The History of the Post Office, from Its Establishment Down to 1836. Herbert Joyce

now given to the packet boats to resume the carriage of merchandise. This was a source of profit to which the postmasters-general had long been looking as some set-off against the heavy expense.

      Meanwhile Dummer's contract for the West India service had come to an abrupt termination. That contract had not been long in force before he began to realise how onerous was the condition that, out of a total sum of £12,500, he should receive only £4500 in money, and depend, for the difference on fares, freight, and postage. The postage, which from the first had fallen short of his expectations, did not increase; and the fact of his having, within a few months from the commencement of his undertaking, lost three of his boats, procured for him—what in the world of commerce is almost incompatible with success—the reputation of an unlucky man. The West India merchants enjoined their correspondents on no account to send goods by Dummer's boats. Thus the profits which he had expected to derive from freight had no more existence in fact than the profits from postage. Hoping against hope, Dummer struggled on; but ill-luck continued to pursue him. In little more than five years he lost no less than nine boats. In order to replace them he mortgaged his property to the full extent of its value and obtained advances on his quarterly allowance. This, of course, could not go on, and at length the crash came. The day had arrived for the West India mail to be despatched, and there was no boat to carry it. The whole of Dummer's property, boats included, had been seized for debt. The rest is soon told. The mortgagees, believing that they had the postmasters-general in a corner, refused to continue the service except at a preposterous charge, which Frankland and Evelyn declined to pay. Fortunately three private ships with consignments for the West Indies were then loading at Teignmouth and other ports in the south-west of England, and these relieved the Post Office from what might otherwise have been a serious dilemma.

      Bankrupt and broken-hearted, Edmund Dummer died in April 1713, within eighteen months of the termination of his contract. It is his honourable distinction that he succeeded in all that he undertook for others, and that it was only in what he undertook for himself that he failed.

CHAPTER VIII

       Table of Contents

AMERICAN POSTS

       1692–1707

       Table of Contents

      American progress has long been the wonder of the world, and in nothing perhaps has it displayed itself more remarkably than in the matter of the posts. The figures which the United States Post Office presents to us year after year—figures as compared with which even those of the Post Office of Great Britain fall into insignificance—make it difficult to believe that only two hundred years ago an enterprising Englishman was struggling to erect a post between New York and Boston.

      An Order in Council dated the 22nd of July 1688, after prescribing the rates of postage to be charged not only between England and the island of Jamaica, but within the island itself, ended with these words: "And His Majesty is also pleased to order that letter offices be settled in such other of His Majesty's plantations in America as shall by the said Earle of Rochester be found convenient for His Majesty's service, and the ease and benefitt of his subjects, according to the method and rates herein settled for His Majesty's island of Jamaica."

      Nearly four years later, namely, in February 1692, Thomas Neale obtained a grant from the Crown authorising him to set up posts in North America. The grant was secured by letters patent, which were to hold good for twenty-one years. Neale, who appears never to have set foot out of England, appointed as his representative in America Andrew Hamilton; or rather, as the patent required, Neale nominated and the postmasters-general appointed him. The patent also required that at the expiration of three years Neale should render an account showing his receipts and expenditure; but it was not until the year 1698 that this condition was fulfilled, and in the same year Hamilton came to England to report progress.

      By this time a post, to run once a week, had been established along seven hundred miles of road, from Boston to New York, and from New York to Newcastle in Pennsylvania. What the postage rates were we do not know, except indeed that the charge on a letter between New York and Boston was 1s. On other points the account which Hamilton furnished on Neale's behalf gives full information. A salary of £20 a year is paid to "Mr. Sharpus that keeps the letter office at New York." Mr. Sharpus also receives two allowances, one of £110 a year "for carrying the mail half-way to Boston," and another of £60 "for carrying the mail from New York to Philadelphia." Of the former allowance, Hamilton states that after the 4th of November 1696 he "retrenched" it from £110 to £90. There is also a salary of £10 "allowed to him that keeps the letter office at Philadelphia"; and "an allowance of £100 sterling per annum given by Mr. Neale himself to Peter Hayman, deputy-postmaster of Virginia and Maryland." Hamilton's own salary was £200, and his travelling expenses are thus stated in his account:—