Chapter XIII: The Nineties: Or, One Hundred Years Ago (1)

The spirit of activity which Palmer had infused into the Post Office did not cease with the cessation of his official career. Those who served under him had been selected by himself; and they had been selected on account of qualities which the withdrawal of his dominating influence was calculated rather to stimulate than to check. These men now came to the fore, and not only ably sustained their late master's work but inaugurated important measures of their own.

But before proceeding to chronicle the acts of Palmer's successors, we propose to give a few particulars which will serve better perhaps than a mere record of leading events to shew the state of the Post Office at the time that Palmer left it; and in this relation the project with which his name is mainly identified shall have precedence.

In 1792 sixteen mail-coaches left London every day, and as many returned. These were in addition to the cross country mail-coaches, of which there were fifteen--as, for instance, the coach between Bristol and Oxford or, as it was commonly called, Mr. Pickwick's coach.[70] Those leaving London started from the General Post Office in Lombard Street at eight o'clock in the evening, and they travelled every day, Sundays included.

[70] Later on, Mr. Pickwick would seem to have extended his operations.
"(Q.) Are you in the habit of working coaches to any great distance from
London? (A.) I work them half-way to Bristol. With Mr. Pickwick of Bath
I work to Newbury."--Evidence of Mr. William Home, taken on the 2nd of
March 1819 before the Select Committee on the Highways of the Kingdom.

There is still extant at the Post Office in St. Martin's-le-Grand the model of an old mail-coach, as fresh and as perfect as the day it was painted. This model bears upon its panels four devices--one a cross with the motto, _Honi soit qui mal y pense_; another a thistle with the motto, _Nemo me impune lacessit_; a third a shamrock under a star, with the motto, _Quis separabit?_ (ah! who indeed?); and a fourth, three crowns with the motto, _Tria juncta in uno_. It is commonly reputed to be the model of the first mail-coach, and as such we have seen it represented in foreign publications. We feel constrained in the interests of truth to expose this fiction. The first mail-coach ran between Bristol and London. The model bears upon it the words, "Royal Mail from London to Liverpool." The first mail-coach carried no outside passengers. The model has places for several passengers outside. The first mail-coach began to run on Monday the 2nd of August 1784. On the model, below one of the devices, appears in small yet legible figures the date 1783. But although certainly not the model of the first mail-coach, we are by no means sure that it is not still more interesting. We have little doubt that it is a model which, before mail-coaches began to run, was prepared for Pitt's inspection.

In 1787, owing to the faulty construction of the original mail-coach and the wretched materials of which it was made, hardly a day passed without one or more accidents. Occasionally, indeed, the Post Office would receive notice of as many as three and even four upsets or breakdowns in a single morning. Palmer at once discerned the origin of the disease and the remedy; and the latter he proceeded to apply with his usual resolution. Having satisfied himself that a patent coach which was being constructed at this time fulfilled the necessary conditions more completely than any other, he agreed with the patentee, one Besant by name, to supply whatever number of coaches might be required. It was a mere verbal agreement, an agreement confirmed by no writing of any kind; yet no sooner was it made than Palmer addressed a circular to all the contractors of the kingdom, reproaching them with the shameful condition of their coaches. This, he told them, was due to the miserable sums they gave to the coach-maker, sums so low as to oblige him to use the most worthless materials; and as to repairs, even if they made him an allowance for these, it was so inadequate to the continual mending which vehicles constructed of such materials required that he merely put in a clip or a bolt where the fracture might happen to be, and then returned them in as dangerous a condition as before. Such a state of things, Palmer continued, would no longer be tolerated, and, as fast as Besant could turn them out, the new patent coaches would be sent down to replace those that were now in use. For providing them and keeping them in thorough repair, for which of course the contractors had to pay, the patentee's terms would be five farthings a mile or 2-1/2d. a mile out and in. After this summary fashion did Palmer clear the country of the mail-coaches of original construction.

In 1792 the only mail-coaches on the road were those supplied by Besant. They were constructed to carry five passengers, four inside and one out. The coachman was not a Post Office servant; yet he, like the mail guard, was provided with uniform. The mail guard carried firearms. He carried also a timepiece; and this timepiece was regulated to gain about fifteen minutes in twenty-four hours, so that, when travelling eastwards, it might accord with real time. Of course, in the opposite direction, a corresponding allowance was made. The mail guard's position was one of no little responsibility. Not only were the mails under his personal charge, but he had to see that the coach kept time, that there was no undue delay for the purpose of obtaining refreshments, that the harness was in serviceable condition, and, generally, that matters along the road were conducted with order and propriety. If in any one or more of these respects there were any defect, it was the mail guard's duty to report the circumstance. Should the harness be reported as in had condition, and the contractors fail to replace it on demand, a new set was sent down from London at their expense; and should a coach persistently keep bad time, a superintendent from headquarters was deputed to travel by it until proper time was kept. This was equivalent to a heavy fine, as the superintendent travelled free, and for the seat he occupied a passenger would have been charged at the rate of 4d. a mile. The fees which at this time it was usual to pay to the mail guard and coachman were moderate enough, only 1s. apiece at the end of the "ground"; and if the "ground" was less than thirty miles, only 6d. Even at this rate the gentlemen of Devonshire bitterly complained that between Exeter and Taunton they had to pay two coachmen.

The chief superintendent of mail-coaches at this time was Thomas Hasker, a man whose heart and soul were in his duties. Hasker has left behind him copies of letters written by himself or by his instructions; and these letters, though expressed in homely language, throw such a flood of light upon the ways of the road a century ago that we make no apology for quoting from them. "The Bristol coach," he writes to the postmaster of Marlborough, "is the fastest in the kingdom, and you must not detain it for the coach from Bath." Again, to the postmaster of Ipswich he writes, "Tell Mr. Foster to get fresh horses immediately, and that I must see him in town next Monday. Shameful work--three hours and twenty-two minutes coming over his eighteen miles." The Dover coach had long been keeping bad time. "I must beg you to attend to this directly," writes Hasker to the contractors, "or we shall be obliged to put three fresh guards on the coach, and keep a superintendent constantly up and down till time is kept." The contractors for another coach had failed to replace their harness when desired, and a set had been sent down from London. "The harness," writes the indefatigable superintendent, "cost fourteen guineas, but as it had been used a few times with the King's royal Weymouth [coach], you will be charged only twelve, which sum please to remit to me." Thanks to the widening of the roads, it is only in thoroughfares more or less crowded that the device can now be practised to which the following refers: "Your coachman, Pickard, lost thirty-seven minutes last night coming up, and by so doing he always hinders the Manchester coach; he leaving Leicester first keeps on before, and prevents the other coach from passing. This is the case every night that Pickard comes up."

But it is the instructions to the mail guards which bring home to us most vividly the ways of the road a hundred years ago. Thus, to the mail guards on the Exeter coach: "You are not to stop at any place whatever to leave any letters at, but to blow your horn to give the people notice that you have got letters for them; therefore, if they do not choose to come out to receive them, don't you get down from your dicky, but take them on to Exeter and bring them back with you on your next journey." And again to the mail guards on another coach: "If the coachman go into a public-house to drink, don't you go with him and make the stop longer, but hurry him out." This hurrying out had sometimes to be applied to passengers, and not always with success. "Sir," writes Hasker to a mail guard who had complained of the futility of his efforts in this direction, "stick to your bill, and never mind what passengers say respecting waiting overtime. Is it not the fault of the landlord to keep them so long? Some day when you have waited a considerable time (suppose five or eight minutes longer than is allowed by the bill), drive away and leave them behind. Only take care that you have witness that you called them out two or three times. Then let them get forward how they can. Let the innkeeper [of the house] where they dine know that you have received this letter."

While thus urged to correct others, the mail guards had sometimes to be corrected themselves. Fines ranging from 2s. 6d. to 5s. were imposed for omitting to date the timetable or for dating it wrongly; and on one occasion an unfortunate guard was fined as much as one guinea because some bags for which he should have called at the Stafford Post Office were left behind. Also to delegate one's duties was strictly prohibited. "It has been reported to Mr. Hasker," writes Hasker's lieutenant, "that you send your mail to the Post Office by the person called Boots, and do not go with it yourself. You have been wrote to two or three times before on this subject. Therefore, if the irregularity be repeated, you will certainly be discharged." Occasionally advantage would be taken of a complaint to read a lesson to the complainant. A mail guard had been reported for impertinence by certain contractors who were notorious for the indifferent lights with which they supplied their coach. After replying that he had been severely rebuked for his conduct, Hasker slily adds, "but perhaps something may be said for the feelings of a guard that hears the continual complaints of passengers against bad lights and the disagreeable smell of stinking oil, especially when through such things the passengers withhold the gratuity which the guards expect."

On the part of the mail guards, however, the commonest irregularity, and the irregularity most difficult to check, was the carrying of parcels and of passengers in excess of the prescribed number. "In consequence"--so runs a general order which was issued about this time--"of several of the mail guards having been detected in carrying meat and vegetables in their mail-box to the amount of 150 pounds weight at a time, the superintendents are desired to take opportunities to meet the coaches in their district at places where they are least expected, and to search the boxes to remedy this evil, which is carried to too great a length. The superintendents," the order proceeds, "will please to observe that Mr. Hasker does not wish to be too hard on the guards. Such a thing as a joint of meat or a couple of fowls or any other article for their own family in moderation he does not wish to debar them from the privilege of carrying." Truth compels us to add that at the time to which we refer it was not only meat and vegetables that the mail guards carried. They carried also game. In later years the country gentleman was probably the mail guards' best friend, but at the end of the last century he did not hesitate to charge them with being in league with poachers, and not infrequently threatened prosecution. The mail-box indeed was admirably adapted to purposes of secretion. Occupying a part of the space which even in these early days was known as the boot, it opened not, as the boot opened, from behind but from the top, immediately under the mail guard's feet; and no one but himself had access to it. Constant were the injunctions to the superintendents to meet the coaches at unexpected places for the purpose of search. "Search," writes Hasker, "as many mail-boxes as you can, and take away all game not directed and anything else beyond a joint for the guard's family, and send it to the chief magistrate to be disposed of for the benefit of the poor of the parish." The temptation to carry an extra passenger or two was even greater than to carry parcels. What degree of indulgence was shewn to this form of irregularity appears to have depended upon the part of the coach in which the extra seat was provided. To be detected in carrying a passenger on the mail-box was certain dismissal.

Although it is not our intention to treat of mail-coaches otherwise than as vehicles for the transmission of letters, it may perhaps be permitted to us to pause here a moment and inquire where, at the end of the last century, the passengers' luggage can have been stowed. Of the boot a part, as we have seen, was given up to the mail-box; and the roof, upon which, within our own recollection, the luggage would be piled to nearly half the height of the coach itself, was forbidden, or almost forbidden, ground. "To load the roof of the coach," writes Hasker, "with large heavy baskets would not only be setting a bad example to other coaches, but in a very short time no passenger would travel with it." "Such a thing," he adds, "as a turtle tied on the roof directed to any gentleman once or twice a year might pass unnoticed, but for a constancy cannot be suffered." This objection to a load on the roof appears to have been common to the Sovereign and the subject. In 1796 the Court proceeded to Weymouth; and, as usual, a royal mail was in attendance. The King, who took the liveliest interest in the performances of this coach, and examined the way-bill daily, discountenanced roof-loads. The royal injunctions on this head Hasker, who was a plain-spoken man and no courtier, conveyed to, his subordinates thus: "Take care not to load the royal mail too high, and when any of His Majesty's servants travel by it do not load the roof upward, as you know he ordered that no luggage should be put on the top when his servants rode, and, indeed, at all times. Now upwards [_i.e._ on return from Weymouth to Windsor] there can be no occasion, for there are waggons and other conveyances to bring the luggage up." The possible use of waggons and other conveyances notwithstanding, we cannot help thinking that the traveller by coach of a hundred years ago must have been content with a far smaller quantity of luggage than would satisfy the traveller of to-day.

That the roof of the coach, whether loaded or not, had its drawbacks for travellers is sufficiently evident from Hasker's correspondence. "The York coachman and guard," he writes after a spell of bad weather which had rotted the roads, "were both chucked from their seats going down to Huntingdon last journey, and coming up the guard is lost this morning, supposed from the same cause, as the passengers say he was blowing his horn just before they missed him."

The King's interest in his mail-coach was not confined to the inspection of the way-bill. It was usual, before the Court repaired to Weymouth, for the coach to make a certain number of trial trips, and the King would go to the castle gates to see it pass. "His Majesty," writes Hasker, under date the 12th of August 1794, "came down to the park gate to see the mail-coach the first and second day, and told me he was much pleased to see it so well done and regular, and that he was glad Mr. White did not work it." Mr. White had worked it on a previous occasion, and had not given satisfaction. At the end of each season the King gave still more practical proof of the interest he took in his coach by sending thirty guineas for distribution among the mail guards and coachmen.

But, gratified as Hasker must have been by these marks of royal condescension, there was one thing which, with his concurrence, even the King should not do, and that was, detain the mail. Owing to the letters from the Court being late, the coach, on several successive days, had not started from Weymouth until after the appointed hour. Chesterfield was the minister in attendance, and Hasker addressed to him a letter of respectful remonstrance. Of course he did not know, he said, whether the mail had been detained by His Majesty or by His Majesty's postmaster-general; but in either case he prayed it might be considered how bad an example it was, and what disorder was being introduced into the service. According to present arrangements, the coach should leave Weymouth at four in the afternoon. It might be appointed to leave at five or even six if desired, and yet reach London on the following day in time for the last delivery; but whatever hour might be fixed, he adjured his Lordship that it might be observed.

How completely the mail-coach had by this time extinguished the express may be judged from the following instruction to the packet agent at Yarmouth:[71] "You will observe the reason why you keep the mail to send by the mail-coach is that, tho' you detain it four or five hours, it arrives as soon at the General Post Office as if sent by express, for the coach travels in sixteen or seventeen hours, and the express in not less than twenty or twenty-one, sometimes more." Nor is it less interesting to note the change of sentiment which had recently taken place as to the importance of despatch. Only a few years before, as we have seen, the inhabitants of Shrewsbury had been informed that it could be of no consequence whether their letters arrived four or five hours sooner or later. Now, in order to accelerate the letters contained in a single bag, no expense is to be spared. "If," the same instruction continues, "any mail arrives within an hour after the mail-coach is gone, perhaps a post-chaise and four might catch it at Ipswich."

[71] The packet agency had been removed from Harwich to Yarmouth during
the war. Yarmouth, by road, is 124 miles from London.

But, to quit details, the broad results were these. Palmer, when introducing his plan, had promised security and despatch; but not economy. On the contrary, he had made no secret of his opinion that the use of mail-coaches would involve a considerable increase of expense. The result was a surprise even to himself. Before 1784 the annual allowance for carrying the mails ranged from L4 to L8 a mile, L8 being paid where the mails were heavy--as, for instance, on the Great North Road from London as far as Tuxford. In 1792 the terms on which the mails were carried were exemption from tolls and 1d. a mile each way, or an annual allowance of a little more than L3 a mile. Palmer had estimated the total cost of his plan at L30,000 a year. The actual cost only slightly exceeded L12,000.

Hardly less reason had he to congratulate himself on the score of security and despatch. Before 1784 scarcely a week passed without the mails on one road or another being robbed. So great had the scandal become that the Post Office built a model cart--a cart wholly constructed of iron and reputed to be robber-proof. This cart had not long begun to run before it was stopped by highwaymen and rifled of its contents. In 1792 eight years had passed since the introduction of Palmer's plan; and during this period not a single mail-coach had been either stopped or robbed. This immunity from robbery was in more ways than one equivalent to a further saving. Before 1784 heavy expenses were incurred annually for prosecutions. One trial alone, a trial which made no little noise at the time, namely that of the brothers Weston, cost no less than L4000. This source of expense had now, of course, disappeared. As regards despatch, before 1784 the post travelled between five and six miles an hour. In 1792 the mail-coaches were travelling about seven miles an hour. Telford had not yet levelled the hills nor Macadam paved the roads; and rollers were unknown. A speed of seven miles an hour at the end of the last century was probably far more trying to horses than a speed of ten miles an hour later on.

It would be beyond our province to inquire--interesting as the inquiry would be--to what extent the exchange of commodities between town and town dates from the introduction of mail-coaches; and whether it was not at this period that, with some noted exceptions, the local repute which certain towns enjoyed for the manufacture of particular articles began to spread. Ours is a humbler purpose; or we might be tempted even to contend that Palmer's plan, by the facilities it afforded for intercourse, exercised an influence--slow it may be, but none the less sure--upon the habits and condition of the people.

We will illustrate our meaning. Before the introduction of mail-coaches in 1784 the town of Penzance in Cornwall was not indeed without a post; but the post it possessed was hardly worthy of the name. In 1790 letters were conveyed there by cart from Falmouth regularly six days a week. Now, of the condition of Penzance not many years before the earlier of these two dates we are informed on unimpeachable authority. "I have heard my mother relate," writes Sir Humphry Davy's brother and biographer, "that when she was a girl[72] there was only one cart in the town of Penzance, and that if a carriage occasionally appeared in the streets it attracted universal attention. Pack-horses were then in general use for conveying merchandise, and the prevailing manner of travelling was on horseback. At that period the luxuries of furniture and living enjoyed by people of the middle class at the present time were confined almost entirely to the great and wealthy; in the same town, where the population was about 2000 persons, there was only one carpet, the floors of rooms were sprinkled with sea-sand, and there was not a single silver fork. The only newspaper which then circulated in the west of England was the _Sherborne Mercury_, and it was carried through the country not by the post but by a man on horseback specially employed in distributing it." Penzance can never be otherwise than a most interesting town; but one finds it difficult to believe that, after being brought into communication with the outside world on six days of the week, it can long have retained its pristine charm and simplicity.

[72] Mrs. Davy was born in 1760.

Let us now see what, at the time of Palmer's retirement, was the condition of the country Post Offices. Bristol, after long ranking next to London in wealth and population, had yielded place to other towns. Foremost among these stood Manchester. Manchester, following suit to the capital, had recently numbered its streets; it was publishing local directories; and it enjoyed the reputation of being, the capital itself not excepted, the dearest town in the kingdom. At the present time the Post Office at Manchester gives employment to about 1400 persons. In 1792, with the exception of a single letter-carrier, the whole of the Post Office business there was conducted by an aged widow assisted by her daughter. Dame Willatt had recently achieved some little local notoriety. She had, as an inducement to persons to post early, imposed a late-letter fee. For this proceeding, not at that time uncommon and not disapproved at headquarters, she had been summoned to the Court of the Lord of the Manor, and had been cast in damages.

Bath enjoyed a double distinction, a distinction due less probably to its population as compared with that of other towns than to the fact that, being Palmer's native place, it was constantly under his eye as it had been under the eye of Ralph Allen before. This highly-favoured town was, outside London, the only one in the kingdom which could boast of what, with any regard to the meaning of words, could be dignified by the name of a Post Office Establishment; and the postmaster's salary was in excess of that which any other postmaster received. This salary was L150 a year, and the establishment, over which Ralph Allen's successor presided, consisted of one clerk and three letter-carriers.

No other town had more than one letter-carrier; and many towns had not even this. Whether the accommodation was provided or not appears to have depended less upon the necessities of the place than upon the disposition of the inhabitants. Thus, the little towns of Sandwich in Kent and Hungerford in Berkshire, in recognition of the gallant conflict they had waged with the authorities, had each a letter-carrier of its own, while Norwich, York, Derby, Newcastle, and Plymouth had none. Besides Bath only four towns received an allowance for a clerk or assistant, namely Manchester, Norwich, York, and Leeds. Elsewhere the postmaster and a letter-carrier, if letter-carrier there was, were the sole Post Office representatives.

At Bristol the postmaster's salary was L140,--the next highest after that given at Bath. At Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and Chester the salary was L100; at Exeter, York, Newcastle, Leeds, and Plymouth L80; at Sheffield L60, to which amount it had been recently raised from L50; at Derby, Carlisle, and Gloucester L40; at Brighton and Nottingham L30; at Leicester L25; and at Southampton L20. At Tunbridge the postmaster, in addition to a salary of L20, received an allowance of equal amount for keeping an office at Tunbridge Wells. Ripon, despite the rebuke it had received in 1713 for its audacity in asking for a Post Office, had now been accommodated with one. At Chepstow pence were still being paid on the delivery of letters, not because the inhabitants had not discovered their rights but out of consideration to the aged postmistress, whose emoluments they were unwilling to diminish. Birkenhead, Torquay, and Bournemouth,[73] of course, did not exist. Eastbourne existed indeed, but not as we know it now. Hither the letters were carried three times a week from Lewes. At Ramsgate, then a village served from the neighbouring post-town of Sandwich, an office for the receipt of letters was kept at a cost of L6 a year. The whole of the Isle of Wight had but one postmaster and one letter-carrier. To the Channel Islands there was no post.

[73] As late as 1854 Bournemouth received its letters from Poole by
donkey and cart.

On Palmer's retirement the office of chief adviser to the postmasters-general devolved almost naturally upon Francis Freeling, the surveyor located at headquarters. Todd still held the appointment of secretary, but after a service of more than fifty years he was unequal to the exertion which the exigencies of the time required. Between Todd and Walsingham, moreover, there was little in common. Their relations, indeed, had always been most friendly; but the views they entertained on Post Office questions were more often than not at variance. "It is a matter of great entertainment to me," wrote Walsingham, as early as October 1788, "to see how totally we differ in all our official opinions." From this time Todd took less and less part in the duties of his office, and confined himself almost exclusively to its social amenities. This was a sphere in which he excelled. At his table in Lombard Street the postmasters-general themselves and such as they might choose to meet them were frequent guests, and "his old hock in his old parlour" passed into a by-word.

Freeling, on the contrary, possessed advantages which not only pointed him out as Todd's successor when Todd should be pleased to retire, but peculiarly fitted him to deal with the circumstances of the moment. In the prime of life, of good address and prepossessing appearance, and with a knowledge of every detail of Post Office organisation such as only constant visits to different parts of the kingdom could give, he soon contrived to make himself not only useful but indispensable; and before any long period had expired the postmasters-general appointed him joint secretary with Todd, an arrangement by virtue of which one was to be the acting and the other the sleeping partner; one was to do the work and the other to draw the pay. It was new to the postmasters-general to have about them some one who was not only able but willing and anxious to impart information on every official question as it arose, and they could ill conceal their glee at the altered state of affairs. "One of the complaints made by us of Mr. Palmer," they wrote about this time, "was that he did what he thought fit without making the least communication to the Board, or without there being a single record of anything which he did or objected to either before or after it was done"; ... but "Mr. Freeling reports distinctly to us upon every application that we refer to him, or that is made to the Board, amounting to above two hundred reports every quarter for the current business." Freeling was now exposed to a serious danger, a danger to which many a reputation has succumbed, namely, that of being transformed from a man of action into a mere scribe; but this was a temptation which he stoutly resisted. Without relaxing his efforts to maintain and improve upon Palmer's plan, he was careful not only to keep the postmasters-general informed of what he was doing, but to do nothing which had not first been duly authorised.

The period immediately following Palmer's retirement was one rather of honest endeavour than of solid achievement. The first and most pressing question to arise was that of insufficiency of accommodation at headquarters. The inland office, this being the office in which the mails were made up for despatch, was not only close and ill-ventilated, but altogether too small for its purpose. More post-towns were required in various parts of the kingdom; but it was impossible to add to the number of towns for which bags would have to be made up until more space should be provided. Some persons thought it would be best at once to take a step which in any case would probably have to be taken in the not remote future, and to build a new Post Office on other and more extensive premises. Such, however, was not the opinion of the postmasters-general. They were naturally unwilling to advocate the heavy expenditure which such a measure would involve except upon proof of its absolute necessity. Mainly on this ground, but also partly because premises in so central and convenient a position as those which the present Post Office occupied were not to be had, authority was sought and obtained for nothing more than the erection of a new inland office.

But, as the postmasters-general found to their cost, it is one thing to obtain an authority and another thing to carry it into effect. On part of the ground on which the office was to be erected stood two houses, the lease of which had not long to run; and the Drapers' Company, to whom the property belonged, declined to extend the term. This difficulty was at length overcome, and the houses were in course of demolition, when projecting into the very centre of the space designed for the new office was found the wall of an old house belonging to Sir Charles Watson, and this house he refused to let the Post Office have unless it would also take seven other houses which he possessed in the immediate neighbourhood. At the present time houses in and about Abchurch Lane would probably fetch twenty-five years' purchase. Fifteen years' purchase was the sum then demanded, and it was considered a hard bargain. Eventually Watson consented to grant a ninety-nine years' lease; but it was a lease not only of the single house that the Post Office wanted, but of all eight houses, seven of which it did not want. What they called their mortifications and disappointments at an end, the postmasters-general proceeded to build.

Still more unsatisfactory was the result of an attempt that was made or intended to be made about this time to improve the post with the Continent. Communication with France was only twice a week, and Walsingham desired to treble it. In France, as in England, the post went to the water's edge on six days of the week, and he could see no reason why, except on two days, it should stop there. He entertained a strong opinion that between the two countries communication should be daily.

There was also another matter to be settled with our neighbours. During a period of sixty-six years, namely, from 1713 to 1779, the postage on a single letter between London and Paris had been 10d.; and, to avoid the keeping of accounts, this sum had been collected and retained by the Post Office of the country in which the letter was delivered. In 1779, when owing to the war communication between Dover and Calais was stopped, letters from Paris reached England through Flanders, and on these letters when put into the post in Paris a charge of 4d. was made in addition to the 10d. to be paid on delivery in London. It had been thought that in 1783, on the termination of the war, this charge would be abandoned, and that the old postage of 10d. would be resumed. Such, however, was not the case. The Post Office authorities in France adhered to the 4d. charge and defended it. The old postage of 10d., they argued, was all very well when they had no packets of their own and England performed the sea service. But now France had her own packets, and the distance between Paris and Calais being far greater than between London and Dover, it could not in reason be expected that on a letter between the two capitals she would be content with no higher postage than that which England received. The charge of 4d. upon letters for London when put into the post in Paris must be maintained, even though they no longer went through Flanders. It was a matter of internal regulation with which England had no concern. Without contesting this view of the case, the home authorities regarded the 4d. charge as a most vexatious impost. Not only had it the effect of diminishing the correspondence, but many of the letters which still passed were carried by private hand from Paris to Dover and there posted, so that the British Post Office received upon them only 4d. apiece, this being the postage from Dover to London, instead of 10d., the postage from Paris. In 1787 Palmer had, by Pitt's direction, gone over to France in order to adjust the matter and to promote a six days' post between the two countries; but he returned without effecting either object.

Circumstances now appearing more favourable, Walsingham determined to make fresh overtures. An emissary had already been selected for the purpose, and was on the eve of departure when a new and unexpected difficulty arose; the merchants of London, to whom the intention to increase the frequency of communication with France had become known, met to protest against the project. A hundred years before they would have gone to the Post Office, talked the matter over with the postmasters-general, and, after an exchange of opinions, an agreement would have been come to as to what was best to be done. Now they assembled in their numbers at the London Tavern and resolved "that any addition to the present number of post days to France or to any other part of the Continent is unnecessary, and would be highly inconvenient and injurious to the merchants of London." The resolution was unanimous, and copies were sent to the postmasters-general and the minister. For the merchants of London Walsingham entertained a sincere respect; but in this particular matter, convinced that they did not know what was for their own good, he determined to proceed in their despite. Unhappily, however, at this conjuncture the resumption of hostilities with France extinguished for the time all hopes of improved communication with the Continent.

Another project, in which the Post Office and the merchants possessed a common interest and a common desire, was also doomed to failure. The practice of cutting bank notes into two parts and sending one part by one post and another by another had now become general. The expedient, though efficacious, was a costly one. A letter with an enclosure, however light, paid double postage; and double postage between two places no farther apart than London and Birmingham was 10d. To send two halves of a bank note each in a separate letter would, of course, cost twice that amount. This was a heavy insurance to pay. The Post Office, in its desire not to discourage a practice which diminished temptation to dishonesty, was hardly less anxious than the merchants themselves that the amount should be reduced. Accordingly Walsingham proposed that in all cases where a bank note was sent by two separate posts the second letter, that is to say, the letter containing the second half, should, on proof being given of its contents, be charged with only single postage. A notice to the public announcing the change had already been prepared when he learnt to his chagrin that the proposed regulation would be illegal. In the case of a letter with an enclosure the law prescribed double postage, and it was no more in the power of the Post Office to reduce the amount than to forego it altogether.

But these were failures which it is only interesting to record as evidence that at the Post Office, after Palmer had left it, there was no want of directing energy or of a desire to study the interests of the public. It is pleasant to turn to matters in respect to which good intentions were not unattended with results. But before leaving 1792, the year in which these disappointments occurred, we must not omit to notice that it was at the end of this year that the letter-carriers were for the first time put into uniform. Palmer, who was now playing the part of the outside critic, condemned the innovation as a piece of unnecessary extravagance. But Palmer did not know the reasons for it. The letter-carriers when in private clothes were exposed to temptation from which the wearing of uniform would protect them; and more than one recent case had brought the fact into painful prominence. Nor can it be denied that, so long as there was no distinctive dress, letter-carriers in want of a holiday were a little apt to take one without permission, supplying their place by persons of whose character they knew little or nothing. It was in order to check irregularity of this kind and as a means of protection to themselves and the public that uniform was now introduced. The uniform consisted of a scarlet cloth coat with blue lapels and blue linings of padua; a blue cloth waistcoat, and a hat with gold band.

It should also be noticed that about this time the Post Office servants in London were in some measure relieved from the pecuniary cares by which they had long been oppressed. The Commissioners of Inquiry in their Report of 1788 had recommended for the Post Office a new establishment; and now, after an interval of nearly five years, this establishment was approved by the King in Council. The new salaries were not high. At the present time they would be considered low; but such as they were, they were higher than the salaries they replaced. Jamineau's recent death, moreover, by relieving the clerks of the roads from payment of the commission[74] which this officer received on all newspapers with which they dealt, enabled them to reduce their price for franking, the result being an immediate extension of sale. On the whole, the Post Office servants in London were, at this time, in comparatively comfortable circumstances, or at all events above the reach of actual want. The starvation and bankruptcy with which they had at one time been threatened had been staved off by a grant, which Pitt renewed year after year while the Commissioners' Report was under consideration. This grant amounted to L3000, of which L2000 were for distribution in the sorting office, and L1000 in the other offices.

[74] This was a commission of three halfpence on every dozen newspapers,
besides one newspaper in every quire.

The year 1793 was signalised by a remarkable development of the penny post. This institution, which had as yet been established nowhere but in London and in Dublin, was now to be extended to Edinburgh, to Manchester, to Bristol, and to Birmingham. In Edinburgh the ground had been to some extent preoccupied. The keeper of a coffee-house in the hall of the Parliament House had sixteen years before set up an office from which letters were delivered throughout the city at 1d. apiece; and this office still remained open and prospered. To compare Williamson's undertaking with Dockwra's would be to compare a mouse with an elephant; and yet it may not be uninteresting to note the different treatment which the two men received. Dockwra was prosecuted, fined, and his undertaking confiscated. Williamson was granted a pension. "We have also," write the postmasters-general under date the 19th of July 1793, "to beg your Lordship's permission to authorise us to allow to Mr. Williamson of Edinburgh L25 per annum, he having long had the profits of 1d. a letter on certain letters forwarded through his receiving house at Edinburgh, which he will lose by our having established a penny post there. We have made it a rule," they add, "always to propose that those who suffer in their incomes from regulations which are certainly beneficial to the public should receive compensation for the loss they sustain."

At Manchester the establishment of the penny post followed upon other and important alterations. The inhabitants of that town had long complained of the inadequacy of their postal arrangements; and measures had recently been taken, the very extent of which serves to shew how serious must have been the defects which they were designed to supply. The aged postmistress was granted a pension of L120, with the reversion of one-third of that amount to her daughter; and in her room an active postmaster was appointed at a salary of L300. Four clerks were at the same time appointed, at salaries ranging from L50 to L100, and five additional letter-carriers, making six altogether, at wages of 12s. a week. Thus, Manchester suddenly found itself in possession of a Post Office establishment with which, outside London, that of no other town in the kingdom could compare. As a sequel to this important extension of force a penny post was opened in July 1793; and no sooner had the boon been conferred upon Manchester than it was extended to Bristol and to Birmingham.

It is interesting to note what at these three towns was the financial effect of giving postal facilities. During the year 1794-95 the penny post brought a clear gain to the revenue--in Manchester, of L586; in Bristol, of L469; and in Birmingham, of L240. It is a curious fact that, with this experience to guide them and with an anxious desire to extend the system, the Post Office authorities, after sparing no pains to inform themselves on the subject, came to the conclusion that neither at Liverpool nor at Leeds nor at any other town in England would a penny post defray its own expenses.

But it was in London that the penny post attained its highest development. This branch of Post Office business had long been shamefully neglected. Of the officers concerned in it those above the rank of sorter were only three in number--a comptroller, an accountant, and a collector. Of these the collector attended only occasionally, and the accountant and comptroller not at all. This neglect had its natural effect upon the receipts. During the last twenty years and more, notwithstanding the increase which had during this period taken place in the population and trade of the metropolis, the revenue of the penny post had remained almost stationary. Up to 1789 the highest sum it had ever produced in one year was L5157 net. This was in 1784, and for the five following years the receipts went on decreasing until, attention having been called to the decline, there was a sudden rebound. In 1792 the revenue was--gross L10,825, and net L5561.

Palmer, who was well aware of the discreditable condition into which the Penny Post Office had fallen, proposed to take it in farm, and offered as a consideration to forego his salary and percentage; but this was a proposal the acceptance of which was strongly deprecated by the Commissioners of Inquiry who sat in 1788 no less than by the postmasters-general. It was their unanimous opinion that the penny post should be retained in the hands of the State. Palmer, still clinging to the hope that other counsels might prevail, put off effecting improvements which would afford the strongest arguments against the adoption of his own proposal; and in 1793, in spite of the changes which had been going on all around, the Penny Post Office remained much as it had been during the last twenty years.

The man who now took the reform of the penny post in hand was Edward Johnson. Johnson was a letter-carrier. He had been appointed by Palmer or on Palmer's recommendation; and he soon gave proof of more than ordinary ability. Palmer not infrequently exposed him to a severe ordeal. When unable or unwilling to attend the postmasters-general himself, he would send Johnson in his stead, a substitution which they resented as unseemly; and thus some little prejudice had been excited against him. This prejudice, however, had disappeared with the cause of it, and Johnson now stood high, deservedly high, in the postmaster-generals' favour.

In 1793, in addition to the numerous receiving houses where letters for the penny post might be taken in, there were in London five principal offices--one known as the chief Penny Post Office, and situated in Throgmorton Street, opposite Bartholomew Lane; another called the Westminster Penny Post Office, and situated in Coventry Street, Haymarket; a third, the Hermitage Office in Queen Street, Little Tower Hill; a fourth, the Southwark Office in St. Saviour's Churchyard, Borough; and a fifth, the St. Clement's Office, in Blackmore Street. Between these five offices there was little or no connection; at no two of them were the number of collections or deliveries the same or the hours at which they were made; the letter-carriers were altogether too few for the ground which they had to cover, so that punctuality and despatch were impossible; and even those whose walks lay near the ten-mile limit, before proceeding to deliver their letters, had to come to London to fetch them.

Johnson proposed to change all this. He proposed to reduce the number of principal offices from five to two, retaining only the chief office and the office in Coventry Street; to increase the number of collections and deliveries; to give the same number to all parts served by the penny post, namely, six in the town and three in the suburbs, or, as the suburbs were then called, "the country," and everywhere, as far as possible, to observe the same hours; to post these hours up in every receiving house, so that the public might be made acquainted with them and act as a check upon their being observed; and, instead of requiring the letter-carriers in the remoter parts to come to London for their letters, to send their letters to them by mounted messengers.

Johnson's last proposal, though following almost naturally from what had gone before, well-nigh staggered the postmasters-general. It was that, in order to carry his plan into effect, the number of penny post letter-carriers should be more than doubled. The existing number was eighty-two, and the number which Johnson proposed was 181. This, even at the present time--large as are the numbers with which the Post Office has been accustomed to deal--would be considered a heavy, an exceptionally heavy, increase. In 1793 it was regarded as portentous, and the postmasters-general anxiously sought means to reduce it; but Johnson, besides being perfect master of his subject, possessed two faculties which by no means always go together. He possessed the faculty of devising a good scheme and the faculty of explaining it; and the lucid explanation he now gave convinced the postmasters-general that they could not do better than adopt his plan in its entirety. Contrasting the time which a letter took to pass between various parts of London with the time which it would take if his suggestions were adopted, Johnson had no difficulty in shewing that from his plan the public would derive facilities for intercourse to which they had hitherto been strangers.

There were, perhaps, no two places between which the course of post was more difficult to manage than Marylebone and Limehouse. Under the existing plan a letter from one of these two places, however early it might be posted, might not reach the other on the same day, and, even if it did so, an answer could not be received before the afternoon of the following day. Under Johnson's plan a letter might be received, an answer returned, and the answer answered, all on the same day. Places less inconveniently situated in relation to each other were to receive a still larger measure of benefit. Between persons residing in Lombard Street and the Haymarket, for instance, five letters might pass to and fro between the hours of eight in the morning and seven in the evening. This was within the town limits. Within the country limits the general effect of Johnson's plan may be stated thus: that to letters from London answers might be returned sooner by two posts if the letters were for places not more than five miles distant, and, if for places distant between five and ten miles, sooner by a period ranging from one to three days. The last-mentioned places, moreover, were to have three posts a day instead of one post.

Pitt was no less favourably impressed with Johnson's plan than the postmasters-general were; but before sanctioning it he resolved to await the passing of an Act for the redress of certain anomalies, or what were considered to be anomalies, in the practice of the penny post. This Act was passed in 1794; and immediate steps were taken for carrying the plan into effect. A proud day for Johnson must have been the 8th of September. On that day a public notice appeared announcing the changes that were about to take place; and this notice bore his signature. Only the other day he had been a letter-carrier, and now, by reason of a promotion which did hardly more honour to himself than to the postmasters-general who made it, he signed as deputy-comptroller of the Penny Post Office.

The financial results of Johnson's plan exceeded all expectation. For the last year of the old system the gross revenue of the penny post was L11,000. For the first year of the new system it was L28,560; and for the second year L29,623. Johnson had proceeded on the principle--a principle which from the first establishment of the Post Office has never yet been known to fail--increase facilities for correspondence and correspondence itself increases.