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1
435
Her Majesty's Mails
·
William Lewins
318
FOOTNOTES:
[166]
At
this
period
the
packets
were
worked
at
a
considerable
loss;
though
this
large
item
was
occasioned
by
the
war,
yet
the
sea-postage
never
amounted
to
half
the
cost
of
the
maintenance
of
the
mail-packets.
[167]
In
the
American
Colonies,
Benjamin
Franklin
was
the
last
and
by
far
the
best
colonial
Postmaster-General.
He
had
forty
years
experience
of
postal
work,
having
been
appointed
postmaster
of
Philadelphia
in
1737.
Mr.
Pliny
Miles,
in
his
history
of
the
Post-Office
in
America,
New
York
Bankers'
Magazine,
vol.
vii.
p.
360,
has
furnished
many
interesting
particulars
of
this
period.
It
appears
that
Franklin
notified
his
appointment
in
his
own
newspaper
as
follows:
"Notice
is
hereby
given,
that
the
Post-Office
at
Philadelphia
is
now
kept
at
B.
Franklin's
in
Market
Street,
and
that
Henry
Pratt
is
appointed
riding-postmaster
for
all
stages
between
Philadelphia
and
Newport,
Virginia,
who
sets
out
about
the
beginning
(!)
of
each
month,
and
returns
in
twenty-four
days,
by
whom
gentlemen,
merchants,
and
others
may
have
their
letters
carefully
conveyed."
What
follows
is
also
interesting.
It
would
seem
that
Franklin
was
somewhat
unceremoniously
dismissed
from
his
post,
upon
which
he
wrote,
by
way
of
protest,
that
up
to
the
date
of
his
appointment
"the
American
Post-Office
never
had
paid
anything
to
Britain.
We
(himself
and
assistant)
were
to
have
600l.
a-year
between
us,
if
we
could
make
that
sum
out
of
the
profits
of
the
office.
To
do
this,
a
variety
of
improvements
were
necessary;
some
of
these
were,
inevitably,
at
the
beginning
expensive;
so
that
in
the
first
four
years
the
office
became
above
900l.
in
debt
to
us.
But
it
soon
after
began
to
repay
us;
and
before
I
was
displaced
by
a
freak
of
the
Minister's
we
had
brought
it
to
yield
three
times
as
much
clear
revenue
to
the
Crown
as
the
whole
Post-Office
of
Ireland.
Since
that
imprudent
transaction,"
adds
Franklin,
with
a
bit
of
pardonable
irony,
"they
have
received
from
it--not
one
farthing!"
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