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

sagacity left him at no loss for a reply. He discerned that to carry a letter is to perform a service for which a payment may fairly be demanded in return; and that the demand would meet with a ready response must have been plain to him from what he saw going on in the west of England. In 1633, or two years before he produced his plan, the Mayor and Aldermen of Barnstaple had set up a post between their town and Exeter. This post was to leave Barnstaple every Tuesday at 7 o'clock in the morning, and to be in Exeter early on the following day, in time to catch the King's post on its way from Plymouth to London. The King's post was maintained at the expense of the King; but for the local service, as a means of defraying the cost, the Corporation imposed a small charge, a charge of 6d. for a single letter and of 8d. for a double one. Other towns in Devonshire had adopted a similar course. That Witherings was aware of the existence of these posts is evident from the special allusion that is made to them in the Proclamation which he prevailed upon the King to issue;[5] and it was their success, probably, which suggested his own undertaking. Concluding that what private enterprise was effecting on a small scale the State would be able to effect on a large one, he proposed—and the proposal received the royal sanction—that for every letter sent by post a "port" or charge for carriage should be levied after the following rates:—

	Single Letter.	Double letter.	"If bigger."
Under 80 miles	2d.	4d.	6d. an oz.
80 miles and not exceeding 140	4d.	8d.	9d. "
Above 140 miles	6d.	12d.	12d. "
To or from Scotland	8d.	?	?
To or from Ireland	9d.	After two ounces, 6d. the ounce.

      This was the introduction of postage. The object of the exceptional rate in the case of Ireland was to avoid interference with a Proclamation which had been recently issued by the Lord Deputy and Council there.

      Henceforth the posts were to be equally open to all; all would be at liberty to use them; all would be welcome. Important as this provision was, it followed as a natural consequence from the imposition of postage. The carriage of the subjects' letters was now to be a matter of purchase, and, unless the purchasers were sufficiently numerous, the posts would not be self-supporting. The custom of the public, therefore, was a necessity of their very existence.

      In other respects the regulations remained much as they had been, except that now there would be the means of enforcing them. Every postmaster was to have ready in his stable one or two horses, according as Witherings might direct, the charge to be for one horse 2–½d. a mile and for two horses 5d. This 5d., however, was to include the cost of a guide who was always to accompany the horses when two were taken. On the day the post was expected, the horses were not to be let out on any pretext whatever, this being the first indication on record of letters enjoying precedence over travellers. And finally, with certain specified exceptions, no letters were to be carried or delivered in any part where posts should be established except by such persons as Witherings might appoint. The letters excepted were those sent by a friend, by a particular messenger employed for the particular occasion, and by common known carrier. On the common carrier, however, restrictions were imposed. He was to confine himself to his ordinary known journey, and was not, for the sake of collecting or delivering letters, to lag behind or outstrip his cart or horse by more than eight hours.

      The reason for this last exception is not far to seek. The established posts were few in number, and even where they existed in name they had fallen into disuse. The common carriers had thus become the chief carriers of letters, and Witherings, in the furtherance of his project, was anxious to disarm their opposition. This he had already attempted to effect by argument; and now, as a practical step in the same direction, he procured their exemption from the State monopoly. But what may have appeared and was probably intended to appear as a valuable concession was really no concession at all. The carrier took eight days to go 120 miles. By the posts the same distance was to be accomplished in a day and a night. The carrier's charge for a letter from Cambridge to London, a distance of about sixty miles, was 2d. A postage of 2d., according to Witherings's plan, was to a carry a letter for eighty miles. If the posts were to be both faster and cheaper than the common known carrier, it might safely be predicted that as a carrier of letters he could not long survive.

      In October 1635 Witherings, having completed the necessary arrangements, proceeded to carry his plan into effect. The results he anticipated from it, as shewn in a memorandum which he delivered to the Secretary of State, were promotion of trade and intercourse and the cultivation of better relations with Scotland and Ireland. That the posts might one day be more than self-supporting, that they would become a source of revenue, does not appear to have entered into his calculations; or, if it did, his silence on the point would seem to shew that, as compared with the other advantages, he deemed it too insignificant to mention.

      It was probably about this time that the practice of writing "Haste, post, haste" on the outside of letters began to be discontinued. The term "post," as here used, meant nothing more than the carrier or bearer of the letter; and an injunction to make the best speed he could, properly as it might be given to a messenger who had a particular letter to carry, would be altogether out of place if addressed to a general letter-carrier who was bound by his instructions not to exceed a given distance within a given time. "For thy life, for thy life" had sometimes been added, as in the case of Protector Somerset's letter to Lord Dacre. "To our very good Lord, the Lord Dacre, Warden of the West Marches, in haste; haste, post, haste, for thy life, for thy life, for thy life";[6] and it seems probable, if the barbarity of the punishments in those days is considered, that this was no empty threat. It was "on payn of lyfe" that, according to Sir Brian Tuke, all townships were to have horses ready for their Sovereign's service. Among the Ashburnham manuscripts is a letter from Sir Edward Nicholas to Sir John Hippisley, Lieutenant of Dover Castle, written in 1627 or eight years before the introduction of postage. This letter is endorsed by George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, and the cover is inscribed "for His Majesty's special affairs; hast, hast, hast, post, hast, hast, hast, hast, with all possible speede." The absence of any threat in this instance may of course have been due to the individual character of the writer, but it is more agreeable to think of it as a sign of the advance of civilisation.

      In 1637, Lord Stanhope having surrendered his patent, Witherings was appointed in his room, and thus became centred in one person the offices of postmaster for inland and for foreign letters. In the same year a letter office, the erection of which had formed an important part of Witherings's plan, was opened in the city of London, and nothing remained to hinder him from carrying his project into full effect. But, fair as everything promised, hardly three years had elapsed before Witherings met with the fate which has overtaken so many of his distinguished successors. In 1640, on a charge of divers abuses and misdemeanours in the execution of his office, this eminent man was deprived of his appointment. Whether the charge was well or ill founded we have no means of judging. Only the fact has come down to us that after this miserable fashion ended the career of one who had the sagacity to project and the energy to carry out a system, the main features of which endure to the present day.

      Among those who had lent money to the King was Philip Burlamachi, a naturalised British subject, and one of the principal merchants of the city of London. He had advanced, on the security of the sugar duties, no less than £52,000, an