In 1633, Bishop resigned his grant to Daniel O'Neale for £8000. O'Neale offered £2000 and, in addition, promised £1000 a year, during the lease, to Bennet, Secretary of State, if he would have the assignment confirmed. He explained that this would not injure the Duke of York's interest, who could expect no increase until the expiration of the original contract, which still had four years and a quarter to run.[124] This refers to an act of Parliament which had just been passed, settling the £21,500 post revenue upon the Duke of York and his male heirs,[125] with the exception of some £5000 which had been assigned by the King to his mistresses and favourites. O'Neale having died before his lease expired, his wife, the Countess of Chesterfield, performed his duties until 1667.[126]
According to the grant made to O'Neale in 1663 no postmaster nor any other person except the one to whom it was directed or returned was to open any letter unless ordered so to do by an express warrant from one of the Secretaries of State. If any letter was overcharged, the excess was to be returned to the person to whom it was directed. Nothing was said about letters which were lost or stolen in the post. A certain John Pawlett complained that of sixteen letters which he had posted not one was ever delivered in London although the postage was prepaid.[127] Letters not prepaid were stamped with the postage due in the London Office when they were sent from London. Letters sent to London were charged by the receiving postmaster in the country and the charge verified at the London Office. An account was kept there of the amounts due and the postmasters were debited with them, less the sum for letters not delivered, which had also to be returned for verification.[128] All this meant losses to the postal revenue, but compulsory prepayment would have been impracticable at the time. The postmasters had nothing to gain by retaining letters not prepaid, but by neglecting to forward prepaid letters, they could keep the whole of the postage, for stamps were unknown. An incentive to the delivery of letters was provided by the penny payment which it was customary to give the postmasters for each letter delivered, over and above the regular postage. The postmasters were required to remit the postage collected to London every month and give bonds for the performance of their duties.[129]
The postal service was very much demoralized by the plague in 1665 and 1666 and the great fire which followed. Hicks, the clerk, said that the gains during this time would be very small. To prevent contagion the building was so "fumed" that they could hardly see each other.[130] The letters were aired over vinegar or in front of large fires and Hicks remarks that had the pestilence been carried by letters they would have been dead long ago. While the plague was still dangerous, the King's letters were not allowed to pass through London.[131] After the fire the headquarters of the Post-Office in London were removed to Gresham College.
When O'Neale's lease had expired in 1667, Lord Arlington, Secretary of State, was appointed Postmaster-General.[132] The real head was Sir John Bennet, with whom Hicks was entirely out of sympathy. He accused Bennet of "scurviness" and condemned the changes initiated by him. These changes were in the shape of reductions in wages. The postmasters' salaries were to be reduced from £40 to £20 a year. In the London Office, the wages of the carriers and porters were also to be reduced.[133]
At the close of the seventeenth century there were forty-nine men employed in the Inland Department of the Post Office in London. The Postmaster-General, or Controller as he was sometimes called, was nominally responsible for the whole management although the accountant and treasurer were more or less independent. Then there were eight clerks of the roads. They had charge of the mails coming and going on the six great roads to Holyhead, Bristol, Plymouth, Edinburgh, Yarmouth, and Dover. The old veteran Hicks had been at their head until his resignation in 1670. The General Post Office building was in Lombard Street.[134] Letters might be posted there or at the receiving stations at Westminster, Charing Cross, Pall Mall, Covent Garden, and the Inns of Court. From these stations, letters were despatched to the General Office twice on mail nights. For this work thirty-two letter carriers were employed, but they did not deliver letters as their namesakes now do. The mails left London for all parts of the country on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday late at night or early the next morning. On these days all officials had to attend at 6 P.M. and were generally at work all night. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday when the mails arrived from all parts of England they had to be on hand at 4 or 5 A.M. The postage to be paid was stamped on the letters by the clerks of the roads. In addition three sorters and three window-men were employed. The window-men were the officials who stood at the window to receive the letters handed in and to collect postage when it was prepaid. Then there were an alphabet-man, who posted the names of merchants for whom letters had arrived, a sorter of paid letters, and a clerk of undertaxed letters.[135] In the Foreign Office, there were a controller, two sorters, an alphabet-man, and eight letter receivers, of whom two were women. In addition the Foreign Office had a rebate man who saw that overcharged letters were corrected. Both offices seem to have shared the carriers in common.[136]
Before 1680 there was no post between one part of London and another. A Londoner having a letter for delivery had either to take it himself or send it by a special messenger. The houses were not numbered and were generally recognized by the signs they bore or their nearness to some public building. Such was the condition in the metropolis when William Dockwra organized his London Penny Post. On the first of April, 1680, London found itself in possession of a postal system which in some respects was superior to that of to-day. In the Penny Post Office as so established there were employed a controller, an accountant, a receiver, thirteen clerks in the six offices, and about a hundred messengers to collect and deliver letters. The six offices were:—
The General Office in Star Court, Cornhill;
St. Paul's Office in Queen's Head Alley, Newgate Street;
Temple Office in Colchester Rents in Chancery Lane;
Westminster Office, St. Martin's Lane;
Southwark Office near St. Mary Overy's Church;
Hermitage Office in Swedeland Court, East Smithfield.
There were in all about 179 places in London where letters might be posted. Shops and coffee-houses were used for this purpose in addition to the six offices, and in almost every street a table might be seen at some door or shop-window bearing in large letters the sign "Penny Post Letters and Parcels are taken in here." From these places letters were collected every hour and taken to the six main receiving-houses. There they were sorted and stamped by the thirteen clerks. The same messengers carried them from the receiving-houses to the people to whom they were addressed. There were four deliveries a day to most parts of the city and six or eight to the business centres.
The postage fee for all letters or parcels to be delivered within the bills of mortality was one penny, payable in advance. The penny rate was uniform for all letters and parcels up to one pound in weight, which was the maximum allowed. Articles or money to the value of £10 might be sent and the penny payment insured their safe delivery. There was a daily delivery to places ten or fifteen miles from London and there was also a daily collection for such places. The charge of one penny in such cases paid only for conveyance to the post-house and an additional penny was paid on delivery. From such places to London, however, only one penny was demanded and there was no fee for delivery. The carriers in London travelled on foot, but in some of the neighbouring towns they rode on horseback.[137]