These wages may not have been considered too liberal considering the risks the men ran; and as an encouragement to greater valour in dealing with the enemy, and as an additional means of recompense, the crew were allowed to take prizes if they fell in their way. They also "received pensions for wounds, according to a code drawn up with a nice discrimination of the relative value of different parts of the body, and with a most amusing profusion of the technical terms of anatomy. Thus, after a fierce engagement which took place in February 1705, we find that Edward James had a donation of £5 because a musket-shot had grazed on the tibia of his left leg; that Gabriel Treludra had £12 because a shot had divided his frontal muscles and fractured his skull; that Thomas Williams had the same sum because a Granada shell had stuck fast in his left foot; that John Cook, who received a shot in the hinder part of his head, whereby a large division of the scalp was made, had a donation of £6, 13s. 4d. for present relief, and a yearly pension of the same amount; and that Benjamin Lillycrop, who lost the fore-finger of his left hand, had £2 for present relief, and a yearly pension of the same amount." Some other classes of wounds were assessed for pensions as follows: "Each arm or leg amputated above the elbow or knee is £8 per annum; below the knee is 20 nobles. Loss of the sight of one eye is £4, of the pupil of the eye £5, of the sight of both eyes £12, of the pupils of both eyes £14; and according to these rules we consider also how much the hurts affect the body, and make the allowances accordingly."
But between different parts of the United Kingdom, not a century ago, it is remarkable how infrequent the communications sometimes were. Nowadays, there are three or four mails a-week between the mainland and Lerwick, in Shetland, whereas in 1802 the mails between these parts were carried only ten times a-year, the trips in December and January being omitted owing to the stormy character of the weather. The contract provided that there should be used "a sufficiently strong-built packet," and the allowance granted for the service was £120 per annum. It may perhaps be worthy of notice that the amount of postage upon letters sent to Shetland in the year ended the 5th July 1802 was no more than £199, 19s. 1d. It was also stipulated, by the terms of the agreement, that the contractors should adopt a proper search of their own servants, lest they should privately convey letters to the injury of the revenue; and they were also required to take measures against passengers by the packet transgressing in the same way. On one occasion the good people in these northern islands, when memorialising for more frequent postal service, suggested that the packets would be of great use in spying out and reporting the presence of French privateers on the coast; but the Postmaster-General of the period took the sensible view that the less the packets saw of French privateers the better it would be for the packet service.
Difficulties are experienced even in the present day in communicating with some of the outlying islands of the north of Scotland, weeks and occasionally months passing without the boats carrying the mails being able to make the passage. The following is from a report made by the postmaster of Lerwick on the 27th March 1883, with reference to the interruption of the mail-service with Foula, an outlying island of the Shetland group:—
"A mail was made up on the 8th January, and several attempts made to reach the island, but unsuccessfully, until the 10th March. Fair Isle was in the same predicament as Foula, but the mail-boat was more unfortunate. A trip was effected to Fair Isle about the end of December, but none again until last week. About 9th March the boat left for Fair Isle, and nothing being heard of her for a fortnight, fears were entertained for her safety. Fortunately the crew turned up on 23d March, but their boat had been wrecked at Fair Isle. During the twenty years I have been in the service, I have never been so put about arranging our mails and posts as since the New Year; we have had heavier gales, but I do not think any one remembers such a continuation of storms as from about the first week of January to end of February; indeed it could hardly be called storms, but rather one continued storm, with an occasional lull of a few hours. I cannot recall any time during the period having twenty-four hours' calm or even moderate weather. If it was a lull at night, it was on a gale in the morning; and if a lull in the morning, a gale came on before night. The great difficulty in working Foula and Fair Isle is the want of harbours; and often a passage might be made, but the men dare not venture on account of the landing at the islands." This statement gives a fair idea of the difficulties that have to be overcome in keeping up the circulation of letters with the distant fragments of our home country.
In the packet service deeds of devotion have been done in the way of duty, as has been the case on occasions in the land service. At a period probably about 1800, a Mr Ramage, an officer attached to the Dublin Post-office, being charged with a Government despatch, to be placed on board the packet in the Bay of Dublin, found, on arriving there, that the captain, contrary to orders, had put to sea. Mr Ramage, being unable to acquit himself of his duty in one way, undertook it in another; and hiring an open boat, he proceeded to Holyhead, and there safely landed the despatch. Another instance is related in connection with the shipwreck of the 'Violet' mail-packet sailing between Ostend and Dover; the particulars being given as follows in the Postmaster-General's report for 1856:—
"Mr Mortleman, the officer in immediate charge of the mail-bags, acted on the occasion with a presence of mind and forethought which reflect honour on his memory. On seeing that the vessel could not be saved, he must have removed the cases containing the mail-bags from the hold, and so have placed them that when the ship went down they might float; a proceeding which ultimately led to the recovery of all the bags, except one containing despatches, of which, from their nature, it was possible to obtain copies."
It has already been mentioned that at the close of the seventeenth century a mail-packet was a vessel of some 85 tons—a proud thing, no doubt, in the eyes of him who commanded her. The class of ship would seem to have remained very much the same during the next hundred years; for, in the last years of the eighteenth century, a mail-packet on the Falmouth Station, reckoned fit to proceed to any part of the world, was of only about 179 tons burthen. Her crew, from commander to cook, comprised only twenty-eight persons when she was on a war footing, and twenty-one on a peace footing; and her armament was six 4-pounder guns. The victualling was at the rate of tenpence per man per day; the whole annual charge for the packet when on the war establishment, including interest on cost of ship, wages, wear and tear of fittings, medicine, &c., being £2112, 6s. 8d.; while on the peace establishment, with diminished wear and tear, and reduced crew, the charge was estimated at £1681, 11s. 9d. The packets on the Harwich station, performing the service to and from the Continent, were much less in size, being of about 70 tons burthen.
During the wars with the French at this period the mail-packets were not infrequently captured by the enemy. From 1793 to 1795 alone four of these ships were thus lost—namely, the 'King George,' the 'Tankerville,' the 'Prince William Henry,' and the 'Queen Charlotte.' The 'King George,' a Lisbon packet, homeward bound with the mails and a considerable quantity of money, was taken and carried into Brest. The 'Tankerville,' on her passage from Falmouth to Halifax, with the mails of November and December 1794, was captured by the privateer 'Lovely Lass,' a ship fitted out in an American port, and probably itself a prize, there having been some diplomatic correspondence with the United States shortly before on the subject of a captured vessel bearing that name. Before the 'Tankerville' fell into the hands of the enemy, the mails were thrown overboard, in accordance with the standing orders which have already been referred to. The officers and crew were carried on board the 'Lovely Lass,' and then the 'Tankerville' was sunk. Soon afterwards the captive crew were released by the commander of the privateer, and sent in a Spanish prize to Barbadoes.
But though the mail-packets were intended to rely for safety mainly upon their fine lines and spread of canvas, and were expected to show fight only in the last resort, we may be sure that, when the hour of battle came upon them, they were not taken without a struggle. Nor, indeed, did they always get the worst of the fray, as will be seen by the following account of a brilliant affair which took place in the West Indies, copied from the 'Annual Register' of 1794:—