The History of the Post Office in British North America

by William Smith

The colonial office was inclined to the post office view on the subject, but the lieutenant governor was firm in maintaining the position he had taken. The maîtres de poste, he stated, were habitants who possessed, each of them, a small property which rendered them quite independent. Their service, which was to carry passengers on the king's road, was an onerous one, and the advances in the price of the articles of life, coupled with the fact that their exclusive privilege was systematically disregarded, made them reluctant to take the appointments.

Men of this kind, Milnes declared, required management as they would not submit to coercion. Finlay through his personal influence with the maîtres de poste had managed to obtain the conveyance of the mails at sixpence a league, which was only half the charge made to the public for the same service. For some time before his death, Finlay had difficulty in inducing the maîtres de poste to continue this favourable arrangement, and on his death they refused to work under it any longer.

The maîtres de poste had the full sympathy of the lieutenant governor who saw no reason for the discrimination in favour of the post office. Although he endeavoured to obtain a favourable arrangement for the mail couriers, he considered it would be most impolitic on the part of the post office to insist on continuing to occupy their position of advantage.

But valuable as the post house system was in the early period of the country's growth, it soon had to yield to a higher class of travelling facility. As travel in the colony increased the two-wheeled calèches drawn by a single horse and barely holding two persons would no longer do. The changes at the post houses, every hour or little more, with the long delays while the horses were secured and harnessed, were very wearisome. Before Heriot's term expired, stage coaches had been placed on the principal roads.

In leaving the old system and its ways, it will be interesting to record the impressions of Hugh Gray, an English gentleman, who travelled from Quebec to Montreal in 1806.[156] The mode of travel, he said, would not bear comparison with that in England, and the inns were very far from clean, but he found many things to lighten the hardships of travel in Canada. If, leaving England aside, he compared the accommodations in Canada with those in Spain, Portugal, or even in parts of France, he found the balance in favour of Canada.

The politeness and consideration Gray received at the inns in Canada offset many inconveniences. Often on the continent, after a day of fatiguing travel, sometimes wet and hungry, he was obliged to carry his own luggage into the inn at which he had arrived and see, himself, that it was put in a place of safety. But in Canada he was charmed with the politeness and urbanity with which he was welcomed at every inn: "Voulez-vous bien, Monsieur, avoir la complaisance d'entrer; voilà une chaise, Monsieur, asseyez vous, s'il vous plait."

"If they had the thing you wanted," continued Gray, "it was given to you with a good grace; if they had not they would tell you so in such a tone and manner as to show they were sorry for it." "Je n'en ai point. J'en suis mortifié." "You saw it was their poverty that refused you, not their will. Then if there was no inn to be had, you were never at a loss for shelter. There was not a farmer, shopkeeper, nay, nor even a seigneur or country gentleman who, on being civilly applied to for accommodation, would not give you the best in the house and every accommodation in his power."

The determination of the lieutenant governor to hold Heriot at arm's length, and allow him no part in the local government was unfortunate, as it prevented the mutual understanding between the colonial authorities and the post office which must have been beneficial to both. Heriot made several later efforts to secure the control of the maîtres de poste, but always without success.

The principal feature of Heriot's administration was the establishment of a regular mail service to the settlements in Upper Canada. The single opportunity for the exchange of correspondence afforded by the post office authorities during the many months when navigation was closed was absurdly inadequate to the needs of the rapidly increasing province. The courier set out from Montreal in January of each year, travelling on foot or snow-shoes with his mail bag slung over his shoulder. He did very well when he covered eighteen miles a day. The journey to Niagara, with the return to Montreal, was not accomplished until spring was approaching, three months later.

The lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, General Hunter, was anxious to improve the communication in that province, and opened correspondence with Heriot on the subject.[157] Heriot laid the lieutenant governor's proposition before the postmaster general with his warm commendation. He pointed out that the rapid increase in the population, the salubrity of the climate, and the fertility of the soil, all encouraged the belief that Upper Canada would soon become one of the first of the British settlements in North America.