp act, since they had accepted the post office act of 1710.

For Franklin this was a crucial question, as he had been not only administering the post office in America for twelve years past, but he did not conceal his satisfaction that by his management he had been able for several years to send substantial sums to Great Britain as profits from the institution.

Franklin answered the questions with much ingenuity. The money paid for the postage of a letter was not in the nature of a tax; it was merely a quantum meruit for a service done; no person was compellable to pay the money if he did not choose to receive the service. A man might still, as before the act, send his letter by a servant, a special messenger, or a friend, if he thought it safer and cheaper.

The answer would have been quite just, if the postmaster general of England had not held a monopoly of letter carrying in America. While a person is free to use or not to use a certain service, the charge for the service is not in the nature of a tax. If a person does not like the price demanded by the post office for its services, he may seek other means of having his letters carried. But the post office act does not leave a person free to employ other agencies for the conveyance of his letters. The monopoly has attached to it heavy penalties for its infringement.

It is true, as Franklin said, that the post office act leaves it open to a man to employ a servant, special messenger, or friend in the course of his travel, to carry his letters. But the mention of these agencies shows the absurdity of Franklin's contention. A merchant in New York having business to transact by letter with a customer in Boston or Philadelphia could not afford to pay the expenses of his messenger or servant unless the transaction were one of considerable magnitude. Nor could he await the chance of a friend's making a visit to either of these places. He might, if he were free to do so, have entrusted his letters to a coach driver who made a business of passing between New York and the other two towns, but the monopoly of the post office stood in his way, and the coachman would have made himself liable to a heavy fine.

In short, if the merchant had to correspond with neighbouring places he was compelled to employ the post office. With a country so extended and so highly civilized as the American colonies were at that day, a postal system was an absolute necessity; and if the system maintained by the government were protected by a monopoly, its charges were a tax on the users of the system in so far as those charges exceeded the strict cost of carrying on the service.

Furthermore, since the post office act of 1710 was imposed on the colonies without their consent, and since Franklin's good management had enabled him to pay all the expenses of the service and send a considerable surplus to England for some years past, it is plain that to the extent of the yearly surplus the colonies had been subject to a tax laid on them without their consent, and that Franklin himself was the tax gatherer. This was undoubtedly where the point lay in the question which was asked of Franklin.

Franklin's views on the constitutionality of the post office charges were part and parcel of his views on taxation generally. For instance, he drew a clear line of distinction between a tax on imported goods and an internal tax such as the stamp act. A duty on imported goods it was permissible for parliament to impose on the colonies, while an internal tax could not properly be levied without consent.

The stamp act required that all commercial and legal documents and newspapers should be written or printed upon stamped paper which was sold by agents of the government at varying prices prescribed by the law. As this was a tax which could not be avoided so long as men carried on their business in the ordinary way and by the ordinary means, it was one for which the consent of the colonies was necessary.

An import tax stood on a different footing. It was simply one of the elements entering into the price of the goods imported. If people objected to the price as enhanced by the tax, it was open to them to decline to buy the goods. A tax of this sort was in Franklin's view quite within the powers of the sovereign state.

The ultimate test applied by Franklin to determine whether a tax could in a given case be constitutionally imposed, was whether or not there was a legal mode of escape from the tax. If the tax were an avoidable one, it was constitutional, since submission to it implied consent. If, on the other hand, the tax were one which from the necessities of the case could not be avoided, it ought not to be imposed until it had been assented to by the people.

Opinions may differ as to which of the two classes the application of the test would place postal charges in. They constituted a tax beyond any question since they turned into the government a surplus of revenue after all expenses had been met. Whether they were to be regarded as an avoidable tax to be paid or not as one cared to employ the services of a post office or not, or whether as a tax which the circumstances of the community made it necessary to accept, will depend on one's views as to whether a post office is indispensable to the community.

It is difficult to see how Franklin, who of all men of his generation knew best the requirements of a highly developed industrial community, could believe that the necessities for the interchange of correspondence on the part of a people like the American colonists could be satisfied by private messengers, or travelling friends, or indeed by any agency less comprehensive than a national postal system.