L'Estrange's privilege put an end to Muddiman's newsbooks, but in no way interfered with his newsletters and his right to free postage. He was able, therefore, to continue
his newsletters, and did so with great success. After the Restoration Muddiman had attached himself to Sir Edward Nicholas, one of the principal Secretaries of State, and his Under-Secretary, Joseph Williamson, from whom he had been in the habit of obtaining part of his news. Williamson was a grasping man, who became jealous of the success of the newswriters, and finding that L'Estrange was unpopular, conceived the idea of getting the control of the whole business into his own hands. He therefore suggested that Muddiman should go to Oxford, where the Court had removed owing to the plague, and publish a new journal in opposition to L'Estrange. While Muddiman was at Oxford, Williamson would obtain by an agent in the Post Office, James Hickes, the names of all his correspondents.[258] The plan was eminently successful, and on the 16th November 1665 the Oxford Gazette appeared, to be transformed a few months later, with its twenty-fourth issue (5th February 1665-6), into the London Gazette. Muddiman, however, gained knowledge of Williamson's designs regarding his correspondents, and on the 8th February 1666 left the Gazette. Williamson thereupon took control of its publication, and, with the assistance of Hickes, continued its issue. He appointed correspondents in all the leading seaports, and in a few other English towns, and also in continental cities, who were required to furnish accounts of passing events. In return for their services the correspondents received regularly copies of the Gazette. Both the letters from correspondents and the Gazettes which were their reward passed free of postage.[259] The regular supply of a copy of the Gazette was so great a privilege that it was often regarded as sufficient wages for a post-messenger or even a deputy-postmaster.[260]
This became a recognized practice before the end of the seventeenth century, and the privilege was regarded as forming part of the ordinary emoluments of the deputy-postmasters.[261] The Gazettes were sent out from London by officers known as Clerks of the Road, under the frank of these officers; and the privilege of franking these Gazettes became extended so that the Clerks of the Road ultimately became entitled to frank any newspaper to whomsoever addressed.[262] In the eighteenth century the Clerks of the Road developed the exercise of their privilege. They accepted subscriptions and undertook the supply of newspapers generally throughout the country. They became, in fact, newsagents. Their newspaper business was something quite apart from their duties as officers of the Post Office. It was conducted in a separate building, by a separate staff, and they found it very lucrative.[263] The postage on newspapers at the letter rate would have been prohibitive. Hence newspapers either went under frank or did not go by post at all, and the whole business of distribution through the post fell into the hands of the Clerks of the Road. Their
profits were in part applied to the discharge of certain payments—the salaries of some of the inferior clerks and some charitable payments—in connection with the Post Office.[264]
In 1764 the privilege was explicitly recognized by statute,[265] but the same Act gave a severe blow to the whole system by authorizing members of Parliament to send newspapers free of postage. The members did not confine the exercise of the privilege to newspapers sent by or to them for their own use, but granted orders for free postage to booksellers and newsagents on a liberal scale.[266] The booksellers naturally
cut the prices charged by the Clerks of the Road. The charge of the latter had been £5 a year for a daily paper, and £2 10s. a year for an evening paper. The booksellers in 1770 advertised a charge of £4 a year for a daily paper, and £2 a year for an evening paper.[267] As a result a large part of the traffic went to the booksellers, and the profits of the Clerks of the Road fell so rapidly that it was soon found necessary to relieve them of the charges on their profits.[268]
Efforts were made to check the abuse of the privilege of franking of newspapers held by members of Parliament under the Act of 1764. An Act of 1802 (42 Geo. III, cap. 63) required not only that the member should sign the newspaper packets, but that the whole superscription, together with the date of posting and the name of the post-town in which the paper was intended to be posted, should be in his handwriting. The member must, moreover, himself be in the post-town where the paper was posted on the date shown on the paper. These regulations were not long maintained. They were probably too stringent to be enforced, and in the course of a few years the appearance on the newspaper or wrapper of any member's name, whether written by himself or by any other person, or even printed, was sufficient to secure free transmission through the post. In 1825 the conditions were definitely repealed, and newspapers became legally entitled to free transmission by post.[269]
There were reasons why the Government and the Post Office did not suppress the extension of the privilege accorded to newspapers. At this time heavy general taxes
were imposed on newspapers—the paper duty, the advertisement duty, and the stamp duty.