Matters having come to this pass, the two Houses held a conference. The result might easily have been foreseen. The Lords yielded to the Commons, and Burlamachi, on rendering an account which had long been called for, was released from custody together with the others who had been imprisoned at the same time. Concerning the next two years little is known; but it seems probable that Burlamachi, who in his petition praying for release had pleaded old age and infirmities, did not long survive the indignity to which he had been exposed. At all events, in 1644, either by death or resignation, the office of Master of the Posts had become vacant, and, as Burlamachi's successor, the House of Commons appointed Prideaux.
Thus ended the battle of the patents, which had raged more or less fiercely for more than twenty years. It was long indeed before Lords Warwick and Stanhope ceased urging their claims, Warwick as Witherings's assignee, and Stanhope on the allegation that at the Council Table the Lord Keeper Coventry had cajoled him into surrendering his patent; but after Prideaux's appointment there was no farther appeal to force.
CHAPTER IV
EDMUND PRIDEAUX AND CLEMENT OXENBRIDGE
1644—1660
Hardly had Prideaux assumed the direction of the letter office before he gave public notice that there would be a weekly conveyance of letters into all parts of the kingdom. There is reason to doubt, however, whether under his rule as much or nearly as much as this was accomplished. Next to Norwich, Yarmouth was then, as it is now, the chief town in the eastern counties; and yet it is certain that a post to Yarmouth was not established until after Prideaux's rule had ceased; and more than fifty years later we find his successors lamenting that, while Lincolnshire generally was ill provided with posts, there were several towns in that county which had no post at all.
But to whatever extent Prideaux's professions exceeded his performance, it is beyond question that he spared no effort to extend the posts, and that he is justly entitled to the credit, not indeed of improving upon Witherings's scheme, but of carrying that scheme into more general effect. Despite his exertions, however, he failed to keep pace with the wants of the time. Indeed, what facilities for intercourse had been given already seem to have created a demand for more. In 1649 the Common Council of the city of London, not content with a post only once a week to Scotland, established a post of their own. Along the whole line of road between London and Edinburgh they appointed their own postmasters and settled their own postage, and the same plan they proceeded to adopt in other parts. Prideaux, who to his office of Master of the Posts had recently added that of Attorney-General, was highly incensed. Only a few years before, the State monopoly of letters, when the State was represented by the Crown, had been the object of his fiercest denunciation, and now this same monopoly was a cherished possession to be defended at all hazards. First he remonstrated. Then he threatened. And neither threats nor remonstrances having any effect upon the city authorities, he reported their proceedings to the Council of State, and the Council of State reported them to Parliament. Parliament was in no mood for concession. The city posts were promptly suppressed, and more than thirty years elapsed before private enterprise again embarked upon a similar venture.
The report which Prideaux made to the Council of State had another result, which probably he little contemplated. In that report he had taken credit to himself that, although the charges of management had risen to £7000 a year, or about twice the amount they had been in Witherings's time, he had relieved the State from the whole of this burden. In other words, the posts had become self-supporting, but, so far as appeared from the report, were nothing more. The House of Commons was not satisfied. Accordingly the Council was instructed to examine and report whether the terms on which the letter office was held were the best that could be obtained. The investigation was soon made. Heretofore, in consideration of his defraying the charges, Prideaux had been allowed to receive the postage and make what he could out of it. For the future, besides defraying the charges, he was to pay to the State a fixed rent of £5000 a year. This was the introduction of the system of farming, a system which, as regards the posts generally, continued to nearly the end of the seventeenth and, as regards the by-posts, beyond the middle of the eighteenth century.
In 1653 Prideaux ceased to be Master of the Posts. Two years before he had been elected a member of the Council of State, and shortly after his election, and probably as a consequence of it, the arrangements for communicating with the army had reached a high state of perfection. Between the Council and the forces in Scotland messengers, we are told, were passing almost every hour. But, useful as he may have made himself, Prideaux seems to have been altogether wanting in those qualities which are calculated to inspire confidence. At the Treaty of Uxbridge, where he was one of the commissioners, even his own colleagues had regarded him as a spy. This feeling of distrust may possibly explain how it happened that, after the expulsion of the Long Parliament, he was forced to content himself with his appointment as Attorney-General. The Council of State, as then reconstructed, did not include him among its members, and one of the first acts of the new Council was to relieve him from the responsibilities of the letter office. Grasping as he was, it is impossible to suppose that this can have been done by his own wish, for the appointment of Master of the Posts, though weighted with a rent of £5000 a year, was still a very lucrative one. His successor paid a rent of double that amount, and is reputed to have derived from his farm an enormous profit.