"It will, secondly, be alleged, that it is a wrong to the carriers that bring the said letters. To which is answered, a carrier sets out from Westchester to London on the Monday, which is 120 miles. The said carrier is eight days upon the road, and upon his coming to London, delivers his letters of advice for his reloading to Westchester again, and is forced to stay in London two days, at extraordinary charges, before he can get his reloading ready. By this conveyance letters will be from Westchester to London in one day and night, so that the said carriers' loading will be ready a week before the said carriers shall come to London; and they no sooner come to London, but may be ready to depart again. The like will fall out in all other parts.

"Besides, if at any time there should be occasion to write from any of the coast towns in England or Scotland to London, by this conveyance letters will be brought immediately; and from all such places there will be weekly advice to and from London.

"As for example:—

"Any fight at sea; any distress of His Majesty's ships (which God forbid); any wrong offered by any other nation to any of the coasts of England, or any of His Majesty's forts, the posts being punctually paid, the news will come 'sooner than thought.'

"It will be, thirdly, alleged that this service may be pretended by the Lord Stanhope to be in his grant of Postmaster of England. To which is answered, neither Lord Stanhope nor any other that ever enjoyed the Postmaster's place of England had any benefit of the carrying and recarrying of the subjects' letters; besides, the profit is to pay the posts of the road, which, next unto His Majesty, belong to the office of the said Lord Stanhope; and by determination of any of the said posts' places, by death or otherwise, the Lord Stanhope will make as much of them as hath heretofore been made by this said advancement of all their places,—the Lord Stanhope now enjoying what either he or any of his predecessors hath ever heretofore done to this day."

The foregoing scheme of public posts is doubtless an amplification of that drafted by Witherings in 1633, already quoted. Witherings refers, in the closing paragraph of his scheme, to possible difficulties with Lord Stanhope; but he meets this by saying that "Lord Stanhope will make as much of them"—that is, the deputy postmasters' places—"as hath heretofore been made by this said advancement of all their places." The meaning of this appears to be, that Stanhope would still receive his fee of £66, 13s. 4d. as Chief Postmaster of England, would appoint the deputies of the roads, and continue to receive payment for the sale to them of their places.

The plan being now ripe to be put into operation, the king issued a proclamation, dated at Bagshot the 31st July 1635, "for the settling of the Letter Office of England and Scotland." The general features of the scheme are described to be: the laying of regular posts between London and Edinburgh to perform the double journey every week,—the travelling to be done in six days,—the laying of weekly posts on the other principal roads out of London, the providing of by-posts to serve the towns lying beyond the main roads. The postage rates prescribed were:—

For a single letter under 80 miles 2d.
" " " between 80 and 140 4d.
" " " above 140 6d.
" " " to Scotland or its borders 8d.

When several letters were made up in one packet, the charge was to be according to the "bigness" of the packet. The postage both for outward and inward letters was to be payable in London. On the Western road to Plymouth the charge was to be as near as possible the same as that heretofore charged. This must refer to the system of posts already established by the deputy postmasters on that road before alluded to. The several postmasters of the roads were required to keep one or two horses in their stables ready for the service as Witherings might direct them; and it was commanded that on the day on which the mail would be due, these horses were not to be let or sent forth "upon any other occasion whatsoever." For the hire of the horses, the post-messenger was to pay 2-1/2d. per horse per mile. All other messengers or foot-posts on the roads covered by Witherings were to be put down, so far as the carriage of letters was concerned, exception being made only in respect of "common known carriers, or particular messenger to be sent on purpose with a letter by any man for his own occasions, or a letter by a friend."

These, then, are the lines upon which the first general system of inland posts in Great Britain, for the use and convenience of the public, was launched by the State.