Love-letters shared the formality of the time, and were written with a stateliness and elaboration of compliment which suggest a minuet on paper. Family letters are often in the form of a journal, and cover a period of months. They cost both labor and money but they were worth their price. Cheap postage has made cheap writing. We no longer compose; we only scribble.
In 1693, Thomas Neale was appointed by royal patent, “postmaster-general of Virginia and all other parts of North America.” The House of Burgesses passed an Act declaring that if post-offices were established in every county, Neale should receive threepence for every letter not exceeding one sheet, or to or from any place not exceeding four score English miles distance.
In 1706, letters were forwarded eight times a year from Philadelphia to the Potomac, and afterward as far as Williamsburg, with the proviso that the post-rider should not start for Philadelphia till he had received enough letters to pay the expenses of the trip.
The average day’s journey for a postman covered a distance of some forty miles in Summer, and over good roads; but, when the heavy Autumn rains washed out great gullies in his path or the Winter storms beat him back, he was lucky if he accomplished half that distance. His letters were subject to so many accidents, that it is a wonder they ever reached the persons to whom they were addressed. It was not till the post-office passed into Franklin’s energetic and methodical hands that it was made regular and trustworthy.
The estimate of the common post in early days is curiously illustrated by an episode which occurred in Virginia. The hero was one Mr. Daniel Park, “who,” says the chronicle, “to all the other accomplishments that make a complete sparkish gentleman, has added one upon which he infinitely values himself; that is, a quick resentment of every, the least thing, that looks like an affront or injury.”
One September morning, when the Governor of Maryland was breakfasting with Mr. Commissary Blair at Middle Plantation, Colonel Park marched in upon them, having a sword about him, much longer than what he commonly travelled with, and which he had caused to be ground sharp in the point that morning. Addressing himself to the Governor of Maryland, he burst out: “Captain Nicholson, did you receive a letter that I sent you from New York?”
“Yes,” answered Nicholson, “I received it.”
“And was it done like a gentleman,” fumed the fiery colonel, “to send that letter by the hand of a common post, to be read by everybody in Virginia? I look upon it as an affront, and expect satisfaction!”
Fancy the number of affairs of honor that this “complete young sparkish gentleman” would have on hand if he lived in the present year of grace and resented every letter sent him by the common post!