Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/585

Rh 1533-1836.] P O S T-O F F I C E 563 service. Some years earlier special posts had been estab lished by the magistrates of certain Scottish towns for the conveyance of their despatches to and from the court. Thus in 1590 a messenger was appointed by the magis trates of Aberdeen with the title of &quot;council-post.&quot; 1 The new royal orders of 1603 directed (1) that the postmasters at the various stages should enjoy the privilege of letting horses to &quot; those riding in post (that is to say) with horn and guide,&quot; by commission or otherwise, and to that end they were charged to keep or have in readiness a sufficient number of post-horses ; (2) that the lawful charge for the hire of each horse should be, for public messengers, at the rate of 2|d. a mile, &quot;besides the guides groats,&quot; private travellers being left to make their own agreements. Fin ally, it was directed that every postmaster should keep at least two horses for the express conveyance of Government letters, and should forward such letters within a quarter of an hour of their receipt, and that the posts should travel at the rate of not less than 7 miles an hour in summer and 5 miles in winter. 2 In 1607 the king granted to James Stanhope, first Lord Stanhope of Harrington, and to his son Charles Stanhope, afterwards second Lord Stanhope, jointly and to the sur vivor of them, the postmastership of England under the title of &quot; Master of the Posts and Messengers,&quot; with a fee of 100 marks a year, together with all &quot; avails and profits &quot; belonging to the office. In 1619 a separate office of &quot; post master-general of England for foreign parts &quot; was created, T De by new letters patent, in favour of Matthew de Quester 3 Qsters. and Matthew de Quester the younger. The new office was regarded by the existing postmaster-general, Charles, Lord Stanhope, as an infringement of his own patent. A long dispute ensued in the King s Bench and before the Lords of the Council. 4 In 1626 by an order in council liberty was granted to all companies of merchants, includ ing the Merchants Adventurers, to send their letters and despatches by messengers of their own choosing. A year afterwards this liberty was revoked, except for the Company of Merchants Adventurers. Lord Stanhope, however, continued to carry letters abroad by his agents, and obtained a warrant prohibiting De Quester from interfering. It shows strikingly the confusion of postal affairs at this period to find a statement addressed to the privy council by the postmasters of England to the effect that they had received no payments &quot; ever since the last day of November 1621 till this present time, June 1628,&quot; the arrears amounting to 22,626. The rights of the postmasters were also infringed by private individuals, as by one Samuel Jude in 1629 in the west of England. 5 In 1632 the foreign postmastership was assigned by the De Questers to William Frizell and 1 Kennedy, Annals of Aberdeen, vol. i. p. 262. 2 Book of Proclamations, p. 67 (S. P. 0. ; now in Rolls House) ; Report from the Secret Committee on the Post-Office, 1844, Appendix, pp. 38-40. 3 Or &quot;De 1 Equester,&quot; as he is called in Latch s Reports of Kings Kench Cases, p. 87. 4 These disputes were much embittered by the growing jealousies of English against foreign merchants. The proofs of this in the state correspondence of Elizabeth s day are abundant, but there were many statesmen who took larger views. See, e.g., John Johnson s &quot;Brief Declaration for the. . . erecting and maintaining of the Staple. . . in England&quot; (June 1582), Dom. Corresp. Eliz., cliv., No. 30; and compare the same writer s &quot;Discourse for the repairing the decayed State of the Merchants,&quot; &c. (22d July 1577), ib., cxiv., No. 39, with Leake s &quot;Discourse,&quot; &c., of the same year (ib., cxi. 1 sq. ), and with John Hales s &quot;Letter to Sir V. Cecil&quot; (20th March 1559), ib., iii., where he describes the merchant strangers as being &quot;spies for foreign princes,&quot; and with Cecil s &quot;Reasons to move a Forbearing of the Restitution of the Intercourse to Antwerp&quot; (1564), ib., xxxv., No. 33 (in Rolls House). 5 See Analytical Index to the Rememljrancia, 418, as quoted by H. B. Wheatley in the Academy of 27th December 1879, p. 464. Thomas Witherings. Letters-patent were granted to them Wither- jointly, 15th March 1633. 6 Witherings took the labour- h g- s - ing oar, and probably ought to rank as the first of the many conspicuous postal reformers in the long history of the British post-office. Under him one Richard Poole obtained a special postmastership for the service of the court. A petition subsequently presented by him to the House of Lords contains curious proof of the jealousies which Witherings s successful administration of his office excited. Among the earliest measures of improvement taken under the new patent was an acceleration of the Continental mail service. For this purpose the patentees made a contract with the count of Thurn and Taxis, here ditary postmaster of the empire and of Spain. At this time there was still but one mail weekly between London, Antwerp, and Brussels, and the transit occupied from four to five days. By a subsequent contract with Count Thurn two mails weekly were secured and the transit made ordinarily in two days. 7 In June 1635 Witherings sub mitted to the king a proposal (still preserved in the State- Paper Office) &quot;for settling of staffets or pacquet- posts betwixt London and all parts of His Majesty s dominions, for the carrying and re-carrying of his subjects letters,&quot; which contains some curious incidental notices of the state of the internal communication of the kingdom at that time. The nett charge to the crown of the existing posts is stated to be 3400 per annum. Letters, it is said, &quot;being now carried by carriers or footposts 16 or 18 miles a day, it is full two months before any answer can be received from Scotland or Ireland to London. If any of His Majesty s subjects shall write to Madrid in Spain, he shall receive answer sooner and surer than he shall out of Scotland or Ireland.&quot; By the new plan it was proposed that all letters for the northern road should be put into one &quot; portmantle,&quot; and directed to Edinburgh, with separate bags directed to such postmasters as lived upon the road near to any city or town corporate. The journey from London to Edinburgh was to be performed within three days. The scheme was approved of on 31st July 1635, the proclamation establishing eight main postal lines, namely, the great northern road, to Ireland by Holyhead, to Ireland by Bristol, to the marches of Wales by Shrews bury, to Plymouth, to Dover, to Harwich, and to Yarmouth. The postage of a single letter was fixed at 2d. if under 80 miles, 4d. if between 80 and 140 miles, 6d. if above 140 miles, 8d. if to Scotland. And it was further provided that from the beginning of this service no other messengers or footposts should carry letters to any places so provided, except common known carriers, or a particular messenger &quot;sent on purpose with a letter by any man for his own occasions,&quot; or a letter by a friend, on pain of exemplary punishment. 8 In February 1638 another royal proclama tion ratified an agreement between Witherings and De Noveau, postmaster to the French king, for the convey ance of the mails into France by Calais, Boulogne, Abbe ville, and Amiens. 9 But in 1640 the active postmaster was accused of divers abuses and misdemeanours, and his office sequestrated into the hands of Philip Burlamachi of London, merchant, who was to execute the same under the inspection of the prin cipal secretary of state. 10 Witherings then assigned his patent to Robert Rich, earl of Warwick, and a long contest 6 Minute in &quot;House of Lords Papers&quot; (1633), Fourth Report of Hist. MSS. Commission, 1874, App. The papers there calendared contain many proofs of Witherings s activity and ability. See also appendix to Fifth Report, 1875, and &quot;A proclamation concerning the Postmaster of England for Forraigne Parts&quot; (19th July 1632), in Rymer s Fcedera, xix. 385. 7 Egerton MS. (Brit. Mus.), No. 2543, f. 5 sq. 8 Rymer, Fcedera, xix. 649. 9 Ibid., xx. 192. 10 Ibid. , xx. 429.