The Post-Office was not only farmed to contractors, but it was burdened with pensions, sometimes to a royal mistress or favorite. This system was begun by James the Second, who, in execution of the wishes of his brother, Charles the Second, granted to Barbara, Duchess of Cleveland, £4,700 annually, and to the Earl of Rochester £4,000 annually, payable by the Post-Office.[32] Among the rewards lavished at a later day upon the Duke of Marlborough was an annual pension of £5,000, charged upon the Post-Office;[33] so that the victor of Ramillies and of Blenheim was a stipendiary upon the correspondence of the kingdom, every letter contributing to his annual income.
As the correspondence of the kingdom was charged with pensions, so also was it called to bear the burden of war. The statute of 9 Anne, c. 10, tells the story in its title: “An Act for establishing a General Post-Office for all her Majesty’s dominions, and for settling a weekly sum out of the revenues thereof for the service of the war and other her Majesty’s occasions.” This statute was not short-lived, and its success as “war measure” encouraged the imposition of other burdens, so that the great English commentator, Sir William Blackstone, selected the Post-Office as a favorite pack-horse. “There cannot be devised,” says he, “a more eligible method than this of raising money upon the subject; for therein both the Government and the people find a mutual benefit. The Government acquires a large revenue; and the people do their business with greater ease, expedition, and cheapness than they would be able to do, if no such tax (and of course no such office) existed.”[34] Here is the rule authoritatively declared which so long prevailed with regard to the Post-Office.
ORIGIN OF FRANKING PRIVILEGE IN ENGLAND.
The English franking privilege was the natural parasite of such a system, where the true idea of a post-office was entirely forgotten. Its origin belongs to this argument. It was in 1657, beneath the sway of the great Protector, while the Postage Act was before the House, that Sir Christopher Pack is reported as saying, “The design of the bill is very good for trading and commerce; … as to that of letters passing free for members, it is not worth putting in an Act”;[35] and this is the earliest allusion to “letters passing free for members.” The idea showed itself again just after the Restoration, while the Act of 12 Charles II., c. 35, was under discussion. The proposition to frank all letters to or from members of Parliament during the session was carried on a division and after considerable debate, in the course of which Sir Heneage Finch, so eminent as lawyer and judge, characterized it as “a poor mendicant proviso, and below the honor of the House.” Among its partisans was Sir George Downing, a graduate in the first class of Harvard College. The Speaker, Sir Harbottle Grimston, was unwilling to put the question, saying, “I am ashamed of it.”[36] The Lords struck it out of the bill, ostensibly for the reasons which had actuated the Opposition in the Commons, but really because there was no provision that their own letters should pass free. Although the proposition failed at that time to obtain legislative sanction, yet the object was accomplished indirectly. In the indenture with the contractor to whom the Post-Office was farmed occurred a proviso for the free carriage of all letters to or from the King, the great officers of State, “and also the single inland letters only of the members of the present Parliament during the continuance of this session of this Parliament.”[37] And thus began the “franking privilege” in England. Defeated in Parliament, it was smuggled into a Post-Office contract. With such an origin, it became a mere perquisite of office; and afterward, when sanctioned by statute, it was employed at the mere will of its possessor, who sometimes distributed his franks among his friends and sometimes sold them for a price.[38]
POST-OFFICE IN THE COLONIES.
The postal service in the Colonies was on a small scale. Authentic incidents show its beginnings. The Government of New York in 1672 established a post to go monthly from New York to Boston, advertising “those that bee dispos’d to send letters, lett them bring them to the Secretary’s office, where, in a lockt box, they shall bee preserved till the messenger calls for them. All persons paying the post before the bagg be seal’d up.”[39] Thirty years later this monthly post was fortnightly.[40] In Virginia the postal service was more simple. The Colonial law of 1657 required every planter to provide a messenger for the conveyance of dispatches, as they arrived, to the next plantation, and so forward, on pain of forfeiting a hogshead of tobacco for each default.[41] Until after 1704 there was no regular post further East than Boston, or further West than Philadelphia. In that year Lord Cornbury, writing to Government at home, says:—
“If I have any letters to send to Virginia, or to Maryland, I must either send an express, who is often retarded for want of boats to cross those great rivers they must go over, or else for want of horses, or else I must send them by some passengers who are going thither. The least I have known any express take to go from hence to Virginia has been three weeks.”[42]
Shortly afterward stage-coaches were established between Boston and New York, and between Boston and Philadelphia; but no post-office was established in Virginia until 1732; nor did any postal revenue accrue to Great Britain from the Colonies until 1753, when Benjamin Franklin became Postmaster-General for the Colonies.[43]
The same genius which ruled in philosophy and in politics was not wanting in this sphere of duty. The office was remodelled, and the sphere of its operations extended. But the efforts of Franklin in this department became tributary to the revenues of the mother country. On his removal, in 1774, he was able to say, “Before I was displaced by a freak of the ministers we had brought it to yield three times as much clear revenue to the Crown as the Post-Office of Ireland. Since that imprudent transaction they have received from it—not one farthing.”[44] Revenue! always revenue! Even Franklin shows no sign of ascending to the true idea of a post-office. The Revolution was now at hand, when the Crown ceased to receive revenue from any source in the United States. But in separating from the mother country the Post-Office was left unchanged in character. It was an undeveloped agency, with receipts always above expenses.