8 ON THE TRACK OF THE MAIL-COACH 



1812, receiving at six o'clock the London Gazette, 

 containing a royal proclamation for the dissolution of 

 Parliament, conceived it to be his duty there and then 

 to pounce on letters from Members of both Houses j)ut 

 into the post-office that day under frank, and charge 

 them all with postage. With impartial severity, 

 he treated Lords and Commons alike, and letters 

 coming to them unpaid, as well as franked letters, 

 shared the same lot. But this vigorous official was a 

 trifle too smart. Parliament, dissolved on the publica- 

 tion of the Gazette at night, had been a living force at 

 noon, and a frank given then was just as good as it 

 had ever been. 



Even Sir Walter Scott, according to a recent 

 authority, seems to have preferred a frank to pay- 

 ment of postage. ' Any parcel,' he wrote to Miss 

 Wagner, from Edinburgh, February 7, 1828, ' will 

 reach me safely, addressed under cover to Francis 

 Frehng [sic], Esq., General Post-Office.'* This was 

 an expected copy of verses. Letters addressed to 

 Freeling w-ould pass free. If, as Sir Walter's friend, 

 he was merely to have been the custodian of a pre- 

 paid packet, ' Care of ' would have formed part of the 

 address. But this was apparently a private postal 

 parcel, enclosed in a cover to an official person, which 

 would thus escape postage. 



It is strange that the public, that is, as recipients 

 of letters, put up so long with optional prepayment, 

 which left in many cases heavy postage to be paid 

 * The Nineteenth Century, February, 1895. 



