The post-boy on horseback travelling at the rate of three or four miles an hour, had been an institution since the days of Charles II., and now, towards the close of the eighteenth century, the Post-Office was still clinging to the old system. It was destined, however, that Mr. Palmer should bring about a grand change. Originally a brewer, Mr. Palmer was, in 1784, the manager of the Bath and Bristol theatres. He seems to have known Mr. Allen, and to have been fully acquainted with his fortunate Post-Office speculations. In this way, to some extent, but much more, doubtless, through his public capacity as manager of two large theatres, he became acquainted with the crude postal arrangements of the period. Having frequently to correspond with the theatrical stars of the metropolis, and also to journey between London and the then centres of trade and fashion, he noticed how superior the arrangements were for travelling to those under which the Post-Office work was done, and he conceived the idea of improvements.
Palmer found that letters, for instance, which left Bath on Monday night were not delivered in London until Wednesday afternoon or night; but the stage-coach which left through the day on Monday, arrived in London on the following morning.[54] Not only did the existing system of mail conveyance strike him as being exceedingly slow, but insecure and otherwise defective. As he afterwards pointed out, he noticed that when tradesmen were particularly anxious to have a valuable letter conveyed with speed and safety, they never thought of giving it into the safe keeping of the Post-Office, but were in the habit of enclosing it in a brown paper parcel and sending it by the coach: nor were they deterred from this practice by having to pay a rate of carriage for it far higher than that charged for a post-letter. Robberies of the mails were so frequent, that even to adopt the precaution recommended by the Post-Office authorities, and send valuable remittances such as a bank note, bills of exchange, &c. at twice, was a source of endless trouble and annoyance, if it did not prove entirely ineffective. Who can wonder at the Post-Office robberies when the carelessness and incompetency of the servants of the Post-Office were taken into account? A curious robbery of the Portsmouth mail in 1757 illustrates the careless manner in which the duty was done. The boy who carried the mail had dismounted at Hammersmith, about three miles from Hyde Park Corner, and called for beer, when some thieves took the opportunity to cut the mail-bags from off the horse's crupper, and got away undiscovered. The French mail on its outward-bound passage viâ Dover was more than once stopped and rifled before it had got clear of London. A string stretched across a street in the borough through which the mail would pass has been known to throw the post-boy from his horse, who, without more ado, would coolly retrace his steps, empty-handed, to the chief office, and report the loss of his bags. What could be expected, however, in the case of raw, unarmed post-boys, when carriages were stopped in broad daylight in Hyde Park, and even in Piccadilly itself, and pistols pointed at the breasts of the nobility and gentry living close at hand? Horace Walpole relates that he himself was robbed in Hyde Park in broad daylight, in a carriage with Lord Eglinton and Lady Albemarle.
Mr. Palmer, however, was ready with a remedy for robbery, as well as for the other countless defects in the existing postal arrangements. He began his work of reform in 1783, by submitting a full scheme in a lengthy report to Mr. Pitt, who was at that time Prime Minister. He commenced by describing the then existing system of mail transmission. "The post," he says, "at present, instead of being the quickest, is almost the slowest conveyance in the country; and although, from the great improvements in our roads, other carriers have proportionately mended their speed, the post is as slow as ever." The system is also unsafe; robberies are frequent, and he saw not how it could be otherwise if there were no changes. "The mails," continued Palmer, "are generally intrusted to some idle boy without character, mounted on a worn-out hack, and who, so far from being able to defend himself, or escape from a robber, is more likely to be in league with him." If robberies were not so frequent as the circumstances might lead people to suppose, it was simply because thieves had found, by long practice, that the mails were scarcely worth robbing—the booty to be obtained being comparatively worthless, inasmuch as the public found other means of sending letters of value. Mr. Palmer, as we have before stated, knew of tradesmen who sent letters by stage-coach. Why, therefore, "should not the stage-coach, well protected by armed guards, under certain conditions to be specified, carry the mail-bags?" Though by no means the only recommendation which Mr. Palmer made to the Prime Minister, this substitution of a string of mail-coaches for the "worn-out hacks" was the leading feature of his plans. Evincing a thorough knowledge of his subject (however he may have attained that knowledge), and devised with great skill, the measures he proposed promised to advance the postal communication to as high a pitch of excellence as was possible. To lend to the scheme the prospect of financial success, he laboured to show that his proposals, if adopted, would secure a larger revenue to the Post-Office than it had ever yet yielded; whilst, as far as the public were concerned, it was evident that they would gladly pay higher for a service which was performed so much more efficiently. Mr. Pitt, who always lent a ready ear to proposals which would have the effect of increasing the revenue, saw and acknowledged the merits of the scheme very early. But, first of all, the Post-Office officials must be consulted; and from accounts[55] which survive, we learn how bitterly they resented proposals not coming from themselves. They made many and vehement objections to the sweeping changes which Palmer's plans would necessitate. "The oldest and ablest officers in the service" represented them "not only to be impracticable, but dangerous to commerce and the revenue."[56] The accounts of the way in which they met some of his proposals is most amusing and instructive. Thus, Palmer recommended Mr. Pitt to take some commercial men into his councils, and they would not fail to convince him of the great need there was for change. He also submitted that the suggestions of commercial men should be listened to more frequently, when postal arrangements for their respective districts should be made. Mr. Hodgson, one of the prominent officers of the Post-Office, indignantly answered that "it was not possible that any set of gentlemen, merchants, or outriders (commercial travellers, we suppose), could instruct officers brought up in the business of the Post-Office. And it is particularly to be hoped," said this gentlemen, with a spice of malice, "if not presumed, that the surveyors need no such information." He "ventured to say, that the post as then managed was admirably connected in all its parts, well-regulated, carefully attended to, and not to be improved by any person unacquainted with the whole. It is a pity," he sarcastically added, "that Mr. Palmer should not first have been informed of the nature of the business in question, to make him understand how very differently the post and post-offices are conducted to what he apprehends."
Mr. Palmer might not be, and really was not, acquainted with all the working arrangements of the office he was seeking to improve: yet it was quite patent to all outside the Post-Office that the entire establishment needed remodelling. Mr. Hodgson, however, and his confrères "were amazed," they said, "that any dissatisfaction, any desire for change, should exist." The Post-Office was already perfect in their eyes. It was, at least, "almost as perfect as it can be, without exhausting the revenue arising therefrom." They could not help, therefore, making a united stand against any such new-fangled scheme, which they predict "will fling the commercial correspondence of the country into the utmost confusion, and which will justly raise such a clamour as the Postmaster-General will not be able to appease." Another of the principal officers, a Mr. Allen, who seems to have been more temperate in his abuse of the new proposals, gave it as his opinion, "that the more Mr. Palmer's plan was considered, the greater number of difficulties and objections started to its ever being carried completely into execution."
From arguing on the general principles involved, they then descend to combat the working arrangements of the theatre-manager with even less success. Mr. Palmer complains that the post is slow, and states that it ought to outstrip all other conveyances. Mr. Hodgson "could not see why the post should be the swiftest conveyance in England. Personal conveyances, I apprehend, should be much more, and particularly with people travelling on business." Then followed Mr. Draper, another official, who objected to the coaches as travelling too fast. "The post," he said, "cannot travel with the expedition of stage-coaches, on account of the business necessary to be done in each town through which it passes, and without which correspondence would be thrown into the utmost confusion." Mr. Palmer had proposed that the coaches should remain fifteen minutes in each town through which they passed, to give time to transact the necessary business of sorting the letters. Mr. Draper said that half an hour was not enough, as was well enough known to persons at all conversant with Post-Office business. Living in this age of railways and steam, we have just reason to smile at such objections. Then, as to the appointment of mail-guards, Mr. Palmer might, but Mr. Hodgson could, see no security, though he could see endless trouble, expense, and annoyance in such a provision. "The man would doubtless have to be waited for at every alehouse the coach passed." He might have added that such had been the experience with the post-boys under the régime which he was endeavouring to perpetuate. Mr. Palmer stipulated, that the mail-guards should in all cases be well armed and accoutred, and such officers "as could be depended upon as trustworthy." But the Post-Office gentlemen objected even to this arrangement. "There were no means of preventing robbery with effect,[57] as the strongest cart or coach that could be made, lined and bound with iron, might easily be broken into by determined robbers," and the employment of armed mail-guards would only make matters worse. Instead of affording protection to the mails, the following precious doctrine was inculcated, that the crime of murder would be added to that of robbery; "for," said the wonderful Mr. Hodgson, "when once desperate fellows had determined upon robbery, resistance would lead to murder"! These were peace and non-resistance principles with a vengeance, but principles which in England, during the later years of Pitt's administration, would seldom be heard, except in furtherance of some such selfish views as those which the Post-Office authorities held in opposition to Mr. Palmer's so-called innovations.
Mr. Palmer's propositions also included the timing of the mails at each successive stage, and their departure from the country properly regulated; they would thus be enabled to arrive in London at regular specified times, and not at any hour of the day or night, and might, to some extent, be delivered simultaneously. Again: instead of leaving London at all hours of the night, he suggested that all the coaches for the different roads should leave the General Post-Office at the same time; and thus it was that Palmer established what was, to the stranger in London for many years, one of the first of City sights. Finally, Mr. Palmer's plans were pronounced impossible. "It was an impossibility," his opponents declared, "that the Bath mail could be brought to London in sixteen or eighteen hours."
Mr. Pitt was less conservative than the Post-Office authorities. He clearly inherited, as an eloquent writer[58] has pointed out, his father's contempt for impossibilities. He saw, with the clear vision for which he was so remarkable, that Mr. Palmer's scheme would be as profitable as it was practicable, and he resolved, in spite of the short-sighted opposition of the authorities, that it should be adopted. The Lords of the Treasury lost no more time in decreeing that the plan should be tried, and a trial and complete success was the result. On the 24th of July, 1784, the Post-Office Secretary (Mr. Anthony Todd) issued the following order:—"His Majesty's Postmasters-General, being inclined to make an experiment for the more expeditious conveyance of mails of letters by stage-coaches, machines, &c., have been pleased to order that a trial shall be made upon the road between London and Bristol, to commence at each place on Monday, the 2d of August next." Then follows a list of places, letters for which can be sent by these mail-coaches, and thus concludes: "All persons are therefore to take notice, that the letters put into any receiving-house before six of the evening, or seven at this chief office, will be forwarded by these new conveyances; all others for the said post-towns and their districts put in afterwards, or given to the bellmen, must remain until the following post at the same hour of seven."
The mail-coaches commenced running according to the above advertisement, not, however, on the 2d, but on the 8th of August. One coach left London at eight in the morning, reaching Bristol about eleven the same night. The distance between London and Bath was accomplished in fourteen hours. The other coach was started from Bristol at four in the afternoon on the same day, reaching London in sixteen hours.
Mr. Palmer was installed at the Post-Office on the day of the change, under the title of Controller-General. It was arranged that his salary should be 1,500l. a-year, together with a commission of two and a half per cent. upon any excess of net revenue over 240,000l.—the sum at which the annual proceeds of the Post-Office stood at the date of his appointment.
The rates of postage, as we have before incidentally pointed out, were slightly raised—an addition of a penny to each charge; but, notwithstanding this, the number of letters began at once, and most perceptibly, to increase. So great was the improvement in security and speed, that, for once, the additions to the charges were borne ungrudgingly. Coaches were applied for without loss of time by the municipalities of many of our largest towns,[59] and when they were granted—as they appear to have been in most of the instances—they were started at the rate of six miles an hour. This official rate of speed was subsequently increased to eight, then to nine, and at length to ten miles an hour.[60]