The Early History of the Post in Grant and Farm

by James Wilson Hyde

To return to John Thurloe. Thurloe was Secretary of State under both Oliver and Richard Cromwell; and, after the resignation of the latter, he continued to hold his Secretaryship till the 14th January 1660. "In April 1659, he used his utmost efforts to dissuade the Protector from dissolving the Parliament; a step which proved fatal to his authority." He had previously been "very obnoxious to the principal persons of the army, to whose interests, wherever they interfered with those of the civil government, he was a declared enemy"; and it is not improbable that this antagonism led to his being relieved of the farm of the Post Office. But his deprivation of the office of Postmaster-General and Farmer of the Post did not take place till later in the year, and under circumstances which Thurloe describes in his State Papers. In a document of February 1660, he writes:—"I humbly offer to consideration, that within less than a fortnight of the 29th Sept. last"—that is, a fortnight after—"my farm was, by virtue of an Act of Parliament dated the 11th Oct., made null and void; and the office itself, as it stood at that time, set aside; and consequently no more rent payable; and it was then lawful for any other person to set up other posts for the carrying of such letters as should be brought to them, which very many accordingly practised."

The State records during the closing period of the interregnum are very imperfect, but sufficient has been left to enable us to trace the position of affairs as relating to the Posts. Two months before the passing of the Act just mentioned,—namely, on the 8th of August,—the Council of State resolved that the Post Office should be farmed, that is, let out to some farmer other than Thurloe; but, until Thurloe should be removed, this could not be arranged.

Now, as a consequence of these proceedings, and of the Act of the 11th October, the office passed into the hands of Dr. Benjamin Worsley, to whom the farm was then granted for a term of seven years, at a rental of £20,000. This seems a large advance upon the previous rent of £10,000; but Thurloe states that he improved the office £4000 per annum to the State voluntarily, which he might have put in his own purse; and the rent he was paying when he vacated the farm must have been £14,000 a year. But Worsley did not long enjoy the position, for shortly thereafter he was "violently turned out." Worsley had been selected, as one of several persons, for nomination to Parliament as a general officer by the Committee of Safety in July 1659. In October following, the government was in the hands of a Committee of Safety composed for the most part of officers; and Worsley being a military man, the Post Office might be supposed to be in safe hands if placed under his care.

We have been unable to discover to what family Dr. Worsley belonged. It is not improbable that he was connected by family ties with Charles Worsley, who had been one of the colonels of Cromwell's own regiment of foot. According to the Journals of the House of Commons, Benjamin Worsley was, in July 1647, appointed to be one of the Physicians, General-Surgeons, and Apothecaries of the Army in Ireland, and was then sent to Dublin. In March 1650, he was appointed Secretary to the Commissioners under the Act for regulating Trade, and, in 1653, Secretary to the Commissioners for Ireland. He was then selected as a fit person to accompany Viscount Lisle, as secretary, in a projected embassy to Sweden; but the embassy, so far as Lisle was concerned, did not proceed.

Now, on the 26th December 1659, the Rump was again in the ascendant, and constituted themselves a House. On the 3rd January 1660, Parliament appointed a new Council; on the 9th January, the House of Commons resolved to take the Post Office into its own hands, and that it should "be managed for the best advantage of the Commonwealth"; on the 10th January, Thomas Scott, a member of Parliament, one of the Council of State, and a hot-headed republican, was appointed by the House of Commons "to receive informations of private and public intelligence, as the Secretary of State heretofore had and used, and present them to the Council of State"; and, a week later, he was appointed Secretary of State to the Commonwealth. Now these events, taken in connection with the fact that, on the 21st January 1660, the Council of State issued an order "to apprehend Benj. Worsley and bring him in custody before the Council," may warrant us in concluding that this is the time when Worsley was "violently turned out" of the Post Office.

In succession to Worsley, Secretary of State Scott seems to have become Postmaster-General, but his connection with the Post Office was of brief duration; for a Parliament more favourable to the Restoration commenced sitting on the 3rd March 1660, and all persons who had been active in their opposition to the Royal House began to consider what was best for their own preservation. Scott was one of the men who had signed the death-warrant of King Charles I., and no doubt he would be forward in clearing out. That Scott was virtually Postmaster-General for a time seems to be proved by a warrant, issued by the Council of State on the 9th March 1660, "for intelligence, from the proceeds of the Post Office, paid by Wm. Scott and Isaac Dorislaus, whilst they managed it under Thomas Scott, £1000."

Like most of the Postmasters-General of these early days, Scott had an experience of imprisonment. After the Restoration he was taken; he had been excepted out of the general indemnity given by Charles II.; and on the 17th October he suffered death, with several others, in the presence of the king. Evelyn thus refers, in his diary, to the closing scene in the career of Postmaster-General Scott:—"I saw not their execution, but met their quarters, mangled and cut and reeking, as they were brought from the gallows in baskets on the hurdle. Oh! the miraculous providence of God!" So much for a royalist exclamation, and the laying of responsibility on the shoulders of Providence. For a short period after Secretary Scott quitted the Post Office, it is not very clear how it was managed; but a State paper of 3rd August 1660 shows that an account was rendered of its business from 25th March to 25th June of that year by Job Allibond and Francis Manley—the former a clerk in the office, and the latter Riding Purveyor to His Majesty. The receipts for the quarter were stated to be £5578, 9s. 5d., and the disbursements, £5431, 9s. 6d. Manley speaks of himself as being late Manager.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Havre-de-Grace.

[3] Königsberg.