Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 2.djvu/113

Rh the considerable enlargement that had of late years taken place in his majesty's dominions, "by the occasion of many great colonies and plantations in America and elsewhere," and the increase that the customs and royal revenues had received, as well as the trade and general wealth of the kingdom, by the mutual commerce and traffic between England and the said colonies and plantations. This Council of Commerce, however, remained in existence only a few years, Charles probably finding the expense inconvenient.

According to the account laid before the House of Commons in 1791, as made up at the Navy Office, the tonnage of the royal navy was, at the Restoration, 57,463 tons; in 1685, at the end of the reign of Charles II., 103,558; and at the Revolution, in 1688, 101,892. Notwithstanding the attention, therefore, which James II. is said to have paid to maritime affairs, and the liberal expenditure on this branch of the public service for which it is customary to give him credit, the royal navy would appear to have been diminished rather than augmented in the course of his short reign.

Among the acts of the Convention Parliament, in 1660, was one (the 12 Car. II. c. 35) giving a new establishment to the Post Office, or rather continuing the regulations which had been established by the Commonwealth ordinance in 1656. The lowest rate fixed by this act, was two-pence, which was the charge for a single letter between places not more than eighty miles distant from each other. There is nothing said about franking in the act; although a resolution brought up by a committee of the House of Commons on the 28th of March, 1735, and agreed to by the House, affirms that the privilege of franking by the members of that House "began with the erecting a post-office within this kingdom by act of parliament." In 1663 the post- office revenue, along with the produce of the wine licences, was settled by another act (15 Car. II. c. 14) on the Duke of York and his heirs male; at which time it appears from a clause in the act that the office of postmaster-general was farmed at a yearly rent of 21,500l