Here was a mine of wealth. Newspapers were rapidly increasing in number and postage was rapidly rising. Of course, so long as the price charged for franking was kept well below the cost of postage, the demand for franks would be brisk. Before the century was sixteen years old Freeling and Stanhope were drawing from this source more than £3000 a year each. Cobbett had had personal experience of the system. He had paid a visit to America, and having while there been supplied with a newspaper from England, he had on his return been presented with a bill for nine guineas as the price of franking. Not only did he refuse to pay the bill, and persist in his refusal in spite of repeated applications, but he inveighed in his paper against the practice which made such a charge possible. This was in 1802. He now, in December 1805, renewed his attack upon the Post Office; but this time it was in respect to the manner in which newspapers were treated on their arrival in England, a treatment still more extraordinary than that which they received on despatch.
The matter is somewhat complicated, and in order to explain it we must go back a few years. Till the breaking out of the French Revolution and the Continental wars which succeeded it, foreign intelligence had long been uninteresting and was little sought after. The few newspapers that were published in London had confined themselves almost exclusively to domestic matters. Then came a sudden change. Domestic matters fell into the background. The whole country was eager to learn what was taking place on the other side of the Channel. Newspapers multiplied apace. Where there was one before, there were now half a dozen, all hungering for foreign intelligence. Here was an opportunity for the clerks in the foreign department of the Post Office. These clerks, in conjunction with their comptroller, had the exclusive right of franking newspapers for the Continent, just as newspapers circulating within Great Britain were franked by the clerks of the roads. They had also, by virtue of their position, unequalled facilities for getting newspapers from abroad, and of these facilities they now availed themselves to the utmost.
It would not be correct to state that at this time they established a foreign news-agency, for this they had done long ago; but what had hitherto been an insignificant business now became a large and important one. It may be interesting to trace its progress. At the time of which we are writing—from 1789 onwards—the foreign correspondence was seldom in course of distribution in London till the afternoon, owing to the then established custom of waiting till two o'clock for any mail that might be due. Thus, a foreign mail arriving at three o'clock in the afternoon of one day might not be delivered until the same hour in the afternoon of the following day.
Another curious custom prevailed at this time. It was considered right, as a matter of international courtesy, that no foreign newspapers should be delivered until the foreign ministers had received their correspondence; and this correspondence, though delivered separately from the general correspondence, was seldom delivered earlier. Meanwhile the newspapers were held in reserve by the clerks, ready to be delivered to their customers as soon as delivery was permissible by the rule of the office. This was a state of things which readily lent itself to malpractices. The person whom the comptroller appointed to distribute the foreign newspapers was an old woman of the name of Cooper, and in her custody they remained during the close time, the time during which the foreign ministers' correspondence was preparing for delivery. This woman had a son who assisted her in the distribution, a young man of some ability and of no principle. He was not slow to take advantage of his position. From the foreign newspapers, while in his mother's custody, he jotted down the points of interest and sold his jottings to the London newspapers. The profits he derived from this source assumed such proportions that in the course of a few years he was reputed to have amassed a not inconsiderable fortune. From one newspaper alone, the Courier, he received no less than £200 in a single year.
Thus matters went on, save only that owing to the establishment of a second delivery of foreign correspondence the interval during which newspapers lay at the Post Office was shortened, until the year 1796, when Stanhope's appointment as comptroller put an end to one scandal merely to establish another. No sooner had Stanhope taken up his appointment than the clerks, who had long protested in vain against Cooper's conduct, broke out into fresh complaints; and the arrangement was then made which called forth Cobbett's invective. Why, argued Stanhope, should not that which Cooper has been doing clandestinely be done openly and under official sanction? It is true a rule exists that foreign newspapers must not be delivered in advance of the foreign ministers' correspondence; but a carefully-compiled summary of the contents of a newspaper is a very different thing from the newspaper itself. This, surely, might be delivered to the London editors without a breach either of the rule itself or of the considerations on which it was founded.
Such were Stanhope's arguments, and he proceeded to put them into practice. With few if any exceptions, the editors of the London newspapers, both morning and evening, fell into the plan. French and Dutch translators were engaged, and into their hands the foreign newspapers were placed as soon as they arrived at the Post Office. For each summary the charge was one guinea, and as there were generally two summaries a week, the sum which each editor paid was a little over £100 a year. The entire proceeds, after payment of expenses, were divided in certain proportions between Stanhope and his subordinates.
In 1801 and again in 1802 Cobbett had inveighed against a practice which thus amerced the editors of the London newspapers; but he might as well have preached to the winds. The practice was far too remunerative to be abandoned without a struggle. It is true that no one need take a summary unless he liked; but if he omitted to take one, it was at the cost of having only stale news to publish.
At the close of 1805 circumstances were somewhat altered, and Cobbett renewed his attack. Communication by Dover was closed, and correspondence from the Continent could reach England only by Holland and Gravesend. The best arrangements of which the circumstances admitted were made for keeping up the supply of foreign newspapers and summaries; but after a while they broke down, and the Post Office was forced to seek the assistance of the Alien Office. This office had agents at Gravesend, and undertook during the emergency to do what had hitherto been done by the Post Office. Cobbett saw his opportunity, and was not slow to take advantage of it. It had been dinned into his ears that it was through the Post Office alone that foreign newspapers could be legally obtained, and that the department could make what arrangements it pleased for their distribution. But arrangements which in the hands of the Post Office were tolerated only because they had, or were supposed to have, legal sanction had now been transferred to the Alien Office. What, then, asked Cobbett, had become of the law? To this inquiry the Post Office did not find it convenient to vouchsafe a reply.
But a still more formidable antagonist than Cobbett was about to deliver an assault. This was the Times newspaper. The Times, although among what Cobbett called "the guinea-giving papers," seldom made use of the summaries which the guineas purchased, regarding them as meagre and unsatisfactory. Drawing from other and more fertile sources, it contrived in the matter of priority of intelligence to distance all competitors. On one occasion, indeed—a remarkable feat for those days—it even forestalled the "Court," or, as they were now called, the "State" letters, which, unlike the ordinary letters, were delivered the moment the mail arrived. It was in 1807, when George Canning was Foreign Secretary. Canning had not yet opened his despatches, and was amazed to find in his morning's paper information of which he had received no previous notice, and which, as he afterwards found, the despatches contained. Indignant that his intelligence should have been thus anticipated, he instantly wrote to the Post Office demanding an explanation. Angry as Canning was, the reply he received can hardly have failed to evoke a smile. This reply was that the Continental newspapers from which the Times had derived its information had been obtained not from the Post Office but from the Foreign Office, and that they had reached this office in Canning's own bag under a cover addressed to himself.
The Times had long protested against the intolerable delay which foreign newspapers sustained at the Post Office. Especially had it protested against the absurdity of a system which, while withholding the newspapers themselves, yet permitted a summary of their contents to be published. But it had still more personal grounds of complaint. Letters for the Times, sealed letters addressed by permission to the Under-Secretaries of State, were excluded from the Foreign Office bag and kept back for the general delivery because, forsooth, the clerks at the Post Office were pleased to feel sure that these letters contained foreign newspapers, and feared that by forwarding them they would damage their own interests.