"Honoured Sir ... On arriving at Caxton, in the course of conversation with the landlord of the Crown Public-House respecting the loss of the above-mentioned bag, he informed me he had found a mail bag secreted under an oak floor between the joists that supported the floor in one of the upper rooms of his house, and that the letters it contained were of very ancient date, as far back as the year 1702. I requested to be allowed to see them, and, on his producing them, discovered it to be a London bag labelled Tuxford. I desired to be allowed to take two of the letters with me and a bit of the bag, which I gave to Mr. Peacock the solicitor. The only intelligence I could gain as to the probable cause of the bag being found there was that a post-rider was robbed and murdered about the date of the above-mentioned letters." The two letters are still with the official papers. One of them is undecipherable. The other is nearly as legible as on the day it was written. In it the writer announces to his uncle the death of his mother from "the Small Pox and purples," and states that this disease is devastating the town of Kirtlington.
[79] Weekly Political Register, Nos. 25 and 26, 21st and 28th Dec. 1805.
[80] What we have here called "franked" newspapers went free in both directions; but of course it was only newspapers outwards that bore a signature on the superscription. On those inwards a signature was immaterial, as they would in any case go, without being charged, direct from the port of arrival to Lombard Street. Abroad, special arrangements for their transit and delivery were made from London. Thus, the London Office by means of its private agency could get an English newspaper delivered in Paris for 2d. By post, the charge between Calais and Paris would have been from 3s. to 4s.
[81] One of the first, if not the very first, against whom proceedings were taken under this provision of the statute was Robert Wetherall, master of the ship Albinia, from Gravesend to the Cape of Good Hope. Wetherall had at the last moment refused to take the mails on board, consisting of 173 letters. On the advice of the law officers the Post Office contemplated proceeding against him by indictment; but the Government decided to proceed by information, with a view apparently to give to the case greater importance and notoriety.
[82] Clancarty was afterwards appointed joint postmaster-general of England. This appointment he held from 30th September 1814 to 6th April 1816, but he never took it up. Between the dates mentioned he was employed on missions abroad.
[83] At one time the express newspapers went all the way from London to Dublin post free; but this, at the date of the advertisement, had been stopped, and as far as Holyhead their carriage was now being provided for under an arrangement with the London agents. From Holyhead to Dublin, however, they still went in the mail free of postage, and on arrival in Dublin such of them as were destined for the country were franked by the clerks of the roads.
[84] In 1823 the Irish mail-coaches travelled daily a distance of 1450 miles at a cost to the Post Office of more than £30,000 a year, while in England the cost over the same number of miles would have been only £7500. From this, however, it is not to be understood that in one country the cost was four times as heavy as in the other, because the Irish mile was longer than the English one by about two furlongs, and in England the contractors did not, as they did in Ireland, provide the coaches.
[85] The exact number of passengers in the year 1814 was 14,577, made up as follows: Cabin passengers, 12,142; passengers' servants, 1136; hold passengers, 1299.
[86] The following are copies of the advertisements referred to:—
"The Howth Royal Mail-Coach sets out every evening at seven o'clock from the Cork Coach Office, 12 Dawson Street, where passengers and luggage will be booked, and arrives at Howth at a quarter after eight, when the packet will immediately sail (independently of the tide) with the Irish mails and passengers for Holyhead. From the admirable construction of these vessels for fast sailing and excellent accommodation the passage from the pier at Howth to Holyhead will on the average be performed in one-third less time than by the Pigeon House. Besides, as no more than eight or ten passengers will be admitted into any one of these packets, the public, on the score of expedition and comfort, will soon experience the advantage of going to Holyhead by Howth.