The Post Office in British Guiana. 201 



get on very well, on account of his charging ship letters 

 as double or triple, when, according to the opinions of 

 the inhabitants and the custom of former Postmasters, 

 there should have been one uniform rate of a bitt for 

 each. The following complaint was sent by him to 

 Governor D'Urban on the 8th of February 1825 : — 



May it please your Excellency. — I feel at all times the greatest possible 

 reluctance in intruding myself on your Excellency's time, or being in 

 any respeft troublesome in laying before Your Excellency a complaint 

 or grievance under which I may labour , so be it that such grievance 

 could be endured with any degree of toleration— but when as in the 

 present instance the cause and rise of my complaint is grounded on 

 wanton and seemingly premeditated aggression, urgent and present 

 necessity must plead my excuse, and procure for me Your Excellency's 

 forgiveness. 



The Mail Boat, the Anne and Eliza, Captain Bennett, from Bar- 

 bados, bringing the 2nd December Mails, arrived yesterday afternoon 

 in the harbour, and duly delivered at this office, a little before the hour 

 of 4 o'clock p.m., the mail bags. The letters and papers were assorted 

 and ready for delivery at about fifteen minutes before the ensuing hour 

 of five o'clock ; — from this period till about the hour of seven, or until 

 it became dark, my assistant and myself continued to deliver letters 

 and papers— in the course of which time we distributed and sold more 

 than one half of the quantity received. The glut of people having by 

 that period completely and wholly subsided and, as I supposed entirely 

 ceased, my assistant departed and I closed the Office for the night. I 

 had no sooner retired to my apartment to prepare myself for refreshing 

 the wants of nature, and prepare the Berbice Mail for Captain Bennett's 

 return, than my hall was completely filled with a crowd of young clerks, 

 »rho in the most disorderly and contumacious manner demanded their 

 Employers' letters. From encountering so much petulance and un- 

 merited disrespeft from young men anything but respeftable, I abso- 

 lutely and in the most peremptory manner refused appropriating any 

 portion of my private time to the use of a public -who so ungenerously and 

 shamefully conducted themselves in so unhandsome a manner towards 

 me. During this altercation Captain Bennett returned, very fortu- 

 nately for me, for the Berbice Mail Bag. He was so shocked and 

 astonished at the insolence and abuse showered upon me that he in the 



