[142] "An Act for establishing a General Post Office for all her Majesty's Dominions" (9 Anne, cap. 10).
[143] 5 Geo. III, cap. 25. See supra, pp. [38-9].
[145] Evidence of Benjamin Franklin before House of Commons Committee, 28th January 1766. The Committee were, of course, most anxious on points having relation to the taxation of the colonies by the English Parliament, and Dr. Franklin was asked questions directed to discovering whether the colonists regarded postage, which was fixed by Act of the British Parliament, and had been newly fixed by such Act in the previous year (5 Geo. III, cap. 25), as a tax. On this point Dr. Franklin emphatically held that the postage paid on a letter was not of the nature of a tax, but that it was simply payment for service performed; and, moreover, the payment of postage was not compulsory, since a man might still, as before the passing of the Act, send his letter by a servant, a special messenger, or a friend, if he thought it cheaper or safer. Dr. Franklin said that every Assembly encouraged the Post Office in its infancy by grants of money; that they would not have done this if they had thought the postage charge a tax, and as a matter of fact the system was always regarded as supplying a great convenience (W. Cobbett, Parliamentary History of England, vol. xvi. cols. 137-160).
[146] Manifesto to the American People, issued by Goddard, 2nd July 1774. Earlier in the manifesto it was remarked that "newspapers, those necessary and important alarms in time of public danger, may be rendered of little consequence for want of circulation."
[147] "It is not to be doubted but that the institution will be properly regulated by the Continental Congress."—Manifesto to the American People, 8th May 1774.
[148] Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, pub. Washington, 1904, vol. ii. p. 208.
[149] Resolution of 30th September 1775. Ibid., vol. iii. p. 267.
[150] British Official Records, 6th December 1780.
[151] "The officers of the American Army beg leave to inform their friends and correspondents that the postage of all letters to and from the Army is doubled: but as their pay is fully adequate to every expense, they therefore request them to send all letters by the public post, and not through any œconomical view by a private conveyance.