An application was made to Finlay in 1781 for a postal service to the settlements and forts along the Richelieu river. This was one of the most prosperous sections of the country. When Catalogne made his report on the state of Canada in 1712, he was particularly struck with the evidences of comfort in some of the parishes bordering on the Richelieu.
It was not on this account, however, that it was thought necessary to extend to this district the benefits of the postal service. The valley of the Richelieu was the pathway along which travel from lake Champlain pursued its course into the heart of Canada. Settlements were established along the river at different times by French and English to oppose a barrier to incursions from the south.
British forces were stationed in 1761 at St. Johns, Chambly and Sorel; and it was to keep up a communication with these forces that a postal service was desired. The detachments at St. Johns and Chambly received their letters and despatches from Montreal, but as the most important communications were with the governor, whose headquarters were at Quebec, the commandant of the forces in this district, Colonel St. Leger, wished to have a regular exchange with Sorel at the mouth of the river.
Although Sorel was on the south side of the St. Lawrence, it had maintained connection with the couriers on the grand route between Quebec and Montreal, by means of a courier who crossed the river to Berthier, where a post office had been established since 1772. The postmaster general was disinclined to open a route between Sorel and St. Johns, and the military authorities took the matter into their own hands.
The conclusion of peace in 1783 and the recognition of the independence of the United States was immediately followed by the dissolution of the old establishment which administered the postal system of the northern district of North America. The services of Finlay, as deputy postmaster general of that system, ceased forthwith; and in July 1784, he was appointed to the much humbler position of deputy postmaster general of Canada.
Foxcroft, Finlay's associate in the deputyship was made British agent at New York for the packet boat service, which was resumed between Great Britain and the United States. Dashwood, the departmental secretary of the old establishment, was appointed postmaster general of Jamaica in 1781.[126]
The first question of importance to occupy Finlay under the new order of things was the means by which communication between Great Britain and Canada was thereafter to be carried on. The merchants of Quebec and Montreal hearing that a line of sailing packets was to be re-established between Falmouth and New York,[127] at once demanded that the service between Canada and New York should be restored.
Conditions were not favourable to its resumption. The rancours of the war were not yet abated, and one or two messengers, who were sent down to New York by Finlay, were insulted and maltreated by the Americans. The postmaster general of the United States, Hazzard, also set up difficulties.[128]
Finlay's plan was to have the Canadian mails taken down as far as Albany by his courier, and to pay the American postage on them from Albany to New York. But at this time there were no regular couriers between Albany and New York; and consequently the Canadian mails, having to depend on chance conveyance, would often miss the packet boats for which they were intended. Finlay thought to overcome this difficulty by having his courier take the mails past Albany and on to New York.
Hazzard, however, objected to this plan, and informed Finlay that he would have the courier prosecuted if he attempted to go farther south than Albany. Finlay met this objection, but at a ruinous cost. He arranged with the postmaster at Albany that the Canadian courier should go on to New York, and that at the same time Finlay would pay for this privilege at the rate of three shillings sterling per ounce for the mail, the bag being included in the weight. Thus, if the mail bag weighed twenty pounds—no very great weight—Finlay had to pay £48, the cost of wayleave for his courier to travel from Albany to New York. He had, of course, to pay his courier's expenses as well.