The History of the Post Office in British North America

by William Smith

At Falmouth the greater part of the letters from Boston were delivered by the masters of sailing vessels. The postmaster on one occasion attempted to enforce the law against illegal conveyance by seizing the letter bag on one of the incoming ships; but the populace made so marked a manifestation of its displeasure that he did not venture on that course a second time.

It was not so much, however, by direct defiance of the postal law, although instances of this were not wanting, as by evasions of it, that the monopoly of the post office was broken down. But in many cases the evasions were so palpable that they could deceive nobody. A popular mode of escape from the penalties attaching to the breach of the monopoly was to seek shelter under one of the exceptions which the post office act allowed.

In none of the acts, for instance, is objection made to a person sending a letter to a correspondent by his own servant, or by a friend who happened to be journeying to the place where the letter should be delivered. Another exception to the monopoly was made in favour of letters which accompanied merchandise to which letters related. Thus a merchant in filling an order for goods has always been at liberty to send with them the invoice, or any other communication, having presumable reference to them. This was the excepted article, which served the turn of those eluding the monopoly.

What Finlay saw at New Haven illustrates fairly what was going on throughout the colonies. Riders came in from other towns, their carts laden with bundles, packages, boxes and canisters, and every package had a letter attached. Some of the parcels consisted of no more than little bundles of chips, straw, or old paper, but they served their purpose. If the postmaster made objection to the number of letters they carried, the riders asserted their right to carry letters accompanying goods, and the public saw to it that neither postmaster or magistrate took too narrow a view of what constituted goods.

On the route between Boston and Newport the mail carrier was a certain Peter Mumford, who did a much larger business in the illegal conveyance of letters than as the servant of the post office. At Newport the postmaster declared that there were two post offices—the king's and Mumford's—and the latter did the larger business. There was no remedy, as the postmaster declared that whoever should attempt to check the illegal practice would be denounced as the friend of slavery and oppression and the declared enemy of America.

Many of the couriers did so large a carrying business that the conveyance of the mails became a mere incident with them. As he approached New Haven, Finlay was accosted with the inquiry whether he had overtaken the post bringing in a drove of oxen, which the courier had engaged to do, when he came in with the mail.

In all respects but one, the situation described by Finlay presented no unexpected features. There had been no general inspection since Franklin made his tour in 1763, at the time he opened the post office in Quebec. This fact fully explains the shortcomings of the postmasters and couriers. That the postmasters were chargeable with so few irregularities in their accounts, or were open to so little censure for faults in management, is high testimony to their intelligence and fidelity to duty.

Mail couriers have always been less completely identified with the postal service than postmasters. They are held by contract, not by appointment, and their engagements are for short terms. There is nothing irregular in their practice of combining the conveyance of the mails with other means of gaining a livelihood, but in the absence of supervision there was a constant tendency to give undue attention to what should have been merely auxiliary employments of carrying passengers and parcels.

People employing the couriers demanded prompt service, while there was no person to insist on the prior claims of the post office, and indeed there were probably few people in any community at that time to whom an hour more or less was of any consequence in the receipt of their letters.

The evasion of the postmaster general's monopoly also was too common to excite particular remark. It was beyond doubt a breach of the law, but that it was wrong was a proposition to which few even good citizens gave assent, at least by their practice. Thomas Hancock made a merit of his saving the colony of Connecticut from thirty to forty shillings a year through the interest he had with certain captains, which enabled him to secure the colonial letters, as they came over in the ships, and thus prevent their passing through the post office.