The History of the British Post Office

by Joseph Clarence Hemmeon

		For a single letter	Double letter	Per ounce
In England	{ Within 80 miles { from London	2d.	4d.	8d.
	{ Above 80 miles { from London	3	6	12
	To or from Scotland	4	8	18
	To or from Ireland	6	12	24
In Ireland	{ Within 40 miles { from Dublin	2	4	8
	{ Above 40 miles { from Dublin	4	8	12

The foreign rates were:— [571]

	For a single letter	Double letter	Per ounce
To Leghorn, Genoa, Florence, Lyons, Marseilles,Aleppo, Constantinople	12d.	24d.	45d.
To St. Malo, Morlaix, Nieuhaven	6	12	18
To Bordeaux, Rochelle, Nantes, Bayonne, Cadiz, Madrid	9	18	24
To Hamburg, Frankfort, and Cologne	8	16	24
To Dantzic, Leipsic, Lubeck, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Elsinore, Konigsburg	12	24	48

These rates are considerably lower than those of Witherings and are essentially the same as those of 1653, except that the postage is fixed for letters to and from the continent. No provision is made for letters to and from any other part of the world but Europe. Since the government had not established any postal communication with Asia, Africa, or the Americas, it would have been unfair to demand postage on letters conveyed by merchant vessels to and from those places.[572]

The act of 1660 is generally referred to as bringing the Post Office under Parliamentary control and as the basis of the modern system. This is probably due to the fact that the act of 1657 was passed by a Commonwealth Parliament and signed by Cromwell. Whether its authors lacked the power to give it validity, they did not lack the brains to pass an excellent act, and although the Royalists saw fit, after the Restoration, to dub it the pretended act of 1657, they could not improve it and had the sense to leave it largely untouched. The first act had imposed rates from or to any place to or from London as a centre. It had been taken for granted that all letters passed to, from, or through the capital, and to all intents and purposes this was so. It was possible, however, for letters, technically called bye-letters, to stop short of London, and it was to provide for these that postage was to be reckoned from any place where a letter might be posted.

Scotland was no longer a part of England after the Restoration, so that by the act of 1660 rates were given to and from Berwick and for single letters were a penny less than they had been to Scotland under the earlier act. From Berwick the rate, within a radius of forty miles, was 2d. for a single letter, and over forty miles, 4d. As far as foreign postage was concerned, letters to the northern coast towns of Italy paid 3d. less than the old rate for a single letter. Other rates remained the same. Alternative routes were sometimes offered. For instance, letters might be sent directly to northern Italy or they might go via Lyons, but in the latter case they cost 3d. more. Again, there were many more continental towns to which letters might be sent and from which they might be received. Letters for Germany via Hamburg had to be postpaid as far as that city. The same was true of letters to southern France via Paris and of letters to northern Italy via Lyons. The highest rate paid for a single letter was 1s. to northern Italy, Turkey, and central and northern Germany. Merchants' accounts not exceeding one sheet of paper, bills of exchange, invoices and bills of lading, were to pay nothing over the charge of the letter in which they might be enclosed. The same rule was to hold for the covers of letters sent to Turkey via Marseilles. All inland letters were to be paid for at the place where they were delivered unless the sender wished to pay in advance.[573]

When the Scotch was separated from the English Post Office in 1695, rates were imposed by the Parliament of Scotland as follows:

	For a single letter
To Berwick	2s.[574]
Within 50 miles from Edinburgh	2
From 50 to 100 miles from Edinburgh	3
Above 100 miles from Edinburgh	4

Packages of papers were to pass as triple letters.[575] In 1701, when the Scotch Post was let out to farm, the English Postmasters-General advised that the farmers should be obliged to pay at Berwick the postage on English and foreign letters for Scotland, and an order in accordance with this advice was signed by the King. It was the custom to change the farmers every three years, which may have produced a larger revenue but was certainly not calculated to increase the efficiency of the office. The English Postmasters-General had great difficulty in collecting at Berwick the postage due them, and it is doubtful whether a large part was ever paid. The frequent changes in the farmers must have been an excellent means of allowing them to escape their debts to the English.[576]