On the death of Allen, the cross-posts were brought under the control of the Postmaster-General. An officer, Mr. Ward, was appointed to take charge of the Bye-letter Office, as the branch was now called, at the salary of 300l. a-year. The success of the amalgamation scheme was so complete, that at the end of the first year, profits to the amount of 20,000l. were handed over to the Crown. Afterwards, the proceeds continued to increase even still more rapidly; so much so, that when, in 1799, the "Bye-letter Office" was abolished, and its management transferred to the General Office, they had reached the enormous yearly sum of 200,000l.!

At the revision of the Post-Office in 1710, the bounds of the penny post were extended, as we have seen, to a district within ten miles of the General Post-Office. This extension was granted on a memorial from several townships in the London district, who volunteered, if such extension were made, that they would pay an extra penny for every letter delivered beyond "the boundaries of the cities of London and Westminster, and the borough of Southwark." Numerous disputes having arisen owing to the wording of the Act, and many inhabitants claiming in consequence to have their letters delivered free within the ten-mile circuit, a supplementary Act was passed in 1727, "for the obviating and taking away such doubts," as to what was the proper charge, and directing that the "penny postmen" must not deliver any letters out of the original limits, but may detain or delay such letters or packets, unless an extra penny were paid for each on delivery.

The statute of Queen Anne provided that a weekly payment of 700l. should be made to the Exchequer from the Post-Office for a period of thirty-two years. This term having expired in 1743, an Act was passed in that year making the payment perpetual, and all clauses, powers, &c. in the Act of 1711 were also made perpetual. In order to keep up this source of revenue, which was too good to relinquish, the rates of postage, instead of being lowered again as stipulated, were kept up, and several times during subsequent years, as we shall see, fresh additions were made to the burdens of letter-writers. While on this subject, we may simply state the clause of Queen Anne's Act relating to the disposal of the surplus revenue. All pensions were to be paid out of it, and the remainder retained by the Queen "for the better support of Her Majesty's household, and for the honour and dignity of the Crown of Great Britain." On the accession of George I. a bill, granting the same rights and privileges during the King's lifetime, was passed in the first session of Parliament. In the first year of the reign of George II. and his grandson George III. the same rights and privileges were obtained under the self-same conditions. Though the conditions of the following Act were, in reality, carried out several years previously, when a salary of 700,000l. a-year was granted to the King for the support of his household, section 48 of 27 George III. enacts that, for the King's lifetime, "the entire net revenue of the Post-Office shall be carried to and made part of the fund, to be called 'the Consolidated Fund.'" It is scarcely needful to say that this arrangement has existed from 1787 to the present time.

From the date of Allen's improvement in 1720 to the year 1761, when the postage of letters was again disturbed and many other alterations made, little of special importance was done in the Post-Office, and we cannot do better than take advantage of this quiet time to give some account of the internal arrangements of the establishment, and to notice certain minutiæ, which, though trifling in themselves, will serve to give the reader an insight into the details, the way and means, of this early period.[40] In the time of George I. the officers of the Post-Office in London consisted of two Postmasters-General, with a secretary and a clerk. There were four chief officers in the Inland-office—viz. a controller, a receiver, an accountant, and a solicitor. The staff of clerks consisted of seven for the different roads—Chester, North West, Bristol, Yarmouth, Kent, and Kent night-road. Thirteen clerks were engaged in other duties, and three more clerks attended at the window to answer inquiries and deliver letters. The foreign office, which was a separate department, included a controller and an alphabet keeper, with eight assistant clerks. The whole London establishment, which at the present day numbers several thousand officers of different grades, was then, without counting letter-carriers, worked with a staff of thirty-two.

"To show the method, diligence, and exactness of our General Post-Office," says a writer of the period, "and the due despatch of the post at each stage, take this specimen." And for our purpose we cannot do better than take Stowe's advice, and insert here a copy of a Post-Office proclamation to postmasters and time-bill, given in his History of London:—

"Whereas the management of the postage of the letters of Great Britain and Ireland is committed to our care and conduct: these are therefore in His Majesty's name to require you in your respective stages to use all diligence and expedition in the safe and speedy conveyance of this mail and letters: that you ride five miles an hour according to your articles from London to East Grinstead, and from thence to return accordingly. And hereof you are not to fail, as you will answer the contrary at your perils.

Signed, Cornwallis.
James Craggs."[41]

To the several Postmasters betwixt London and East Grinstead.

Haste, Haste, Post Haste!

Miles.	From the Letter-Office at half an hour past two in the morning, July 17, 1719.
16	Received at Epsom half an hour past six, and sent away three-quarters past. Alexander Findlater.
8	Received at Dorking half an hour after eight, and sent away at nine. Chas. Castleman.
6	Received at Rygate half an hour past ten, and sent away again at eleven. John Bullock.
16	Received at East Grinstead at half an hour after three in the afternoon.

The speed at which the East Grinstead mail travelled was greater than usual: few post-boys, in the provinces at any rate, were required to go at a greater rate than three or four miles an hour. Not only this, but the boys as a rule were without discipline; difficult to control; sauntered on the road at pleasure, and were quite an easy prey to any robber or ill-disposed persons who might think it worth their while to interfere with them. About this time, we find the Post-Office surveyor complaining dolorously to headquarters, that the gentry "doe give much money to the riders, whereby they be very subject to get in liquor, which stopes the males." Expresses at that time travelled somewhat quicker, but still not quick enough for some persons. On one occasion, Mr. Harley (afterwards Lord Oxford) complained of delay in an express which had been sent to him; but the Postmasters-General thought there were no grounds for complaint, inasmuch "as it had travelled 136 miles in 36 hours, which," added they, "is the usual rate of expresses."

In the year 1696, the Treasury sanctioned an arrangement for conveying the mails between Bristol and Exeter, twice a week, under the stipulation that the distance of sixty-five miles should be performed in twenty-four hours!

In Scotland, about the same time, this work was done even slower, and with greater hardships. The post-boy walked all distances under twenty miles; longer distances required that the messenger should be mounted, though no relays of horses were allowed, however long and tedious the journey might be.[42]

At this time, it was only a secondary consideration, when or how letters should be delivered. For a number of years the authorities were simply bent on raising revenue out of the Post-Office. Thus, about the period of which we are speaking, a request was made to the authorities from certain inhabitants of Warwick, that the London letters for that place should be sent direct to Warwick and not through Coventry, by which latter route a great many hours were lost. A decided negative was returned to this very reasonable request, and for the following cogent official reason, which exhibits well the exacting tendencies of the Government. "From London to Warwick, through Coventry, is more than eighty miles," say the Postmasters-General; "so that we can charge 6d. per letter going that way, whereas we could only charge 3d. if they went direct." No doubt this reply is given to the Lords of the Treasury, through whom all such applications as the foregoing had then, and still have, to pass; for it cannot be imagined that they gave this reply to the people of Warwick themselves. "Perhaps, however," add the Post-Office officials, with some glimmering idea of the true business principle, "we might get more letters at the cheaper rate." Present profits, nevertheless, could not be sacrificed, even though there should be a prospect of increased future revenue. Another instance is on record, proving that in this respect the Post-Office authorities of the period were wiser than the executive that held them in check. The Postmasters-General apply (fruitlessly however) to the Treasury to lower the rates of postage in a particular district, and in urging their request, state that "we have, indeed, found by experience, that where we have made the correspondence more easie and cheape, the number of letters has been thereby much increased, and therefore we do believe such a settlement may be attended with a like effect in these parts."

The Treasury Lords are slow to sanction what appeared to them to be a sacrifice of revenue, and from the frequent applications which were made to them by deputy postmasters in the early part of last century to settle accounts of long standing, or remit the arrears owing to the Government, we may imagine that their hands were full and their temper soured. Many postmasters in the West of England now petitioned the Treasury to the effect that they had been nearly ruined in the times of His Majesty King William, "through much spoiling of their horses by officers riding-post in the late blessed Revolution." Others grumble at the lowness of their salaries. It was all very well, they argued, that the deputies, during the civil wars or at the Revolution, should be contented with low salaries, because they were exempted from having soldiers quartered upon them, but now that the time of peace had come, they submitted that their salaries should be raised.

The Act of Queen Anne provided for one Postmaster-General. How it came to be altered is not clear; but it is nevertheless certain that, for the greater part of the eighteenth century, the office was jointly held by two chiefs. All letters and mandates bore the signature of both of them; though it seems probable that the work of the office was equitably divided between the two gentlemen, the one taking charge principally of the inland business, while the other managed the packets. The duties of the latter department were much more onerous than might be supposed, when viewed in the light of the history of that period. As we have not yet directed attention to this department of the Post-Office, we may here state that some curious accounts survive of the infancy of the postal sea-service, during the former part of last century, when Sir Robert Cotton and Sir Thomas Frankland shared its management. In those sad times when war was raging, and French privateers covered every sea, our Postmasters-General were anxious, though shrewd and active men. The general orders to the captains of the vessels under their control were such as, under the circumstances, they ought to be: "You must run while you can, fight when you can no longer run, and throw the mails overboard when fighting will no longer avail." Notwithstanding such an order, and on account of so many mails travelling short of their destination, the Postmasters-General resolve to build swift packet-boats that shall escape the enemy; but in their inexperience, they get them built so low in the water, that shortly afterwards, "we doe find that in blowing weather they take in soe much water that the men are constantly wet through, and can noe ways goe below, being obliged to keep the hatches shut to save the vessel from sinking." It is clear that better and stronger boats must be built, and stronger boats are built accordingly. To make up for the expense, they order that the freight of passengers shall be raised, though "recruits and indigent persons shall still have their passage free." It is noteworthy here, that about this time no political refugee seeking an asylum in England is ever hard pressed for a fare on the continental packet-boats, but an entry is made in the agent's letter-book that so and so "have not wherewithal to pay their charges," and are sent on their path to liberty without further question.

Every provision is supplied by the authorities in London, and salaries and pensions of all kinds are granted. Thus, in one place, a chaplain is appointed for the crew of one of the packets, with a small stipend, "for doing their offices of births, marriage, and burial." Pensions for wounds received in the service are granted with nice discrimination of the relative parts of the body. In a letter to their agent at Falmouth, the Postmasters-General send a scale of pensions to be granted according to the kind of wound—thus: "For every arm or leg amputated above the elbow or knee, L.8 per annum; below the arm or knee, twenty nobles. Loss of the sight of one eye must be L.4; of the pupil of the eye, L.5; of the sight of both eyes, L.12; of the pupils of both eyes, L.14; and according to these rules, we consider also how much also the hurts affect the body, and make the allowances accordingly." The duties devolving upon the chief Post-Office officials seem not only to have been onerous and heavy—some of their instructions to their agents bearing dates from the middle of the night and other extraordinary hours—but curiously varied. Many of their letters are preserved among the old records in the vaults under the General Post-Office, and some of them are quite sad and plaintive in their tone. "We are concerned," they say to one agent, "to find the letters brought by your boat [one from the West Indies] to be so consumed by the ratts, that we cannot find out to whom they belong." Another letter to their agent at Harwich is evidently disciplinary, and runs as follows:—

"Mr. Edisbury—The woman whose complaint we herewith send you, having given us much trouble upon the same, we desire you will inquire into the same, and see justice done her, believing she may have had her brandy stole from her by the sailors.—We are your affectionate friends[!],

R. C., T. F."

It would be difficult to fancy such a letter as the above proceeding from officialdom in the year of grace eighteen hundred and sixty-four. In another letter we find the authorities affectionately scolding an agent because "he had not provided a sufficiency of pork and beef for the prince" (who this pork-loving prince was does not appear); in another, because "he had bought powder at Falmouth that would have been so much cheaper in London." In other cases they act as public guardians of morality and loyalty, suspending one because "he had stirred up a mutiny between a captain and his men, which was unhandsome conduct in him;" bringing one Captain Clies to trial, inasmuch as "he had spoken words reflecting on the royal family, which the Postmasters-General took particular unkind of him," and can by no means allow; and reprimanding another captain for "breaking open the portmanteau of a gentleman-passenger, and spoiling him of a parcel of snuff." What with all these cares and duties, the Postmasters-General of those days could scarcely have had an easy time of it.

This sole control over the resources of the packet-service explains much in the history of the franking system, which would be quite unintelligible without the information just given. The Treasury warrants of that day franked the strangest commodities—articles which certainly would not be dropped into any letter-box, and which would neither be stamped nor sorted in the orthodox way. The following list of a few franked commodities is culled from a still larger number of such in the packet "agent's book," found amongst the old records to which reference has already been made:—

• "Imprimis. Fifteen couple of hounds, going to the King of the Romans with a free pass.
• "Item. Two maid servants, going as laundresses to my Lord Ambassador Methuen.
• "Item. Doctor Crichton, carrying with him a cow and divers necessaries.
• "Item. Two bales of stockings, for the use of the Ambassador to the Crown of Portugal.[43]
• "Item. A deal case, with ffour flitches of bacon, for Mr. Pennington of Rotterdam."

Whilst referring to the subject of letter-franking, we may as well notice here, that before the control of the packet-service passed out of the hands of the Post-Office authorities, and when the right of franking letters became the subject of legislative enactments, we hear no more of these curious consignments of goods. The franking system was henceforth confined to passing free through the post any letter which should be indorsed on the cover with the signature of a member of either House of Parliament. As it was not then made a rule absolute that Parliament should be in session, or that the correspondence should necessarily be on the affairs of the nation in order to insure immunity from postage, this arrangement led to various forms of abuse. Members signed huge packets of covers at once, and supplied them to friends and adherents in large quantities. Sometimes they were sold. They have been known to have been given to servants in lieu of wages, the servants selling them again in the ordinary way of business. Nor was this all. So little precaution seems to have been used, that thousands of letters passed through the Post-Office with forged signatures of members.[44] To such an extent did this and kindred abuses accumulate, that, in 1763, the worth of franked correspondence passing through the post was estimated at 170,000l. During the next year—viz. in 1764—Parliament enacted that no letter should pass free through the Post-Office unless the whole address was in the member's own handwriting and his signature attached likewise. Even these precautions, though lessening the frauds, were not sufficient to meet the evil, for fresh regulations were thought necessary in 1784. This time it was ordered that all franks should be dated, the month to be given in full; and further, that all such letters should be put into the post on the day they were dated. From 1784 to the date of penny postage no further regulations were made concerning the franked correspondence, the estimated value of which during these years was 80,000l. annually.

The rates of postage ordered by the Government of Queen Anne continued in force for eighteen years after it was designed by the Act that they should cease, and it was only in 1761, at the commencement of the reign of George III., that any alteration was made. Even then the rates were increased instead of diminished. 1 Geo. III. c. 25 provides, that the improvement of correspondence is a matter of such great concernment and so highly necessary for the extension of trade and commerce, that the statutes of Queen Anne need repealing to some extent, and especially as, through vast accessions of territory, no posts and post-rates are arranged to all his Majesty's dominions. The improvements and alterations made at this time may thus be summed up, viz.:—

1. Additions are made to the vessels on the American station. Other and cheaper rates of postage are established between London and North America and all his Majesty's territories in America.
2. Concerning letters brought by private ships from any foreign part, no ship or vessel shall be permitted to make entry in any port of Great Britain, or to unload any of its cargo, until all letters and packets brought by such ship, or any passenger on board such ship, are delivered into the hands of the deputy-postmaster of the port, and until the captain shall receive the deputy's receipt for the same. In cases where the vessel "is liable to the performance of quarantine," the first step must be to deliver the letters into the hands of the superintendent of the quarantine, to be by him despatched to the Post-Office. A penalty of 20l. with full costs to be inflicted on any master not delivering a letter or packet of letters according to this Act, one moiety to go to the King and the other to the person informing.
3. The roads are to be re-surveyed, under the arrangements laid down in Queen Anne's Act, for the purpose of settling the rates of postage afresh.
4. Letters to be charged according to the post-stages travelled, or shorter distances to be paid for; thus:—

   	s. d.
   For the conveyance of every single letter not exceeding 15 miles	0  1
   ""double letter	0  2
   ""ounce	0  4
   ""single letter, 30 miles and under 40 miles	0  2
   ""double letter	0  4
   ""ounce	0  8
   ""single letter, 40 miles and under 80 miles	0  3
   ""double letter	0  6
   ""ounce	1  0

   And so on.

   These rates were again altered in the twenty-fourth year of the reign of George III. for the raising of revenue to defray his Majesty's expenses, the alteration, which took effect on the introduction of mail-coaches, consisting of the addition of one penny to every existing charge.[45]

5. Permission is given to settle penny post-offices in other towns in England, on the same basis as the London penny-post establishment. The permission thus granted was soon applied, and long before the establishment of uniform penny-postage, there were at least a thousand penny-posts in existence in different towns. The principle which guided the Department in establishing penny-posts was to select small towns and populous neighbourhoods not situated in the direct line of general post conveyances, which were desirous of obtaining extra facilities, and granting such posts provided that they did not afford the means for evading the general post. The only requisite was, that the authorities should have a reasonable hope that the proposed post would yield sufficient to pay for its maintenance—a thing considered settled if the receipts on its first establishment would pay two-thirds of the entire charges.
6. The weight of any packet or letter to be sent by the London penny-post, or any of the new penny-posts to be established under this improved Act, must not now exceed four ounces.

In 1749, the Act restraining any other but officers of the Post-Office from letting out horses to hire for the purpose of riding post, is stated not to refer to cases where chaises, "calashes," or any other vehicles, are furnished. Vehicles to drive may be provided on either post-roads or elsewhere by any person choosing to engage in the trade. In 1779, all Acts giving exclusive privileges to the Postmaster-General and his deputies as to the letting of post-horses for hire are henceforth repealed.

In the year 1766 the first penny-post was established in Edinburgh by one Peter Williamson, a native of Aberdeen. He kept a coffee-shop in the hall of the Parliament House, and as he was frequently employed by gentlemen attending the courts in sending letters to different parts of the city, and as he had doubtless heard something of the English penny-posts, he began a regular post with hourly deliveries, and established agents at different parts of the city to collect letters. He employed four carriers, who appeared in uniform, to take the letters from the different agents, and then to deliver them as addressed. For both these purposes they were accustomed to ring a bell as they proceeded, in order to give due notice of their approach. The undertaking was so successful, that other speculators were induced to set up rival establishments, which, of course, led to great confusion. The authorities saw the success of the undertaking, and, aware of its importance, they succeeded in inducing Williamson to take a pension for the good-will of his concern, and then merged it in the general establishment.

We cannot attempt more than a short résumé of the incidents in the previous history of the Scotch Post-Office, although the annals of the seventeenth century contain little of interest, and might, therefore, soon be presented to the reader. The first regular letter-post was established in the reign of James I. (of England). In 1642, owing to the sending of forces from Scotland to put down the Irish Rebellion, it was found that the post arrangements in the south-west of Scotland were defective in the extreme. The Scotch Council proposed to establish a line of posts between Edinburgh and Portpatrick, and Portpatrick and Carlisle, and the English, being more immediately concerned in the Rebellion, agreed to bear the whole expense.[46] In the Privy Council records of the period, we find a list of persons recommended by the Commissioners for appointment on the two lines of road as postmasters, "such persons being the only ones fit for that employment, as being innkeepers and of approved honesty." Seven years afterwards we find the Post-Office at Edinburgh was under the care of John Mean, husband of the woman who discharged her stool at the bishop's head when the service-book was introduced into St. Giles's in 1637. He seems to have himself borne the charges of attending to the office "without any reasonable allowance therefor;" and petitioning the Committee of Estates to that effect, they allowed him to retain the "eighth penny on all letters sent from Edinburgh to London (no great number), and the fourth penny upon all those coming from London to Edinburgh." At the Restoration the office was bestowed on Robert Main, and considerable improvements were made under his management, although only with existing posts. Little was done for other parts of Scotland. A traveller in Scotland so late as 1688, commenting on the absence of stage or other coaches on most Scotch roads, says,[47] that "this carriage of persons from place to place might be better spared, were there opportunities and means for the speedier conveyance of business by letters. They have no horse-posts besides those which ply between Berwick and Edinburgh, and Edinburgh and Portpatrick for the Irish packets.... From Edinburgh to Perth, and so on to other places, they use foot-posts and carriers, which, though a slow way of communicating our concerns to one another, yet is such as they acquiesce in till they have a better." Our traveller is somewhat wrong in his date, for in 1667 a horse-post to Aberdeen from Edinburgh, twice a week, was started, with the consent of Patrick Graham, of Inchbrakie, his Majesty's Postmaster-General, "for the timous delivery of letters and receiving returns of the samen." Two years afterwards Inverness got dissatisfied with the want of postal communication, when Robert Main, the Edinburgh postmaster, was commissioned to establish a constant foot-post between Edinburgh and Inverness, going once a week, "wind and weather serving."[48] "Wind and weather serving" is an amusing qualification, as pointed out by Mr. Chambers, considering that there was only one ferry of six or seven miles, and another of two miles, to cross. In 1661, we find the Edinburgh postmaster useful in another capacity, for in that year the Privy Council grant a warrant to him "to put to print and publish ane diurnal weekly, for preventing false news which may be invented by evil and disaffected persons."

We must now pass over many years, as not offering any incidents of any moment. In the year 1730 we find that the Scotch establishment yielded the sum of 1,194l. as the whole gross revenue. From about the year 1750, the mails began to be carried from stage to stage, as in England, by relays of fresh horses and different post-boys, though not entirely to the exclusion of the post-runners, of whom we have previously spoken.

In 1723, the Edinburgh Post-Office occupied the first-floor of a house near the cross, above an alley which still bears the name of the Post-Office Close. It was afterwards removed to a floor on the south side of the Parliament Square, which was fitted up shop-fashion, and where the letters were given out from behind an ordinary shop counter, one letter-carrier doing all the out-door work. The Post-Office was removed to its present situation in 1821. Towards the close of 1865, it is expected, the handsome building now rising up near the old office will be finished and opened for postal purposes.[49]

Even less interest attaches to the early annals of the Irish Post-Office. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was certainly more remunerative than the Scotch, though much less remunerative than the English departments. Previous to the introduction of mail-coaches, all mails were conveyed, or supposed to be conveyed, by the postmasters, to whom certain special allowances were made for each particular service. "There were no contracts, and no fixed rules as to time. Three miles and a half (per hour) seems to have been the pace acknowledged to have been sufficient. The bags were usually conveyed by boys. In the immediate neighbourhood of the metropolis, some sort of cart was used, but with this exception the bags were carried either on ponies or mules, or on foot."[50] The same authority tells us further that, "at this time, the bags were carried to Cork, Belfast, Limerick, and Waterford, six days a week; and three days a week to Galway, Wexford, and Enniskillen. There were three posts to Killarney; but for this the Government refused to pay anything. The postmaster had a salary of 3l. a-year, but the mail was carried by foot-messengers, who were maintained at the cost of the inhabitants and of the news-printers in Cork. Carrick-on-Shannon was the only town in county Leitrim receiving a mail, and this it did twice a week. Now it has two every day. Except at the county-town, there was no post-office in the whole county of Sligo; and there were but sixteen in the province of Connaught, where there are now one hundred and seventy-one."

CHAPTER V.
PALMER AND THE MAIL-COACH ERA.

We have now arrived at a most important epoch in the history of the English Post-Office. Fifteen years after the death of Mr. Allen, John Palmer, one of the greatest of the early post-reformers rose into notice. To give anything approaching to a proper account of the eminent services that Palmer rendered towards the development of the resources of the Post-Office, it is requisite that we notice the improvements which had been made up to his time in the internal communications of the country. Trade and commerce, more than ever active, were the means of opening out the country in all directions. Civil engineering had now acquired the importance and dignity of a profession. This was the age of Brindley and Smeaton, Rennie and Telford, Watt and Boulton. Roads were being made in even the comparatively remote districts of England; bridges were built in all parts of the country; the Bridgewater and other canals were opened for traffic, whilst many more were laid out. And what is perhaps more germane to our special subject, many improvements were apparent in the means of conveyance during the same period.[51] While, on the one hand, the ordinary stage-coach had found its way on to every considerable road, and was still equal to the usual requirements, the speed at which it travelled did not at all satisfy the enterprising merchants of Lancashire and Yorkshire. So early as 1754, a company of merchants in Manchester started a new vehicle, called the "Flying Coach," which seems to have owed its designation to the fact that the proprietors contemplated an acceleration in the speed of the new conveyance to four or five miles an hour. It started with the following remarkable prospectus:—"However incredible it may appear, this coach will actually (barring accidents) arrive in London in four days and a half after leaving Manchester." In the same year a new coach was brought out in Edinburgh, but the speed at which it travelled was no improvement on the old rate. It was of better appearance, however; and the announcement heralding its introduction to the Edinburgh public sought for it general support on the ground of the extra comfort it would offer to travellers. "The Edinburgh stage-coach," says the prospectus, "for the better accommodation of passengers, will be altered to a new genteel two-end glass machine, hung on steel springs, exceedingly light and easy, to go (to London) in ten days in summer and twelve in winter."[52] Three years afterwards, the Liverpool merchants established another "flying machine on steel springs," which was designed to, and which really did, eclipse the Manchester one in the matter of speed.[53] Three days only were allowed for the journey between Liverpool and London. Sheffield and Leeds followed with their respective "fly-coaches," and by the year 1784 they had not only become quite common, but most of them had acquired the respectable velocity of eight miles an hour.

The post-boy on horseback travelling at the rate of three or four miles an hour, had been an institution since the days of Charles II., and now, towards the close of the eighteenth century, the Post-Office was still clinging to the old system. It was destined, however, that Mr. Palmer should bring about a grand change. Originally a brewer, Mr. Palmer was, in 1784, the manager of the Bath and Bristol theatres. He seems to have known Mr. Allen, and to have been fully acquainted with his fortunate Post-Office speculations. In this way, to some extent, but much more, doubtless, through his public capacity as manager of two large theatres, he became acquainted with the crude postal arrangements of the period. Having frequently to correspond with the theatrical stars of the metropolis, and also to journey between London and the then centres of trade and fashion, he noticed how superior the arrangements were for travelling to those under which the Post-Office work was done, and he conceived the idea of improvements.

Palmer found that letters, for instance, which left Bath on Monday night were not delivered in London until Wednesday afternoon or night; but the stage-coach which left through the day on Monday, arrived in London on the following morning.[54] Not only did the existing system of mail conveyance strike him as being exceedingly slow, but insecure and otherwise defective. As he afterwards pointed out, he noticed that when tradesmen were particularly anxious to have a valuable letter conveyed with speed and safety, they never thought of giving it into the safe keeping of the Post-Office, but were in the habit of enclosing it in a brown paper parcel and sending it by the coach: nor were they deterred from this practice by having to pay a rate of carriage for it far higher than that charged for a post-letter. Robberies of the mails were so frequent, that even to adopt the precaution recommended by the Post-Office authorities, and send valuable remittances such as a bank note, bills of exchange, &c. at twice, was a source of endless trouble and annoyance, if it did not prove entirely ineffective. Who can wonder at the Post-Office robberies when the carelessness and incompetency of the servants of the Post-Office were taken into account? A curious robbery of the Portsmouth mail in 1757 illustrates the careless manner in which the duty was done. The boy who carried the mail had dismounted at Hammersmith, about three miles from Hyde Park Corner, and called for beer, when some thieves took the opportunity to cut the mail-bags from off the horse's crupper, and got away undiscovered. The French mail on its outward-bound passage viâ Dover was more than once stopped and rifled before it had got clear of London. A string stretched across a street in the borough through which the mail would pass has been known to throw the post-boy from his horse, who, without more ado, would coolly retrace his steps, empty-handed, to the chief office, and report the loss of his bags. What could be expected, however, in the case of raw, unarmed post-boys, when carriages were stopped in broad daylight in Hyde Park, and even in Piccadilly itself, and pistols pointed at the breasts of the nobility and gentry living close at hand? Horace Walpole relates that he himself was robbed in Hyde Park in broad daylight, in a carriage with Lord Eglinton and Lady Albemarle.

Mr. Palmer, however, was ready with a remedy for robbery, as well as for the other countless defects in the existing postal arrangements. He began his work of reform in 1783, by submitting a full scheme in a lengthy report to Mr. Pitt, who was at that time Prime Minister. He commenced by describing the then existing system of mail transmission. "The post," he says, "at present, instead of being the quickest, is almost the slowest conveyance in the country; and although, from the great improvements in our roads, other carriers have proportionately mended their speed, the post is as slow as ever." The system is also unsafe; robberies are frequent, and he saw not how it could be otherwise if there were no changes. "The mails," continued Palmer, "are generally intrusted to some idle boy without character, mounted on a worn-out hack, and who, so far from being able to defend himself, or escape from a robber, is more likely to be in league with him." If robberies were not so frequent as the circumstances might lead people to suppose, it was simply because thieves had found, by long practice, that the mails were scarcely worth robbing—the booty to be obtained being comparatively worthless, inasmuch as the public found other means of sending letters of value. Mr. Palmer, as we have before stated, knew of tradesmen who sent letters by stage-coach. Why, therefore, "should not the stage-coach, well protected by armed guards, under certain conditions to be specified, carry the mail-bags?" Though by no means the only recommendation which Mr. Palmer made to the Prime Minister, this substitution of a string of mail-coaches for the "worn-out hacks" was the leading feature of his plans. Evincing a thorough knowledge of his subject (however he may have attained that knowledge), and devised with great skill, the measures he proposed promised to advance the postal communication to as high a pitch of excellence as was possible. To lend to the scheme the prospect of financial success, he laboured to show that his proposals, if adopted, would secure a larger revenue to the Post-Office than it had ever yet yielded; whilst, as far as the public were concerned, it was evident that they would gladly pay higher for a service which was performed so much more efficiently. Mr. Pitt, who always lent a ready ear to proposals which would have the effect of increasing the revenue, saw and acknowledged the merits of the scheme very early. But, first of all, the Post-Office officials must be consulted; and from accounts[55] which survive, we learn how bitterly they resented proposals not coming from themselves. They made many and vehement objections to the sweeping changes which Palmer's plans would necessitate. "The oldest and ablest officers in the service" represented them "not only to be impracticable, but dangerous to commerce and the revenue."[56] The accounts of the way in which they met some of his proposals is most amusing and instructive. Thus, Palmer recommended Mr. Pitt to take some commercial men into his councils, and they would not fail to convince him of the great need there was for change. He also submitted that the suggestions of commercial men should be listened to more frequently, when postal arrangements for their respective districts should be made. Mr. Hodgson, one of the prominent officers of the Post-Office, indignantly answered that "it was not possible that any set of gentlemen, merchants, or outriders (commercial travellers, we suppose), could instruct officers brought up in the business of the Post-Office. And it is particularly to be hoped," said this gentlemen, with a spice of malice, "if not presumed, that the surveyors need no such information." He "ventured to say, that the post as then managed was admirably connected in all its parts, well-regulated, carefully attended to, and not to be improved by any person unacquainted with the whole. It is a pity," he sarcastically added, "that Mr. Palmer should not first have been informed of the nature of the business in question, to make him understand how very differently the post and post-offices are conducted to what he apprehends."

Mr. Palmer might not be, and really was not, acquainted with all the working arrangements of the office he was seeking to improve: yet it was quite patent to all outside the Post-Office that the entire establishment needed remodelling. Mr. Hodgson, however, and his confrères "were amazed," they said, "that any dissatisfaction, any desire for change, should exist." The Post-Office was already perfect in their eyes. It was, at least, "almost as perfect as it can be, without exhausting the revenue arising therefrom." They could not help, therefore, making a united stand against any such new-fangled scheme, which they predict "will fling the commercial correspondence of the country into the utmost confusion, and which will justly raise such a clamour as the Postmaster-General will not be able to appease." Another of the principal officers, a Mr. Allen, who seems to have been more temperate in his abuse of the new proposals, gave it as his opinion, "that the more Mr. Palmer's plan was considered, the greater number of difficulties and objections started to its ever being carried completely into execution."

From arguing on the general principles involved, they then descend to combat the working arrangements of the theatre-manager with even less success. Mr. Palmer complains that the post is slow, and states that it ought to outstrip all other conveyances. Mr. Hodgson "could not see why the post should be the swiftest conveyance in England. Personal conveyances, I apprehend, should be much more, and particularly with people travelling on business." Then followed Mr. Draper, another official, who objected to the coaches as travelling too fast. "The post," he said, "cannot travel with the expedition of stage-coaches, on account of the business necessary to be done in each town through which it passes, and without which correspondence would be thrown into the utmost confusion." Mr. Palmer had proposed that the coaches should remain fifteen minutes in each town through which they passed, to give time to transact the necessary business of sorting the letters. Mr. Draper said that half an hour was not enough, as was well enough known to persons at all conversant with Post-Office business. Living in this age of railways and steam, we have just reason to smile at such objections. Then, as to the appointment of mail-guards, Mr. Palmer might, but Mr. Hodgson could, see no security, though he could see endless trouble, expense, and annoyance in such a provision. "The man would doubtless have to be waited for at every alehouse the coach passed." He might have added that such had been the experience with the post-boys under the régime which he was endeavouring to perpetuate. Mr. Palmer stipulated, that the mail-guards should in all cases be well armed and accoutred, and such officers "as could be depended upon as trustworthy." But the Post-Office gentlemen objected even to this arrangement. "There were no means of preventing robbery with effect,[57] as the strongest cart or coach that could be made, lined and bound with iron, might easily be broken into by determined robbers," and the employment of armed mail-guards would only make matters worse. Instead of affording protection to the mails, the following precious doctrine was inculcated, that the crime of murder would be added to that of robbery; "for," said the wonderful Mr. Hodgson, "when once desperate fellows had determined upon robbery, resistance would lead to murder"! These were peace and non-resistance principles with a vengeance, but principles which in England, during the later years of Pitt's administration, would seldom be heard, except in furtherance of some such selfish views as those which the Post-Office authorities held in opposition to Mr. Palmer's so-called innovations.

Mr. Palmer's propositions also included the timing of the mails at each successive stage, and their departure from the country properly regulated; they would thus be enabled to arrive in London at regular specified times, and not at any hour of the day or night, and might, to some extent, be delivered simultaneously. Again: instead of leaving London at all hours of the night, he suggested that all the coaches for the different roads should leave the General Post-Office at the same time; and thus it was that Palmer established what was, to the stranger in London for many years, one of the first of City sights. Finally, Mr. Palmer's plans were pronounced impossible. "It was an impossibility," his opponents declared, "that the Bath mail could be brought to London in sixteen or eighteen hours."

Mr. Pitt was less conservative than the Post-Office authorities. He clearly inherited, as an eloquent writer[58] has pointed out, his father's contempt for impossibilities. He saw, with the clear vision for which he was so remarkable, that Mr. Palmer's scheme would be as profitable as it was practicable, and he resolved, in spite of the short-sighted opposition of the authorities, that it should be adopted. The Lords of the Treasury lost no more time in decreeing that the plan should be tried, and a trial and complete success was the result. On the 24th of July, 1784, the Post-Office Secretary (Mr. Anthony Todd) issued the following order:—"His Majesty's Postmasters-General, being inclined to make an experiment for the more expeditious conveyance of mails of letters by stage-coaches, machines, &c., have been pleased to order that a trial shall be made upon the road between London and Bristol, to commence at each place on Monday, the 2d of August next." Then follows a list of places, letters for which can be sent by these mail-coaches, and thus concludes: "All persons are therefore to take notice, that the letters put into any receiving-house before six of the evening, or seven at this chief office, will be forwarded by these new conveyances; all others for the said post-towns and their districts put in afterwards, or given to the bellmen, must remain until the following post at the same hour of seven."

The mail-coaches commenced running according to the above advertisement, not, however, on the 2d, but on the 8th of August. One coach left London at eight in the morning, reaching Bristol about eleven the same night. The distance between London and Bath was accomplished in fourteen hours. The other coach was started from Bristol at four in the afternoon on the same day, reaching London in sixteen hours.

Mr. Palmer was installed at the Post-Office on the day of the change, under the title of Controller-General. It was arranged that his salary should be 1,500l. a-year, together with a commission of two and a half per cent. upon any excess of net revenue over 240,000l.—the sum at which the annual proceeds of the Post-Office stood at the date of his appointment.

The rates of postage, as we have before incidentally pointed out, were slightly raised—an addition of a penny to each charge; but, notwithstanding this, the number of letters began at once, and most perceptibly, to increase. So great was the improvement in security and speed, that, for once, the additions to the charges were borne ungrudgingly. Coaches were applied for without loss of time by the municipalities of many of our largest towns,[59] and when they were granted—as they appear to have been in most of the instances—they were started at the rate of six miles an hour. This official rate of speed was subsequently increased to eight, then to nine, and at length to ten miles an hour.[60]

The opposition to Mr. Palmer's scheme, manifested by the Post-Office officials before it was adopted, does not seem to have given way before the manifest success attending its introduction. Perhaps Mr. Palmer's presence at the Council Board did not conduce to the desirable unanimity of feeling. However it was, he appears for some time to have contended single-handed with officials determinately opposed to him. When goaded and tormented by them, he fell into their snares, and attempted to carry his measures by indirect means. In 1792, when his plans had been in operation about eight years, and were beginning to show every element of success, it was deemed desirable that he should surrender his appointment. A pension of 3,000l. was granted to him in consideration of his valuable services. Subsequently he memorialized the Government, setting forth that his pension fell far short of the emoluments which had been promised to him, but he did not meet with success. Mr. Palmer never ceased to protest against this treatment; and his son, Major-General Palmer, frequently urged his claims before Parliament, until, in 1813, after a struggle of twenty years, the House of Commons voted him a grant of 50,000l. Mr. Palmer died in 1818.

Now that Mr. Palmer was gone from the Post-Office, his scheme was left to incompetent and unwilling hands. All the smothered opposition broke out afresh; and if it had been less obvious how trade and commerce, and all the other interests promoted by safe and quick correspondence, were benefited by the new measures; and if it had not been for the vigilant supervision of the Prime Minister—who had let the reformer go, but had no intention of letting his reforms go with him—all the improvements of the past few years might have been quietly strangled in their infancy. Though we know not what the country lost in losing the guiding-spirit, it is matter of congratulation that the main elements of his scheme were fully preserved. Though the Post-Office officials scrupled not to recommend some return to the old system, Mr. Palmer's plans were fully adhered to until the fact of their success became patent to both the public and the official alike. In the first year of their introduction, the net revenue of the Post-Office was about 250,000l. Thirty years afterwards the proceeds had increased sixfold, to no less a sum than a million and a half sterling! Though, of course, this great increase is partly attributable to the increase of population, and the national advancement generally, it was primarily due to the greater speed, punctuality, and security which the new arrangements gave to the service. Whilst, financially, the issue was successful, the result, in other respects, was no less certain. In 1797, the greater part of the mails were conveyed in one-half of the time previously occupied; in some cases, in one-third of the time; and on the cross-roads, in a quarter of the time, taken under the old system. Mails not only travelled quicker, but Mr. Palmer augmented their number between the largest towns. Other spirited reforms went on most vigorously. Three hundred and eighty towns, which had had before but three deliveries of letters a-week, now received one daily. The Edinburgh coach required less time by sixty hours to travel from London, and there was a corresponding reduction between towns at shorter distances. Ten years before the first Liverpool coach was started, a single letter-carrier sufficed for the wants of that place; before the century closed, six were required. A single letter-carrier sufficed for Edinburgh for a number of years;[61] now four were required.

No less certain was it that the mails, under the new system, travelled more securely. For many years after their introduction, not a single attempt was made, in England, to rob Palmer's mail-coaches. It is noteworthy, however, that the changes, when applied to Ireland, did not conduce to the greater security of the mails. The first coach was introduced into Ireland in 1790, and placed on the Cork and Belfast roads, a few more following on the other main lines of road. Though occasionally accompanied by as many as four armed guards, the mail-coaches were robbed, according to a competent authority, "as frequently as the less-aspiring riding-post."

Not many months after the establishment of mail-coaches, an Act was passed through Parliament, declaring that all carriages and stage-coaches employed to carry his Majesty's mails should henceforth be exempt from the payment of toll, on both post- or cross-roads. Previously, all post-horses employed in the same service travelled free of toll. This Act told immediately in favour of the Post-Office to a greater extent than was imagined by its framers. Innkeepers, who, in England, were the principal owners of stage-coaches,[62] bargained for the carriage of mails, very frequently at merely nominal prices. In return, they enjoyed the advantages of the coach and its passengers, travelling all roads free of toll.

Arrived at the end of the century, we find the mail-coach system is now an institution in the country. Other interests had progressed at an equal rate. Travelling, as a rule, had become easy and pleasant. Not that the service was performed without any difficulty or hindrance. On the contrary—and it enters within the scope of our present object to advert to them—the obstacles to anything like a perfect system seemed insurmountable. Though the difficulties consequent on travelling, at the beginning of the present century, were comparatively trifling on the principal post-roads, yet, when new routes were chosen, or new localities were designed to share in the common benefits of the new and better order of things in the Post-Office, these same difficulties had frequently to be again got over. Cross-roads in England were greatly neglected—so much so, in fact, that new mail-coaches which had been applied for and granted, were often enough waiting idle till the roads should be ready to receive them. The Highway Act of 1663, so far as the roads in remote districts were concerned, was completely in abeyance. Early in the century we find the subject frequently mentioned in Parliament. As the result of one discussion, it was decided that every inducement should be held out to the different trusts to make and repair the roads in their respective localities; while, on the other hand, the Postmaster-General was directed by the Government to indict all townships who neglected the duty imposed upon them. Under the Acts of 7 & 8 George III. c. 43, and 4 George IV. c. 74, commissioners were appointed to arrange for all necessary road improvements, having certain privileges vested in them for the purpose. Thus, they recommended that certain trusts should have loans granted to them, to be employed in road-making and mending. Mr. Telford, at his death, was largely employed by the Road Commissioners—the improvements on the Shrewsbury and Holyhead road being under his entire superintendence. And it would seem that the above-mentioned road needed improvement. When, in 1808, a new mail-coach was put on to run between the two places, no fewer than twenty-two townships had to be indicted by the Post-Office authorities for having their roads in a dangerous and unfinished state.

In Scotland and Ireland, great improvements had also been made in this respect, considering the previously wretched state of both countries, Scotland especially. At a somewhat earlier period, four miles of the best post-road in Scotland—namely, that between Edinburgh and Berwick—were described in a contemporary record as being in so ruinous a state, that passengers were afraid of their lives, "either by their coaches overturning, their horses stumbling, their carts breaking, or their loads casting, and the poor people with burdens on their backs sorely grieved and discouraged;" moreover, "strangers do often exclaim thereat," as well they might. Things were different at the close of the last century; still, the difficulties encountered in travelling, say by the Bar, may well serve to show the internal state of the country. "Those who are born to modern travelling," says Lord Cockburn,[63] "can scarcely be made to understand how the previous age got on. There was no bridge over the Tay at Dunkeld, or over the Spey at Fochabers, or over the Findhorn at Forres. Nothing but wretched peerless ferries, let to poor cotters, who rowed, or hauled, or pushed a crazy boat across, or more commonly got their wives to do it.... There was no mail-coach north of Aberdeen till after the battle of Waterloo.... I understand from Hope, that after 1784, when he came to the bar, he and Braxfield rode a whole north circuit; and that, from the Findhorn being in a flood, they were obliged to go up its bank for about twenty-eight miles, to the Bridge of Dulsie, before they could cross. I myself rode circuits when I was an Advocate Depute, between 1807 and 1810." A day and a half was still, at the end of the last century, taken up between Edinburgh and Glasgow. In 1788, a direct mail-coach was put on between London and Glasgow, to go by what is known as the west coast route, viâ Carlisle.[64] The Glasgow merchants had long wished for such a communication, as much time was lost in going by way of Edinburgh. On the day on which the first mail-coach was expected, a vast number of them went along the road for several miles to welcome it, and then headed the procession into the city. To announce its arrival on subsequent occasions, a gun was fired. It was found a difficult task, however, to drive the coach, especially in winter, over the bleak and rugged hills of Dumfriesshire and Lanarkshire; the road, moreover, was hurriedly and badly made, and at times quite impassable. Robert Owen, travelling between his model village in Lanarkshire and England, tells us[65] that it often took him two days and three nights, incessant travelling, to get from Manchester to Glasgow in the coach, the greater part of the time being spent north of Carlisle. On the eastern side of the country, in the direct line between Edinburgh and London, a grand new road had been spoken of for many years. The most difficult part, viz. that between Edinburgh and Berwick, was begun at the beginning of the present century, and in 1824, a good road was finished and opened out as far south as Morpeth, in Northumberland. A continuation of the road from Morpeth to London being greatly needed, the Post-Office authorities engaged Mr. Telford, the eminent engineer, to make a survey of the road over the remaining distance. The survey lasted many years. A hundred miles of the new Great North Road, south of York, was laid out in a perfectly straight line.[66] All the requisite arrangements were made for beginning the work, when the talk of locomotive engines and tramways, and especially the result of the locomotive contest at Rainhill in the year 1829, had the effect of directing public and official attention to a new and promising method of travelling, and of preventing an outlay of what must have been a most enormous sum for the purposes of this great work.[67] The scheme was in abeyance for a few months, and this time sufficed to develop the railway project, and demonstrate its usefulness to the postal system of the country. But we are anticipating matters, and must, at any rate, speak for a moment of the services of Mr. Macadam. The improvements which this gentleman brought about in road-making had a very sensible effect on the operations of the mail-coach service. Most of the post-roads were macadamized before the year 1820, and it was then that the service was in its highest state of efficiency. Accelerations in the speed of the coaches were made as soon as ever any road was finished on the new principle. From this time, the average speed, including stoppages, was nine miles, all but a furlong. The fastest coaches (known as the "crack coaches" from this circumstance, and also for being on the best roads) were those travelling, in 1836, between London and Shrewsbury (accomplishing 154 miles in 15 hours), London and Exeter (171 miles in 17 hours), London and Manchester (187 miles in 19 hours), and London and Holyhead (261 miles in 27 hours). On one occasion, the Devonport mail, travelling with foreign and colonial letters, accomplished the journey of 216 miles, including stoppages, in 21 hours and 14 minutes.