PRFVATE TRADE ON THE FALMOUTH PACKETS. 75 



any of the packets, or to deal in naval stores, or to have 

 pecuniary relations of any sort with the commanders. He was 

 forbidden to accept fees from them, and he was made aware that 

 his authority over them having now being disentangled from the 

 mesh of conflicting interests which had strangled it during past 

 years, was to be exerted in future in the public interest alone. 

 Similarly the clerks at the head ofiice were compelled to dispose 

 of any shares in the packets which they might possess, and the 

 healthy principle that no person ought to direct in matters in 

 which he has a pecuniary concern, was established once fo^r all as 

 the rule of the service. Other reforms were initiated, into which 

 it is not now necessary to enter. 



Enough has been said to shew that the Packet service at 

 Falmouth had been in a highly unsatisfactory condition for a 

 long time previous to 1793. It is therefore not surprising to find 

 that a certain amount of demoralisation existed, and that the 

 ofiicers as a body had a low standard of duty. The official 

 records at this period are full of caustic references to this laxity, 

 noted down evidently verbatim from observations made by the 

 Postmaster Greneral.* The following, taken at random from 

 among several others, will shew the general tendency. "The 

 Postmaster General cannot but lament when they look at the 

 absentee list of their captains in time of war to see how many 

 reasons they are constantly urging to stay at home, and of how 

 little use they must consider their own presence at sea. There 

 are now twelve packets at sea, and no less than ten of the 

 captains of them ashore." This was in August, 1793, and the 

 twelve packets referred to were all upon the Falmouth station. 

 But sarcastic appeals such as this produced very little effect, for 

 in 1798 the captains appear to have been scarcely fonder of 

 going to sea than in 1793. By this time, however, a keen 

 intelligence was at work in the Greneral Post Office, and in the 

 following year the absenteeism of the captains was cured by the 

 establishment of the system of mulcts, under which a large 

 tax was levied on the profits of the voyage whenever the captain 

 did not sail in person, the proceeds of the tax being carried to a 

 fund for pensioning the widows of captains and masters in the 

 service. 



* At this time the ancient practice was still in force, whereby the office of 

 Postmaster General was held jointly by two persons. 



