CHAPTER XV
OCEAN MAILS
The change which has taken place in the carriage of oversea mails during the last hundred years is as great as the revolution which happened in the case of the inland postal service. And in both instances, of course, it was the discovery of the steam engine which accounted for the change. In both instances, also, it meant the closing of a period during which romance and adventure were the usual accompaniments of service in the Post Office. The sailing vessel, beautiful to look at and with her capacity to carry his Majesty's mails speedily and punctually depending largely on a fair wind and freedom from capture by his Majesty's enemies, is a more inspiring subject for the writer than the crossing of the Atlantic within five days of the Mauretania in spite of wind and weather. Neither poetry nor art has found much inspiration in mere speed. It is only a prosaic ideal of the modern Post Office.
In a previous chapter I have stated that the Dover Road is probably the oldest mail route in the kingdom. The reason is obvious, because it was the road by which the foreign mails travelled. The correspondence between the Court and foreign governments was of no small account in the time of the Tudors and Stuarts, and “ocean mails” in those days were probably considered of greater importance than inland posts. But all the mails except those to Ireland went eastward. “Stepping Westward” in those days was to be an adventurer or discoverer. The Atlantic was not yet a ferry: it was the Great Unknown. Dover, Ramsgate, Harwich, and Yarmouth shared in the duty of providing packets for the mails. During every French war Dover was useless as a packet station, and the correspondence then went by Harwich or Yarmouth. It was partly owing to the necessity for obtaining a port of departure less liable to the dangers from foreign enemies that in 1688 Falmouth, an extreme westerly port, was selected for the headquarters of the Post Office Packet Service. Gradually this port became the most important station of the service, and it not only served Southern Europe but the United States and America. The story of this service has been admirably told by Mr. A. H. Norway, and it is not my purpose here to do anything more than summarise briefly the life of the old days. It is a tale of stirring adventures and sea fights. In times of war and sometimes even of peace there was constant risk of seizure, and every packet was armed to meet emergencies of this kind. The instructions to the captains of these vessels were to run while they could, to fight when they could no longer run, and to throw the mails overboard when fighting was no longer possible. Within these instructions there was abundant scope for exciting voyages. These were great days for Falmouth, and her position as a mail port gave her an advantage over the rest of the Kingdom. She knew of wars and revolutions before even London could be in possession of the facts.
The packets brought also bullion in large quantities, and on reaching Falmouth the treasure was despatched by road to London in vehicles which were known as Russell's Wagons. A walking pace of about three miles an hour was kept up throughout the long journey, but there were many people to whom the high coach fares were prohibitive, and who were ready to travel by these wagons, sleeping by night beneath the tilt. The drivers were armed, and when treasure was on board a guard of soldiers marched with the wagons. It was a tedious but picturesque way of travelling to London, and in the old days, when the roads were bad, and exposed to attacks from highwaymen, there was perhaps very little enjoyment to be obtained out of the journey. Still these wagons continued, not to run but “to stroll,” long after the introduction of railways, and Mr. Norway tells us that it is only fifty years since they “might have been met toiling at their leisurely pace along the western road.”
Mr. Norway quotes from a letter written by a Spanish traveller who visited England in 1808. What he says will help us to realise how much the Packet Service meant to Falmouth. Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella was the traveller, and he had just arrived by the packet at Falmouth when he wrote the letter. This is what he says: “The perpetual stir and bustle in this inn is as surprising as it is wearisome. Doors opening and shutting, bells ringing, voices calling to the waiter from every quarter, while he cries 'Coming' to one room and hurries away to another. Everybody is in a hurry here: either they are going off in the packets and are hastening their preparations to embark, or they have just arrived and are impatient to be on the road homeward. Every now and then a carriage rattles up to the door with a rapidity which makes the very house shake. The man who cleans the boots is running in one direction, the barber with his powder-bag in another. Here goes the barber's boy with his hot water and razors: there comes the clean linen from the washerwoman, and the hall is full of porters and sailors bringing up luggage or bearing it away. Now you hear a horn blow because the post is coming in, and in the middle of the night you are awakened by another because it is going out. Nothing is done in England without a noise, and yet noise is the only thing they forget in the bill.”
How Treasure was Brought to London about the Beginning of Last Century.
Bullion in large quantities was often landed at Falmouth by the mail packets for despatch by land to London. It was placed on wagons, which journeyed the whole distance to London at a walking pace guarded by soldiers.