Postboy jack
Happily there has not for a long time been any need for using fighting ships to convey the mails of this country over the high seas; and this is a danger which it has not been needful to provide against in the packet service of the present generation.
Before leaving these mail-packets of former days, it is perhaps worth recording, that while needy passengers were sometimes carried on board at half the usual fares, and those in destitute circumstances for nothing at all, the poor Jews were kept outside the pale of the generous concession; and the Post-office thus joined the world's mob in the general harsh treatment of that unhappy race. This appears by an official order of 1774, and the hardship was only removed under an authority dated August 24, 1792. The Postmaster-General's minute on the subject is as follows:—"The Postmaster-General thinks that the last words of the order which proscribes all Jews, merely because they are Jews, is not consistent with the usual liberality of the office; but that the agent should be directed to give to them the same privileges that are given to all the rest of the world without any exception to them on account of their religion."
We will be pardoned one more quotation. It is a concession on the score of religion, made by the Postmaster-General in a minute, dated October 19, 1790. It runs thus:—"Let the Secretary write a civil letter to Mr Coke, that the Postmaster-General is very willing to relinquish, on the part of the King, the usual head money of 12 guineas for three persons at £4, 4s. each, whom Mr Coke represents to be sent to the West Indies for the purpose of instructing the negro slaves in the principles of the Christian religion."
While in the eighteenth century but trifling advancement would seem to have been made in naval matters, what a contrast is presented by the achievements of the last eighty years! As compared with the 'Etruria' and the 'Umbria' recent acquisitions of the Cunard Company, for the conveyance of the mails between Liverpool and New York, each of 8000 tons burthen and 12,500 horse-power, the pigmy vessels of the past almost sink into nothingness; and we cannot but acknowledge the rapidity with which such stupendous agencies have come under the control of man for the furtherance of his work in the world.
Steamship 'America.'