[531] See The Practical Method of the Penny Post, London, 1681.
[532] The "General Post" was the term applied to the service throughout the country as distinguished from local services.
[533] The General Post Office only provided for the delivery of letters within a restricted area. See Ninth Report of Commissioners of Post Office Inquiry, 1837, p. 5.
[534] 12 Car. II, cap. 35, § 2.
[535] 9 Anne, cap. 10, § 6.
[536] 4 Geo. II, cap. 33. See D. Macpherson, op. cit., vol. iii., p. 169.
[537] Ninth Report of the Commissioners of Post Office Inquiry, 1837, pp. 1 and 2.
[538] "We have said that to us who live at the end of the nineteenth century it may appear incredible that up to April 1680 the General Post Office in Lombard Street was the only receptacle for letters in the whole of London. But it is by no means certain that our descendants may not think it more incredible still that London, with all its boasted progress, has only now recovered a post which, in point of convenience and cheapness, at all approaches that which an enterprising citizen established more than two hundred years ago."—H. Joyce, History of the Post Office, pp. 41, 42.
[539] "No stage-coach entered London without the driver's pockets being stuffed with letters and packets, and he was moderate indeed if he had not a bagful besides. The waggoner outstripped his waggon and the carrier his pack-horse: and each brought his contribution. The higgler's wares were the merest pretext. It was to the letters and packets that he looked for profit."—H. Joyce, ibid., p. 55.