4. In consequence of the present shilling rate, it is common, as it is legal, for persons to enclose several communications, addressed to different parties, under one envelope, which, on reaching America or England, are remailed to the persons addressed, thus saving to them the whole charge of Ocean Postage. Paper is manufactured purposely to save postage, and, for this quality, is called “Foreign Post.”
He also tells the people of England very plainly what will be the effect if they first adopt the Ocean Penny Postage. Some of the same considerations ought to have weight with American citizens and American philanthropists, and especially with American statesmen, in producing the conviction, that it is better for the United States to lose no time in adopting this system.
1. It would put it into the power of every person in America or England to write to his or her relatives, friends, or other correspondents, across the Atlantic, as often as business or friendship would dictate, or leisure permit.
2. It would probably secure to England the whole carrying-trade of the Mail matter, not only between America and Great Britain, but also between the New World and the Old, forever.
3. It would break up entirely all clandestine or private conveyance of Mail matter across the ocean, and virtually empty into the English mail bags all the mailable communications, even to invoices, bills of lading, &c.; which, under the old system, have been carried in the pockets of passengers, the packs of emigrants, and in the bales of merchants.
4. It would prevent any letters, newspapers, magazines, or pamphlets, from lying dead in the English post-office, on account of the rates of postage charged upon them, and thus relieve the department of the heavy loss which it must sustain, from that cause, under the present system.
5. It would enable American correspondents to prepay the postage on their own letters, not only across the ocean, but also from Liverpool or Southampton to any post town or village in the United Kingdom; to prepay it also, to England, by putting two English penny stamps upon every letter weighing under half an ounce.
6. It would bring into the English mail all letters from America directed to France, Germany, and the rest of the continent, and vice versa.
7. It would not only open the cheapest possible medium of correspondence between the Old World and the New, but also one for the transmission of specimens of cotton, woollen, and other manufactures; of seeds, plants, flowers, grasses, woods; of specimens illustrating even geology, entomology, and other departments of useful science; thus creating a new branch of commerce as well as correspondence, which might bring into the English mail bags tons of matter, paying at the rate of 2s. 8d. per lb. for carriage.
8. It would make English penny postage stamps a kind of international currency, at par on both sides of the Atlantic, and which might be procured without the loss of a farthing by way of exchange, and be transmitted from one country to the other, at less cost for conveyance than the charge upon money orders in England from one post-office to another, for equal sums.