Such were the amazing liberties taken with correspondence in those days. No wonder that the Times proceeded to resent the outrage. In its issue of the 9th of May 1807 appeared an article which, after charging the Post Office with extortions and with sacrificing public convenience to the avarice of individuals, proceeded to declare that its administration was a disgrace to the Government. Freeling's indignation knew no bounds. That the charge was just never seems to have occurred to him. In his view it was nothing less than a libel—a libel of the most malignant character. Never had man been more cruelly wronged than himself. The postmasters-general, Lords Sandwich and Chichester, had been only four days in office, and their chief-officer was as yet unknown to them. Obviously the intention was to damage this officer's reputation in the eyes of his new masters. But this intention should be frustrated. A criminal information should be filed. No; not a criminal information, for thus the aggressor's mouth would be closed. It should be a civil suit or action at law; and then the aggressor would be at liberty to tell his own tale, and all the world should see how little justification there was for his aspersions.
At this time it was not known to Freeling that letters for the Times sent under cover to the Under-Secretaries of State were being diverted from the ordinary course; and when, a little later on, the fact of diversion became known to him, the terms in which he expressed his sense of the impropriety were such as even the aggrieved newspaper would probably have held to leave nothing to be desired. But to apologise and arrest proceedings—these were things which would appear not to have come within the sphere of contemplation. An action had been begun, and it must proceed to the bitter end. A righteous cause is not necessarily one that can be defended at law. Such would seem to have been the case in the present instance, for when the action came on for trial, the Times failed to appear, and judgment went by default.
Freeling was jubilant over the result. Here was a triumphant vindication of his own and Stanhope's proceedings. A charge had been brought—a charge as serious as any that could be levelled against a public department, and not even an attempt had been made to substantiate it. This was a happy termination of an unhappy business. So, at least, thought Freeling; but, as a matter of fact, the business was far from being terminated yet.
On the 27th of July, within three weeks of his reporting to the postmasters-general the result of the action at law, appeared a second article headed "Post Office," in which the iniquities of the system were ruthlessly exposed. Strong language, indeed—language such as two months before had brought the Times within the meshes of the law—was carefully avoided, and the article confined itself to a bare narrative of facts. But the case against the Post Office lost nothing on this account. The facts spoke for themselves, and these, stated in their naked simplicity, constituted an indictment, to the weight of which no words could add. We can well believe that from this period the Times received its foreign newspapers in due course; but in other respects the only effect which the appearance of the second article had upon the Post Office was to spoil the triumph which it was celebrating over the result of the first. As to changing their practice and setting their house in order, this appears not to have occurred to either Freeling or Stanhope. On the contrary, they regarded themselves as deeply-injured persons, and, by dint of sheer importunity, induced the postmasters-general to consent to a second prosecution. Wiser counsels, however, prevailed. The attorney-general, to whom the official papers were sent, took care not to return them, and to the present day the Post Office is without these interesting records.
It is time we inquired what measure of success had attended the experimental posts—the posts by which, under mutual agreement between the Post Office and the inhabitants, small towns and villages were to be connected with post towns. Village posts, they were sometimes called; but more commonly fifth-clause posts, from the clause of the Act under which they were established. At first they answered well, but in 1807 an authoritative decision to the effect that franked letters and newspapers conveyed by a fifth-clause post were exempt from charge tended materially to disconcert arrangements. Franked letters, though exempt from charge by the general post, were not exempt either by the penny posts in the country or by the twopenny post in London; and it had been taken for granted that they, as well as newspapers, would not be exempt by the fifth-clause posts.
But it had now been decided otherwise, and this made all the difference. In arranging these posts nothing more had been aimed at than to make them self-supporting, and in adjusting the receipts and expenditure franks and newspapers had been counted as so many letters; but if these were to be eliminated, the balance would be on the wrong side. A service that was not self-supporting was, at the beginning of the century, regarded by the Post Office authorities as an abomination; and saddled as they were with a number of fifth-clause posts which had ceased to pay their own expenses, it became a serious question what was best to be done.
A decision was precipitated by the action of the little town of Olney in Buckinghamshire. Olney had at one time received from headquarters in Lombard Street what was called "an allowance in aid of its post"; but when fifth-clause posts were introduced this allowance ceased, and the inhabitants, in consideration of their being supplied with an official messenger from Newport Pagnel, agreed to pay over and above all other postage the sum of 1d. on each letter delivered. This agreement had now existed for several years, and the inhabitants had grown a little tired of it, being of opinion that a private messenger of their own could be procured on easier terms. Accordingly they petitioned headquarters to reduce the rate they were paying from 1d. to 1/2d. a letter, and, the request being refused, they proceeded to consider whether their agreement should not be terminated.
This having come to Freeling's ears, he stopped the post at once, and the inhabitants were left to get their letters as best they could. Not even notice of his intention had been given. Nor was this all. These capricious and discontented people, he said, should have imposed upon them a penny post. Under a penny post they would still have their pence to pay; and the pence would be payable, not, as under the fifth-clause post, only on the letters delivered, but on those collected as well. This, while operating as a punitive measure, would have the incidental advantage of adding to the revenue. Freeling was a bold man, and yet, bold as he was, his courage deserted him in this instance. At the last moment, after arrangements had been made for converting the fifth-clause post into a penny post, the order for conversion was revoked. To impose a penny post, he argued, would be no injustice; it would not even be a hardship, and yet these unreasonable people would be sure to represent it as such. They would urge that at one time their town had received an allowance in aid of its post; that then a foot-messenger had been established, and they paid 1d. on each letter delivered; and that now because they proposed to replace this messenger, as the Act of Parliament gave them power to do, by a messenger of their own, who would perform the service at a cheaper rate, an older Act was brought to bear upon them which, while obliging them to pay 1d. on each letter collected as well as delivered, made the employment of their own messenger illegal.
Such were the arguments by which Freeling excused himself to the postmasters-general, as though an excuse were necessary, for not going on with the high-handed proceeding he had originally contemplated. In the result, Olney was given a Post Office of its own, being made in technical language a sub-office under Newport Pagnel, the post town. A rule was at the same time laid down to the effect that fifth-clause posts should no longer be maintained except in the case of small towns. To connect these with post towns fifth-clause posts might still be continued; but, in the case of villages and hamlets, they were to be replaced by penny posts. From this rule the fifth-clause posts received their death-blow. Such of them as were village posts were promptly converted into penny posts; and such as were town posts, as the small towns acquired Post Offices of their own, became gradually merged in the general posts of the kingdom.
The Post Office, which during the last ten or fifteen years had done much to impair its own utility, was now to receive a check from without; and this in respect to a branch of its service which was perhaps least open to criticism. The mail-coach system had continued to prosper. In 1811 the number of mail-coaches constantly running in Great Britain was about 220, and the extent of road over which they travelled was between 11,000 and 12,000 miles a day. The country gentry and the commercial classes vied with each other in demanding an extension of the system. Towns lying off the main road were glad to pay 1d. a letter in addition to the postage on condition of the mail-coach passing through them on its way. The mail-coach, moreover, apart from the facilities it afforded for communication, brought traffic in its train. It gave, in the language of the time, publicity to the roads. Palmer had, more than twenty years before, noticed this result and commented upon it. He found as a matter of experience that wherever a mail-coach was set up other traffic followed, and the post-chaises along the road were furbished up and better conducted.