458 Mr, Commissioner Hill [April 4, 



to all parties would grow up which would engraft a letter post (of a 

 rude kind, perhaps,) on a system which the law intended only for des- 

 patches and for travellers. The hypothesis is confirmed by history, 

 and this practice eventually became so extensive as to attract the at- 

 tention of the Government. The years 1635 and 1637 witnessed the 

 issue by Charles I. of his famous proclamation establishing our post- 

 office on its present foundation, and directing that it should extend to 

 Scotland and Ireland. The merit of this enterprise would seem to 

 belong to Thomas Witherings, who was appointed first Inland Post- 

 master-General, he being already one of the masters of the foreign 

 post. Soon afterwards the ever-memorable troubles of that unhappy 

 reign broke out. The proclamations had claimed for the Crown a 

 right of monopoly. It will create no surprise to learn that this pre- 

 rogative was questioned by Parliament, nor that when the Houses be- 

 came paramount over the King, they confirmed the monopoly, trans- 

 ferring it, however, to themselves, and closed a rival post-office, which, 

 after Parliament had contested the King's right, had been set on foot 

 by the city of London. As the conflict between the Parliament and 

 the city (no such unequal combatants in those days as they would be 

 in the present) would call for legal knowledge on the part of the Post- 

 master-General, his office was united to that of Attorney-General in 

 the person of Mr. Prideaux. He claimed, probably with justice, the 

 credit of having so improved and expanded the system as to make it 

 not only self-supporting, but even to yield a profit. Taught by the 

 success of the city enterprise he lowered the rates of postage and in- 

 creased the frequency of despatches, thus evincing that he not only 

 apprehended, but acted upon principles which, although they have 

 ever since received lip -homage, have too often been disregarded in 

 practice, official men preferring immediate petty gain to large profits 

 in the not distant future. In spite of great deficiencies in the service, 

 the revenue of the Post-office, says Lord Macaulay, was from the first 

 increasing. In the year of the Restoration the net receipts were esti- 

 mated at about 20,000/. At the close of the reign of Charles II., the 

 net receipts were little short of 50,000/., gross about 70,000/. But the 

 proceeds came partly from the monopoly of post-horses, which was a 

 considerable source of profit. About the year 1683, Robert Murray, 

 an upholsterer of London, set up a penny post, which delivered letters 

 and parcels six or eight times a day in the busy and crowded streets 

 near the Exchange, and four times a day in the outskirts of the capital, 

 the Royal Post-office having made no provision for correspondence 

 between one part of London and another. This undertaking he as- 

 signed to William Dockra ; but as soon as it became clear that the 

 speculation would be lucrative, the Duke of York, on whom the whole 

 net revenue of the Post-office had been settled by his brother, com- 

 plained of the penny post as an infraction of his monopoly, and the 

 courts of law decided in his favour. Murray's invention was thus 

 wrested from Dockra, and its profits went to swell the income of the 

 Duke. The fusion of the two systems was imperfect, the letter- 



