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[1] Report from Secret Committee on the Post Office (Commons), 1844, Appx., p. 21.
[2] Ibid., p. 4. Annual Report of the Postmaster-General, 1854, p. 8.
[3] Encyclopædia of the Laws of England, London, 1908, vol. xi. p. 344. J. W. Hyde, The Post in Grant and Farm, London, 1894, p. 131.
[4] Report from Secret Committee on the Past Office (Commons),1844, Appx., p. 95. In 1324 a writ or letter was issued to the Constable of Dover and Warden of the Cinque Ports, to the Mayor and Sheriffs of London, the Bailiffs of Bristol, Southampton, and Portsmouth, and the Sheriffs of Hants, Somerset, Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall, reciting that previous orders de scrutinio faciendo had not been observed, in consequence of which many letters prejudicial to the Crown were brought into the kingdom; and commanding them to "make diligent scrutiny of all persons passing from parts beyond the seas to England, and to stop all letters concerning which sinister suspicions might arise, and their bearers, and to keep the bearers in custody until further directions, and to transmit the letters so intercepted to the King with the utmost speed."
[5] Richard III in 1484 "followed the practice which had been recently introduced by King Edward in the time of the last war with Scotland (1482) of appointing a single horseman for every 20 miles, by means of whom travelling with the utmost speed, and not passing their respective limits, news was always able to be carried by letter from hand to hand 200 miles within two days."—Third Continuation of the Chronicle of Croyland, Oxford, 1684, p. 571. The system was identical with that of the posts of antiquity (vide Appendix B, pp. [374-7], infra).
[6] Derived from posta, a contraction for posita, from ponere, to place. The general use of the word is to signify relays placed at intervals on the routes followed by messengers.