The History of the Post Office in British North America

by William Smith

In the Canadas the situation was exactly the reverse, as regards both the state of public feeling and the claims of the deputy postmaster general upon the forbearance of the assemblies.

The discussion of political grievances was arousing in the popular party a bitterness which was fast carrying the agitation for remedies beyond constitutional bounds; and as for Stayner, he had quite alienated from himself the good will of the assemblies in Upper and Lower Canada, by his open identification of himself with the government party. When, therefore, the British proposals were laid before the assembly of Upper Canada by the lieutenant governor in 1835, they were rejected with the contemptuous observation that the provisions of the proposed bill were so absurd and inapplicable that no benefit could be expected from any attempt to amend them.[244]

The legislatures were not aware of the circumstances which had led to the British proposals. The fact that the views for which they had contended had been upheld by authorities so eminent as the law officers of the crown was withheld from them. The changed attitude of the postmaster general was therefore regarded by the assemblies as a proof of the success of their agitation, and they girded themselves up for renewed efforts.

As a preliminary to fresh attacks the assemblies in both provinces demanded from Stayner a mass of information, the extent of which filled him with dismay. But no further refusals on his part were possible. The colonial office was scarcely more pleased with Stayner and his methods than the provincial assemblies were, and the postmaster general was requested to see there were no more concealments.

The work which fell upon Stayner in the preparation of the returns called for was enormous. As printed by the legislature of Lower Canada, the documents produced filled two hundred and sixty-eight quarto pages. Stayner appears to have withheld nothing. He became as effusive as he had formerly been reticent. He published letters written by himself to his official superiors, which must have proved embarrassing to them.

In the correspondence Stayner disclosed was a letter from the postmaster of Montreal, pleading for a more suitable room for his post office.[245] From this letter it appears that in 1835, the post office in Montreal was in the upper storey of a building standing between the Gazette printing establishment and a boarding house, and underneath it was a tailoring and dry goods shop. To get to the post office the public had to grope up an unlighted flight of stairs at the risk of their limbs, and when they reached the top they had to make their way across a small lobby half-filled with firewood.

As an inducement to the department to provide more suitable quarters, the postmaster stated that the merchants were so sensible of the inconvenience and danger from fire, that the postmaster thought they would help with the erection of a proper building, if applied to.

Stayner also produced the copy of a letter he had written a short time before, to the secretary of the general post office protesting his inability to meet the wants of the provinces with the means which the postmaster general had placed at his disposal. The letter deals chiefly with the conditions in Upper Canada, and as a description of the situation in that province it could not be bettered. The occasion of the letter was a complaint made by a gentleman in England that it had taken from the 12th of June until the 12th of October for a letter, addressed by him to his son in Barrie, to reach its destination.

Stayner in reporting on the subject, admitted that this was quite likely the case, but insisted that no blame was imputable to him. The nearest post office to Barrie was from thirty to forty miles distant, and it was probable that the letter had lain a couple of months at that office before being called for.

The case of the Barrie settlers was typical of that of thousands of well-educated people inhabiting the back parts of Upper Canada, where they had formed thriving towns and villages from twenty to fifty miles from the existing posts. These people with whom postal accommodation was almost a necessity of life were entirely without the means of corresponding with their distant friends, unless they sent and received their letters by private agency.