The establishment over which these two simple gentlemen were called upon to preside had recently received a considerable addition. Out of London, the Post Office servants remained much as they had been ten years before, at about 239 in number, of whom all but twelve were postmasters; but in London the force employed at the General Post Office had been raised from 77 to 185. The Penny Post Office, which had now been wrested out of Dockwra's hands, accounts for the greater part of the difference. This gave employment, exclusive of receivers, to 74 persons—a comptroller, an accomptant, and a collector, 14 sorters and 57 messengers—at a total charge for salaries of £2000 a year. Another part of the establishment, and by no means the least important or the least difficult to manage, consisted of the packet boats. These, in 1690, were eleven in number, viz.—two for France, two for Flanders, two for Holland, two for the Downs, and three for Ireland. Owing to the war, however, the boat-service to France was now in abeyance.
Little more than half a century had elapsed since the introduction of postage, and meanwhile the revenue had risen by strides which were for those times prodigious. In 1635 the posts were maintained at a cost to the Crown of £3400 a year. Within fifteen years not only had they become self-supporting, but a rent was paid for the privilege of farming them. This rent was, in 1650, £5000 a year; in 1653, £10,000; in 1660, £21,500; and some time before 1680, £43,000. In 1690 the net revenue was probably about £55,000. In 1694, according to a return made to the House of Commons two years later, it was £59,972.
The headquarters of the Post Office were at this time in Lombard Street. Here the postmasters-general resided; and here, far from shutting themselves up, they were to be found at all hours by any one who might wish to consult them on business connected with their office. Freedom of communication with those among whom they lived, and not inaccessibility, appears indeed to have been a part of their policy. With the foreign merchants especially they maintained the most friendly intercourse, and were wont to defer to their wishes and suggestions in the arrangement of the packets. Besides giving constant attendance during the day, the postmasters-general sat as a Board every morning and night. To these Board-meetings they attached the highest importance, especially on the nights of Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, when mails were despatched into all parts of the country. These were known as the "Grand Post Nights," and the others as "Bye-Nights."
The Post Office building appears to have been not ill adapted to its purpose. A massive gate opened into a court of oblong shape. This court was paved from end to end for the merchants to walk in while waiting to receive their letters. On the right was the Board-room with the residence of the postmasters-general attached; on the left the office for foreign letters; and in front, immediately facing the entrance, was the sorting office. The office for the letter-carriers was in the basement. The rest of the building was devoted to the use of the Post Office servants, who, owing to their unseasonable hours of attendance, were required to live in the office itself or else in its immediate vicinity.
The machinery for the dispersion of letters was very simple. For Post Office purposes the kingdom was divided into six roads—the North Road, the Chester or Holyhead Road, the Western Road, the Kent Road, and the Roads to Bristol and to Yarmouth; and these roads were presided over by a corresponding number of clerks in London whose duty it was to sort the letters and to tax them with the proper amount of postage. At the present time, when, owing to the system of prepayment, there is comparatively little taxing to be done, no less than 2800 clerks and sorters are engaged every evening in despatching the letters into the country. Two hundred years ago the whole operation was performed, both sorting and taxing together, by the six clerks of the roads, and they had not even a sorter to assist them until 1697.
The letters, as soon as they had been sorted, were despatched into the country, the usual hour of despatch being shortly after midnight; but, of course, with a force to prepare them of only six persons, a rigid punctuality such as that which now distinguishes the operations of the Post Office could hardly be observed. An instance remains on record of the disturbance caused by any unusual pressure. The 25th of February 1696, we are told, was a foreign post night, and it happened that the letters for the country as well as abroad were more than ordinarily numerous. On this occasion the mails which should have gone out before three o'clock in the morning could not be despatched until between six and seven.
Once clear of London, the letters passed into the hands of the postmasters, who were alone concerned in their transmission and distribution. At the present time, multifarious as the duties of a postmaster are, it is not one of them to transport the mails from town to town. But such was not the case in 1690. The post roads were then divided into sections or, as they were commonly called, stages; and these stages were presided over by a corresponding number of postmasters, whose duty it was to carry the mails each over his own stage. This had been the original object of their appointment, the object for which they had been granted the monopoly of letting post-horses, and it still remained their primary duty, to which every other was subordinate. And yet traces of this original function were already beginning to disappear. The posts settled on the six main roads of the kingdom had not been long in extending themselves to other roads; and on these branch roads one postmaster would be charged with the carrying of the mails over two or more stages, leaving another without any transport duty at all. Kendal, for instance, lay on a branch road leaving the Holyhead Road at Chester; and from Wigan the letters for Kendal were fetched by the postmaster of Preston, who passed not only his own town but the town of Lancaster on his way.
In 1690 no provincial town had a letter-carrier of its own, as that term is now understood. Even at Bristol and at Norwich, which ranked next to the capital in size and importance, there was for all Post Office purposes one single agent, and that was the postmaster. Upon him and him alone devolved all the duties which now, at all but the smallest towns, a body of sorters and letter-carriers is maintained to perform. Whether out of London there was any settled mode of delivery is uncertain; but there seems little doubt that, soon after the establishment of the Post Office, to deliver letters in his own town had come to be a part, though a secondary part, of a postmaster's duty. At Maidstone, indeed, the delivery appears to have reached a high state of perfection. The postmaster there fetched the mails from Rochester and carried them to Ashford, dropping the letters for his own town as he passed through. These were at once taken out by two men of his own and delivered, so that, as he took pride in relating, a letter from London arriving by the morning post at noon could he answered by the return post, which left Maidstone at six o'clock in the evening.
But this must have been an exceptional case. Except perhaps at the largest towns, letters were yet too few to make such an arrangement necessary; and it seems probable that the hour at which the delivery was made and the area over which it extended were very much in the postmaster's discretion. One check there was, and, so far as appears, one only. This was the letter bill which accompanied the letters, and in which was inserted the postage which a postmaster had to collect and bring to account; but it frequently happened