[35] This clause was repealed in the reign of George II.
[36] The office of Post-Office Surveyor, of which we here see the origin, still exists (though the officers now so designated have very different duties) among the most responsible and lucrative appointments in the Department.
[37] "There cannot be devised," says Blackstone, "a more eligible method than this of raising money upon the subject; for therein both the Government and the people find a mutual benefit. The Government requires a large revenue, and the people do their business with greater ease, expedition, and cheapness than they would be able to do if no such tax existed."—Com. vol. i. p. 324.
[38] At this time, and for some years subsequently, the mails were carried on horseback in charge of post-boys. Some of these post-boys were sad rogues, who, besides taking advantage of confusion in the two posts, were accustomed to carry letters themselves concealed upon them and for charges of course quite unorthodox. In old records of the Post-Office, principally the Surveyor's Book, referring to country post-offices from the year 1735, there are long complaints from the surveyor on this head. The following, "exhibiting more malice than good grammar," may be taken as a specimen, and will suffice to show the way things were managed at that date:—"At this place (Salisbury) found the post-boys to have carried on vile practices in taking the bye-letters, delivering them in this cittye and taking back answers, especially the Andover riders. On the 15th found on Richard Kent, one of the Andover riders, 5 bye-letters, all for this cittye. Upon examining the fellow, he confessed he had made it a practice, and persisted to continue in it, saying he had noe wages from his master. I took the fellow before the Magistrate, proved the facts, and he was committed, but pleading to have no money or friends, desired a punishment to be whipped, which accordingly he was to the purpose. Wrote the case to Andover and ordered the fellow to be dismissed, but no regard was had thereto, but the next day the same rider came post, ran about the cittye for letters and was insolent. Again he came post with two gentlemen, made it his business to take up letters; the fellow, however, instead of returning to Andover, gets two idle fellows and rides off with three horses, which was a return for his master not obeying my instructions." Our shrewd surveyor thus amply got his revenge, and the Post-Office and Mr. Allen suffer no more from the delinquencies of Richard Kent.—From Mr. Scudamore's Notes.
[39] Gentleman's Magazine, August, 1760.
[40] Mr. Scudamore, of the General Post-Office, to whom we are indebted for much of the minutiæ in question, has been successful in his efforts to preserve permanently some of the old records of the Post-Office; and the result of his labours may be found in the Appendix to the Postmaster-General's First Report.
[41] Son of the James Craggs who succeeded Addison as Secretary of State, and who obtained such an unusual portion of the poetical praise of Pope. The son came in for a share also, as, for example:—
"Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honour clear."
[42] Campbell, in his Tales of the Highlands, relates two or three incidents which show that little improvement had taken place in post communications in some part of Scotland even a hundred years later. The English order of posts and express posts seem there to have been reversed, express work being done the worst. For instance: "Near Inverary, we regained a spot of comparative civilization, and came up with the post-boy, whose horse was quietly grazing at some distance, whilst Red Jacket himself was immersed in play with other lads. 'You rascal,' I said to him, 'are you the post-boy and thus spending your time?' 'Nae, nae, sir,' he answered, 'I'm no the post, I'm only an Express!'"
[43] What the Right Hon. John Methuen wanted with two bales of stockings is, of course, a mystery, if he was not embarking in the haberdashery line. It may be he was desirous of regaining the favour of the Portuguese Court, by supplying the whole with English stockings. This was the Methuen who gave his name to a well-known treaty, which, by the way, was found so distasteful to the Portuguese that when, in 1701, he carried it to Pedro II. for his signature, that monarch gave vent to his displeasure by kicking it about the room.—Marlborough Despatches, vol. v. p. 625.