The History of the Post Office, from Its Establishment Down to 1836

by Herbert Joyce

Freeling took a different view. The better the bargain was for the British Post Office, the more determined he was that with his consent the terms should not be altered. And, more than this, he little relished the prospect of competition between English and Irish packets. Indeed, so long had he been accustomed to deal with a monopoly that the very name of competition was hateful to him. At this very time he tried, and tried in vain, to repress a boat which had been set up between Weymouth and the Channel Islands in opposition to the packets. Another similar attempt which he made a little later was hardly more successful. The War Office had chartered vessels to convey troops between Bristol and Waterford, and these vessels had assumed the title of "Government Packets," a title which, according to Freeling, induced persons to go by them who would otherwise have gone by the Post Office packets from Milford. Lord Palmerston was then Secretary at War, and we think we see the twinkle in his eye as he replied to Freeling's letter of remonstrance. Freeling's objection was of course to the Bristol boats being styled packets, but he had spoken of them by the title by which they were known of "Government Packets." The contractors, wrote Lord Palmerston, had been directed to drop the word Government forthwith, and the boats would henceforth be called War Office packets, to distinguish them from the packets employed by the Post Office.

Attached to the Irish Post Office, by virtue of a contract which had yet some years to run, were boats called wherries. Originally designed to carry between the two countries special messengers and despatches during the period immediately succeeding the Union, they had long lost their original character, and were now being employed in picking up what goods and passengers they could, and transporting them across the Channel in opposition to the packets. These boats were not ill adapted to the purpose which Lees had in hand. On the 19th of July 1813 he despatched a letter to Freeling, incidentally mentioning that "as the intended packet station at Howth had sufficient depth of water for the vessels belonging to the Irish Post Office, it was in contemplation, until such time as the regular packets should be stationed there, that the mails from Ireland should be despatched in its own vessels, and that, as soon as the arrangements now in progress should be completed, the measure would take effect." This letter was received in London on the 23rd of July, and on the next day intelligence reached Lombard Street that the mail from Ireland had been refused to the British packet and had been given to the Irish wherry.

And now might be witnessed a most unedifying spectacle—in Dublin Lees placarding the walls of the city with advertisements,[86] vaunting the merits of his own packets; at Holyhead the authorised packets arriving without the mails, and the mails being brought by boats which did not arrive until after the mail-coach for London had started; and in London Freeling wringing his hands and invoking the aid of the Government to check the vagaries of his brother-secretary on the other side of the Channel. "For the first time," he wrote, "the postmasters-general of Great Britain have not the means of redressing grievances connected with their own department, and the most serious remonstrances may be expected from the merchants and traders of London on this alarming and unnecessary evil."

The prediction was a safe one. Not only were the mails often one day behindhand in arriving in London, but the letters they brought were charged with an additional rate of postage in respect of the distance between Dublin and Howth. The merchants flocked to the Post Office to inquire the reason. No reason could be given them, and they were invited to let their applications for a return of the charge stand over until the postmasters-general should have informed themselves on the subject. Some assented; others accused the postmasters-general of trifling, and demanded instant redress. Matters had thus gone on for a fortnight when Lord Liverpool, to whom an appeal had been made, directed that the wherries should be withdrawn. One is left to suppose that this direction cannot have been communicated in the proper quarter, for as a matter of fact it had no result. In vain the captains of the packets applied at the Dublin Post Office for the British mails. All such applications met with a flat refusal, and the mails continued to be sent by the wherries as before. At length an end was put to the scandal, but not until it had lasted for more than six weeks.

The question now arose whether for the forty-four days during which the wherries had acted as packets the compensation of £4000 a year which Ireland received from Great Britain should not be withheld. Freeling had not only taken it for granted that such would be the case, but had been unable to conceal his regret that this was the only penalty of which the circumstances would admit. Liverpool, however, decided otherwise. Lees might have been wrong-headed and even perverse, but there could be no doubt that law was on his side. Accordingly, the compensation was paid for the period during which the packets had not carried the mails, and not long afterwards the Government brought in a bill raising the amount which Ireland was to receive from £4000 a year to £6000.

We now pass over six years. In July 1819 a curious invention, which had for some little time been in practical operation on the Thames between London and Margate, was brought into use between Holyhead and Dublin. This was no other than a vessel propelled by steam. Two vessels of this class were now set up by private individuals styling themselves the Dublin Steam Packet Company; and of this company, to the amazement of the authorities in Lombard Street, Lees had become a director. The quality which the new vessels possessed of being able to go against wind and tide, and the comparative speed with which they accomplished the passage, soon commended them to the favour of the public; and the consequence was a reduction to the extent of nearly one-half in the number of passengers by the Post Office packets.[87] The matter was serious, for it was in consequence of the fares which the captains received that they let their boats to the Post Office at little more than a nominal sum: and of course this sum would have to be increased according as the fares diminished.

We now see the Post Office at its best. Not possessing in the case of passengers a monopoly such as influenced and often perverted its action in the case of letters, the department proceeded to do much as private persons with sufficient capital at command would have done in similar circumstances, namely to build better boats than those already employed, and endeavour by the superior excellence of its service to recover the custom it had lost. Orders were given for two steam packets, the best that Boulton and Watt could build; and on the 31st of May 1821 the Royal Sovereign, of 206 tons burthen, with engines of 40 horse-power, and the Meteor, of somewhat smaller dimensions, began to ply. "Hitherto," wrote the postmasters-general eight days later, "they have answered the most sanguine expectations that had been formed of them; the letters have been delivered in Dublin earlier than was ever yet known, and Ireland has expressed herself grateful for the attention that has been shewn to her interests."

The Post Office behaved in this matter with a moderation which was altogether wanting where its monopoly was concerned. To be outdone by a private company, to employ inferior boats, boats of an obsolete type and of a low rate of speed—this would not be creditable to a public department, still less to a department whose special function it was to carry the correspondence of the country at the highest speed attainable; and properly enough the Post Office might take steps to establish its pre-eminence. But it would be quite another thing for a public department to undersell a private company, and, by charging lower fares, to run its boats off the line. This, it appeared to the authorities in Lombard Street, would exceed the bounds of fair competition. Accordingly the fares by the Post Office steam packets were fixed at the same amounts as those charged by the company; and these fares were somewhat higher than those which had been charged by the sailing packets. By sailing packet, for instance, the charge for a cabin passenger had been one guinea, by steam packet it was £1:5s.; for a horse the steam packet charge was £1:10s. as against one guinea by sailing packet, and for a coach £3:5s. as against three guineas.

These charges, which were fixed with the express object of not exposing the company to undue competition, had not been long in force before Parliament intervened. The Select Committee on Irish Communication protested in the interests of the public against the raising of the fares, and the Post Office was constrained to submit. The substitution of steam packets for sailing packets bore immediate fruit. The number of passengers carried by the Post Office between Holyhead and Dublin, which in 1820 had sunk to 7468, rose in 1821 to 13,737 and in 1822 to more than 16,000; and for some years the Holyhead packets were not only self-supporting but produced a clear gain to the revenue of more than £6000 a year.

The change which had been made at Holyhead was not long in extending itself to other packet stations from which there was communication with Ireland. Between Milford and Waterford sailing packets were replaced by steam packets in April 1824, and between Portpatrick and Donaghadee in May 1825. By sailing packet the average duration of voyage between the last-mentioned stations had been seven hours and forty-eight minutes. During the winter of 1825-26, a winter unexampled for the derangement of sea-communication, the average time which the little Post Office steamers Arrow and Dasher took to perform the voyage was less than three hours and a half.