460 Mr. Commissioner- Hill \ [April 4, 



liamentary grant of 50,000Z. ; an amount, however, wholly inade^ 

 qiiate to satisfy his claim. 



To what foster-parents the young system was consigned on the loss 

 of its father may be gathered from certain criticisms proffered by the 

 gentlemen of the Post-office on Palmer's proposals even after they had 

 had some brief and partial trial. Mr. Draper objects to mail coaches 

 as running too fast. He declares that the post cannot travel with the 

 expedition of chaises and diligences on account of business needing to be 

 done at the Post-office in each town through which it passes — the fear- 

 ful velocity which Mr. Draper deprecates rising possibly to six, or, in 

 some cases, even to seven miles an hour. Be it remembered, however, 

 that prior to Mr. Palmer's innovations, the average rate of the mail, 

 including stoppages, was only three miles and a half per hour, which, 

 in the opinion of the office, left nothing to be desired ! In truth, speed 

 appears to have been looked upon with great suspicion. Palmer had 

 maintained that the post should outstrip all other conveyances ; but the 

 judicious Mr. Hodgson says, " I do not see why the post should be the 

 swiftest conveyance. Personal conveyances, I apprehend, should be 

 much more, and particularly with people travelling on business." Palmer 

 found the net annual revenue of the Post-office about 150,000/. By 

 the year 1814, in the face of an enhanced tariff, it had risen tenfold, 

 namely, to 1,500,000/. — an augmentation chiefly attributable to the 

 greater speed and punctuality secured by his improvements, though 

 aided unquestionably by the national advancement in population and 

 wealth. But thenceforward, until the epoch of penny postage, the 

 impulse given to the increase of letters by the causes already pointed 

 out, and indeed, by all others — especially by Macadam's admirable in- 

 vention for bettering our roads, which enabled the mails to attain a rate, 

 including stoppages, of ten miles an hour — proved to have become ex- 

 hausted. For twenty years the number of letters passing through the 

 Post-office remained stationary, amidst the rapid development of our 

 manufactures and our commerce, the concentration of the national 

 mind on the arts of peace, the consequent expansion of correspondence, 

 and the innumerable facilities for its distribution which had been thus 

 created and had been necessarily displayed before the slumberous eyes 

 of the postal authorities. The augmentation of correspondence had 

 broken through the monopoly of the Post-office, guarded although it 

 was by high penalties, rigidly enforced. The mail coaches were out- 

 stripped by the improved stage coaches, which set the penal laws at 

 defiance and carried an enormous number of contraband letters. But 

 in spite of harsh laws harshly executed, of a straitened service, and of 

 exorbitant rates, the Post-office still remained a popular and respected 

 institution. At length, however, it discovered that it had traded too 

 long on its reputation. Murmurs were heard among the people, and 

 the discontented found a champion in the late Mr. Wallace, M.P. for 

 Greenock, who frequently called the attention of the House to the 

 preposterous rates of our postage. The desire for change grew with a 

 steady growth. 



