The History of the Post Office in British North America

by William Smith

The termination of these agitations in the assemblies of Upper and Lower Canada, mark the close of a period in the relations between the provincial legislatures and the post office. The resolutions which were directed against the constitutional status of the post office, and the demands for separate provincial establishments ceased at this point. This was due rather to the disappearance of the opponents of the existing system than to the removal of the causes for complaint.

The Lower Canadian assembly held a session of less than a fortnight at the end of September and the beginning of October 1836, and another of a week in August 1837, when it was dissolved, not to be resumed. During those sessions the affairs of the post office were not mentioned. In Upper Canada the election, which followed upon the dissolution of May 1836, resulted in a great victory for the government party.

Before resuming the narrative of events in the British North American provinces, it will be convenient to see how the late proceedings were regarded by the home government. Lord Gosford, the governor general, in transmitting to the colonial secretary the bill framed by the assembly of Lower Canada, observed that it was intended as a substitute for the imperial bill of 1834, which did not suit the ideas of the house.

One of the reasons adduced against the post office was that the money which the deputy postmaster general sent to England was the produce of an illegal tax levied in violation of the act of 1778. In December 1835, some of the members of the assembly waited on Gosford, and requested him to stop the remittance of about £3000 which was being made by Stayner to the department in England.

Gosford declined to take such a step for reasons which he set forth. The members, also, asked that the governor should take measures to recover from Stayner the sums which he was shown to have taken as newspaper postage. Gosford replied that as this allowance was permitted by the imperial department, and had been sanctioned by the Duke of Richmond as late as 1831, he could not assume to do what they asked, but he would bring the subject to the attention of the home government.

The whole arrangement regarding newspapers appeared to Gosford to be improper. He was of opinion that the emoluments received by Stayner were unreasonably large, and that the practice of allowing the deputy postmaster general to draw a considerable private income from the public business was wrong in principle.

But the post office in London was already in possession of the Lower Canadian bill. Stayner had sent a copy to the secretary immediately on its adoption by the assembly, and before the legislative council had had time to consider and reject it.

At the post office the receipt of the bill with the notice that it would go into operation on the 1st of May, 1836, gave rise to great perturbation among the officials. Freeling, in passing the bill on to the postmaster general, declared it to be perhaps the most important document he had ever received.[250] It was neither more nor less than an entire suppression of the postmaster general's patent, and of the powers of an act of parliament, authorizing the levying of certain rates of postage and the payment of the amount of all such postages into His Majesty's exchequer.

Freeling was a very old man—he was born in 1764—on the point of retiring from the charge, which he had held for forty-five years, and it may be that he had forgotten that four years before, the law officers had given it as their opinion that there was no act of parliament giving the postmaster general authority over the colonial post office and postages. At Freeling's instance the postmaster general hastened to put the matter into the hands of Glenelg, the colonial secretary. Having taken time to consider the situation, the colonial office drew up a statement of the subject for the attention of the postmaster general.[251]

Observing that the assembly of Lower Canada, not being satisfied with the imperial bill of 1834, had drawn up a bill of their own, and that the legislative council, in declining to approve of this bill, had asked the intervention of the home government with the British parliament, the colonial secretary stated that the British government was not prepared to accede to this proposition.