[15] In the case of Grimsby it is the more surprising that this should have been so, because out of the only five towns in the kingdom which the Act of 1660 mentions by name Grimsby is one. According to this Act the post was to go there once a week.
[16] 1661. Feb. 3rd. Robert Reade to Charles Spellman. "Att the right honourable my Lord Townshend's in the Old Palace Yard, Westminster." The writer says that he has as yet received no command from Mr. Spellman or from Lord Townshend, "nor do I wonder at it, because the flying post lay drunke last Friday at Fakenham (being the day that he should have binn at Thetford to take those letters then there which he should bring hether on Saterday), and had not changed his quarter yesterday as I am informed by one of Scott's men who saw him pittyfully drunke. The cuntry complaines of him."—Historical Manuscripts Commission, Eleventh Report, Appendix, Part iv. p. 25.
[17] The Forty-Sixth Annual Report of the Deputy-Keeper of the Public Records, Appendix ii. p. 69.
[18] Clarendon's Life, vol. i. p. 135.
[19] Writing in 1709, Mr. Manley, the postmaster-general's deputy in Dublin, says, "There are not less than a thousand more houses now than there were at my first coming here [i.e. in 1703]. Besides, there are many new streets now laid out and buildings erecting every day."
[20] "To divers Masters of Shipps for 60447 letters by them brought from forreigne parts this year at one penny each according to the usage—£251:17:3."—Extract from writ of Privy Seal for passing the accounts of "our Right Trusty and Right well-beloved Couzen and Councellor Lawrence Earle of Rochester, Late our High Treasurer of England."
[21] "This is to give notice that Lancellot Plumer and William Barret are appointed by the Postmaster-General of England to receive all such letters and pacquets from masters of ships and vessels, mariners and passengers as shall be by them hereafter brought in any ships or vessels into the Port of London, to the end the same may be delivered with speed and safety according to their respective directions and the laws of this kingdom; and that all masters of ships or vessels and all mariners and passengers may the better take notice thereof, the Right Honourable the Lords of the Admiralty have directed that the boat employed in this service do carry colours, in which there is to be represented a man on horseback blowing a post horn."—London Gazette, No. 3247, from Monday 21st December to Thursday 24th December 1696.
[22] Equal, at the then rate of exchange, to £2437:10s.
[23] "It being a certain maxim," he wrote to the postmasters-general on the 15th of February 1707, "that as Trade is the producer of correspondence, so trade is governed and influenced by the certainty and quickness of correspondence."
[24] In 1706, Court or State letters, for at this time the terms were used indiscriminately, were defined to be letters directed to "the Queen, His Royal Highness the Prince, the Lord High Treasurer, and the two principal Secretarys of State and their clarks." Sometimes, but more rarely, they were called "Queen's letters."