The History of the Post Office in British North America

by William Smith

During the same period, repeated efforts were made by English merchants, to have a packet service to the North American colonies. In 1704 a petition was presented to the government for a mail service between England and New York.[53] The petitioners asked that the vessels be employed for letters only, in order that by their greater speed they might outrun the merchant vessels on their homeward trips and by giving timely notice, make it possible to send out cruisers to meet the merchant vessels and escort them home in safety. They observed that, in the year before, eighteen of the Virginia fleet were captured because they had set out later than was expected.

The treasury were unimpressionable. They read the memorial, and after adding to it the curt query "Whether the merchants intend to be at the charge," they dismissed it from further consideration. In 1707, the question was again brought to the attention of the treasury, and they asked Blathwayt, a commissioner of trade, to give them a report upon it.

Blathwayt was hearty in support of the proposition.[54] He declared that "Her Majesty's plantations in America are at present the chief support of the kingdom without impairing their own proper strength and yet capable of very great improvements by their trade and other means." He pressed for the establishment of a service with trips six or eight times a year. In view of the war, however, Blathwayt considered it inadvisable to fix upon a certain rendezvous on either side of the Atlantic, as this would enhance the opportunities for interception by the enemy.

The treasury were willing to have one or two experimental trips made to ascertain what revenue might be expected from the service, if these could be secured without expense; and they accepted a proposition, made about this time, by Sir Jeffry Jeffrys, who was preparing to make two trips to New York.[55] Jeffrys asked that his vessel might be commissioned as a packet boat, and that he might be allowed to retain the postage on all the correspondence which he carried between England and America. There is no record of the result, but from what is known of the postal business in America, it cannot be supposed that it would be of a magnitude to encourage the establishment of a packet service.

Other offers were made to the government, but they were not seriously considered until the outbreak of the war in America between England and France in 1744. Orders were at once given for the restoration of the packet service to the West Indies; and in 1745 armed packets again carried the mails on this route.[56] The service was very expensive; for though the revenue reached the respectable figure of £3921 in the first year, this amount was far from covering the outlay; and as soon as the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed in 1749, the packets were discontinued.

The peace, which followed the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, was of short duration. So far as America was concerned, the treaty did little more than to impose upon the combatants a momentary suspension of arms. It did nothing to remove the causes of war, and while these remained a permanent peace was impossible.

The grounds of dispute were almost entirely territorial. The French claimed the whole vast stretch of country to the west of the Alleghanies, and set up a line of forts along the valley of the Alleghany and Ohio rivers. The English disregarded these claims, and their traders pushed over the mountains into the disputed territory. The French displayed so much energy in dispossessing the encroaching English, that the border country was kept in a state of alarm, and the governors of the English colonies appealed to have a regular means of communication established between the mother country and the colonies, so that help might be obtained if required.

The representations of governors Shirley of Massachusetts, Delancey of New York, and Dinwiddie of Virginia, were vigorously supported by governor Lawrence of Nova Scotia.[57]

The situation of Nova Scotia was one of peculiar danger. The province was hemmed in between Cape Breton, with its powerful fortress at Louisburg, on the one side, and Canada on the other. The control which the French exercised over the valley of the St. John, and over the isthmus of Baie Verte, gave them a safe and easy passage from Canada to Cape Breton, by way of the St. John river, the bay of Fundy, the isthmus of Baie Verte, and the straits of Northumberland. The Acadians who were scattered over Nova Scotia were naturally in hearty sympathy with their own people in Cape Breton; and in order to send supplies of cattle to the fortress, they made a small settlement at Tatamagouche, on the straits of Northumberland, which served as an entrepôt.[58]

The first result of the appeal of the governors was the establishment of a post office at Halifax, in the spring of 1755,[59] and the opening up of communication with New England by the vessels which plied to and from Boston. It required a ruder prompting before the government could be induced to spend the money necessary for a packet service, and this was not long in coming.