There are grounds for supposing that at this time some order had been issued, empowering the postmasters to keep in their stables supplies of horses, taken up in the neighbourhood, and, while standing in the stables, to be fed at the owners' expense. This seems the meaning of a presentment made at the Grand Inquest at the Assizes holden at Bath on the 2nd July 1638. The statement made is: "That of late there are come commissions into the country, under the hand of the two Secretaries of State, to all postmasters, for taking up such numbers of horses as the postmasters shall think fit; and the postmasters take into their stables ten or twelve horses at one time, and keep them two nights, and then take in so many more; and if they have employment for any of them, they pay the post price, otherwise they make the owners pay for their meat and dressing what rate they please; but some, upon composition, they release, which makes the burthen the heavier upon the rest. We beseech you to present this grievance to His Majesty."
The way in which traffic was carried on in the places of country postmasterships, and the duties delegated to deputies, is set forth in a petition to the king, of February 1638, from Randolph Church, one of His Majesty's gentlemen pensioners. Petitioner "has for sixteen years served as serjeant-at-arms, and, since he left that place, in the place wherein he now serves; during which time he never received benefit by any suit; but he purchased some post places under Lord Stanhope, which he has executed by deputies for many years. But now Lord Stanhope, having surrendered his patent, petitioner's post places, to the value of £200 per annum, are taken away, there being £650 due to him for wages upon the said places; and now petitioner, being employed in the prosecution of delinquents for converting timber to coal for making iron, and having expended much money therein, and being likely to bring great sums into the Exchequer, the means by which he should subsist are taken away. Beseeches some such satisfaction out of moneys brought into the Exchequer by his present service as may equal his places and arrears."
There seems almost no end of the petitions which came up from the postmasters upon all phases of their duties and pay. Thomas Carr, postmaster of Berwick, thus complains: "Thomas Witherings, in consideration of his grant of the letter office of England and foreign parts, is to pay the posts their wages. Witherings has reduced the wages of Thomas Carr from 2s. 4d. to 1s. per diem, all the rest being cut off only but the third part of their pay, which will not be sufficient to find horse and man to perform the service; moreover, they are enjoined to more service than formerly, viz. to carry his mail of letters forward and backward once a week gratis. Witherings employs one at Berwick to carry his letters from thence to Edinburgh for 20s. a week. Carr has offered to perform it for a great deal less; but Witherings not only denies the same, but threatens to put Carr out of his place if he go not speedily down, he waiting only for the arrears of his post wages, without which he is not able to subsist. Requests that his pay may be made 1s. 8d. per diem, that he may carry the letters from Berwick to Edinburgh, and also that he may be sworn His Majesty's servant, as the other posts are."
In a position such as Witherings held, and in a period when the public mind was greatly disturbed, it must have been a hard task for any man to keep free from entanglements and quarrels with the public. We have several notices of differences, more or less serious, in which Witherings was concerned. In May 1633, he is reported to have "misbehaved himself toward my Lord Marshal and his son Lord Maltravers," but in what respect is not stated. Again, in May 1636, Captain Carterett writes (to Sir John Coke, apparently), from on board his ship in the Downs, complaining of Witherings, as follows:—"Being in Dover Road, there came unto me one Mr. Thomas Witherings (who is also called Postmaster-General) for to have Captain Dunning's vessel to carry him over for Calais, having a packet (as he said) from your honour to my Lord Ambassador at Paris. I told him he should have the Roebuck, or I would go over with him myself. I desired him to show me the packet, but he told me he would neither show me order nor packet; he began to use me in very rough and coarse language, notwithstanding that I did use him with all the civility I could. I have heard that he had never a packet, but only went over to Calais about his own businesses. He gave out that he doth belong to your honour." There are always two sides to a story; and when Witherings' version had been heard, the tables were turned upon the captain. This appears by a letter, written by Secretary Coke to (probably) the Governor of Dover about the same period. "Finding our foreign letters," says Coke, "come with less expedition than they were used to do, and requiring account thereof from the Postmaster of Foreign Parts, he excused himself by a certificate that Captain Carteret, who is trusted with that business, refuses to put to sea with merchants' letters only. He formerly charged Mr. Witherings with uncivil usage, which I discovered to have no ground. His Majesty requires your lordship to rectify this disorder; and to charge Captain Carteret, to whom you give this trust, to be careful to convey the merchants' packets as his own. And if he be not conformable, that you appoint some other more proper for that duty; which Captain Drury before him performed with good content, and may haply be still ready to undertake." But two years later Witherings had a difference with a man of much higher standing, namely, the Earl of Northumberland, then Lord General of the Forces at Sea, arising out of some failure in the conveyance of a packet. The precise facts are not clear; but the immediate action taken by the earl is described in a letter from Witherings (to Secretary Coke, no doubt) dated 29th September 1638:—"It was my unhappy fortune," says Witherings, "to meet with Mr. Smyth, secretary to the Earl of Northumberland, who told me that his lordship had sent a warrant directed to a messenger for me. I went to his lordship's house—was there by six of the clock in the morning, where, after two hours' stay, I spoke with his honour; and the weather being extreme cold, I got an ague, and am now forced to keep my bed. The stage at Farnham, he told me, was a stage in pay; and I promised (if it were so) I would move your honour to compel him (the postmaster) to carry his lordship's packets. He also told me I had abused his lordship in not sending forward the packets which were brought to my house; to which I answered: that belonged not to me, but to the ordinary posts of the road" (probably the ordinary carriers are meant). "I also told his honour that I had sent for the packet books of all the posts betwixt London and Dover, to the intent if any abuse were committed it might be punished. Notwithstanding his honour was very well satisfied with my answers to him, his servant Smyth delivered the warrant to the messenger; and though I was in bed, yet he came up to my chamber, and, in a very violent way, asked me if I would obey the warrant or not; to whom I answered, that in regard of my sickness I could not at this time do it. Your honour may be pleased to satisfy his lordship in this business." In perusing this letter, we are struck with two things—the peremptoriness of the proceedings taken against a man in Witherings' position, and with his treatment at the earl's house. The latter is reminiscent of Dr. Johnson in the ante-room of the Earl of Chesterfield.
In August 1638, Witherings was returning from a journey he had made into the north, when he was laid-up ill at Ware. On the 8th of that month, his servant Waad writes to Secretary Coke, that "yesterday I found my master ill at Ware, intending this day to set forward to Walthamstow." It immediately became rumoured in London that Witherings was dead. "The wish" may, in some minds, "have been father to the thought"; for Windebank had been looking into the possible removal of Postmaster Witherings, and Burlamachi, merchant and financier, lost no time in taking steps with a view to securing the office to himself. The very next day after the rumour was set about, a letter was written by Burlamachi to Sir John Coke, bespeaking the succession to the supposed vacant place. "Since Witherings is dead," says Burlamachi, "I write to offer my services to your honour; assuring you that you may dispose of me; and I hope I shall be not less capable of advancing the interests of His Majesty than Witherings has been." But Witherings, although he had had a sharp attack of illness, was not dead. A week later, he was no farther on his way towards London than Walthamstow, whence he writes a doleful letter to Sir John Coke, dated the 14th August 1638. The letter is as follows:—"It pleased the Lord, in this last northern journey (wherein I was sent by Mr. Secretary Windebank), to inflict upon me two great fevers, which have been so heavy, that indeed, had not the Lord been more merciful, gracious, and favourable towards me, I should no ways have been able to endure them for one hour of the time. I am a weak and miserable man; yet no doubt of life nor fear of health, if God (for my manifold sins) do not again lay His heavy hand upon me. To-morrow (God willing) I shall be at London," etc.
The period at which we have now arrived, 1638-39, was one of widespread distraction and trouble throughout the whole kingdom, the people being divided into two very marked parties,—the Covenanters in Scotland and Presbyterians in England being on the one side, and the King's Council, with the bishops and the Church party, on the other. In circumstances such as these, it must have been very difficult for a man at the head of the Post Office to steer a middle course, as in all cases of interception or delay of letters suspicion was likely to fall upon the postmasters. Advice was given by one of the King's party, that "because there be divers Scots Covenanters about Court, who give intelligence (both by the ordinary and posters"—that is, by men riding post—"and journiers into Scotland), a course should be taken that the letters may be opened; and that the Governor of Berwick may give order for some strict searching and examining the Scots travellers." And as a matter of fact, the posts were waylaid and the letters carried to Secretary Coke. In a letter written from Berwick to Secretary Windebank, on the 26th September 1638, Sir James Douglas complains that "he who carries the running-post letters betwixt Berwick and Edinburgh plays the rogue with all the letters that come from Edinburgh to me, so I have prohibited any to write to me that way." It is not clear whether Witherings lent himself to this espionage of the letters, or whether he tried to keep clear of it; but subsequent events might almost seem to suggest that Witherings inclined to the Presbyterian or popular party, and that he was distrusted by the Court. Reference has been made to Burlamachi, who lately applied for the place of Chief Postmaster. This man, as has already been mentioned, was a native of Sedan in France, but naturalised in England. He was largely employed by the King and Council in financial matters of State, and had a hand in negotiating a loan of money upon the Crown jewels taken over to Holland early in Charles' reign. These jewels remained in Holland until November 1636; and while there, Burlamachi seems to have had power to pawn and repawn them at pleasure, to the tune and measure of Court necessities. At one time Burlamachi was a broken man; he was granted a protection from the diligence of his creditors in 1633-34 and 35; yet he still enjoyed the confidence of Charles. This is not, however, surprising; for, in a petition from Burlamachi's daughters, at the time of the Restoration, it is stated "that their father was ruined by his advances to the king." Under these circumstances there would be a potent tie between these men, for Burlamachi could only hope for the recovery of his money through the good fortune and favour of the king. It is well that all this should be borne in mind, for Burlamachi's name will come up hereafter.
The public do not realise how effective, as a trap, the Post Office is, until they find themselves in the position of having written and posted a letter which, upon cooler reflection, they would fain withhold from the eyes of the person addressed. Cases of this kind occasionally happen in our own day, when proof is given of the irrevocability of the act of dropping a letter into the letter-box. Writers in such cases can then do nothing,—they are left to settle the business with their correspondents as best they may,—and no difficulty or trouble, as a rule, results to the officers of the Post Office. In the earliest days of the post the trap existed, as is shown by the following account of an attempt to recover a letter, after it had been committed to the care of Witherings' officers, in the year 1639. The incident shows that in these days, as well as in ours, men could write letters in haste and repent at leisure. The account comes to us in a declaration by Laurence Kirkham, an assistant in one of the offices appointed in London for the taking in letters for the post. It states that "upon Tuesday the 4th June came William Davies to my master's shop, my mistress and I being there present, to take in letters for Mr. Witherings, His Majesty's Postmaster both for the Northern road and West, etc., for conveyance of letters both by sea and land. Davies, coming as above, demanded a letter again which he said was his own, and that he delivered it to me that same day to go by post. I, not remembering any such thing, and he being a stranger to me, I told him that it was more than I could answer or dared do, to deliver any man's letter again, being once in my hands, especially not knowing it to be his letter; but, for quietness' sake, he being so outrageous for his letter, I told him that if he would stay until the box were opened wherein his letter was, if I found any such letter with such a superscription as he expressed his to have, I would deliver it to him, provided that he carried it not away nor break it open; but he might add something outside, or stick a note in it, if I saw it were no hurt; or rather, if he would write another letter after it, I would give him the portage of it. But this would not satisfy him; he swore I should not keep his letter from him, but he would have it; and thrust his hand into a heap of letters which lay before him in the shop, he well knowing that his letter was not there, and took what he could get of letters and packets, and put in his pocket—some scattering in the street and some in the shop, a multitude of people being gathered together. What he took and what he lost is uncertain, as also what damage my master and others may receive thereby, there being letters to the nobility and many others to the army in the North, and divers to other countries. My mistress, striving with him, was hurt, and her hand bruised; and I, holding him in the street for the letters, he fell upon me, beat and pulled me by the hair, kicked me, and tore my apparel, by which abuse I received damage." This must have been a very pretty little scene, and it would have been interesting to know how the law took notice of Mr. Davies' obstreperous conduct.