Her Majesty's Mails

By the statute of Queen Anne, letters might be brought from abroad by private ships under certain distinctly-specified regulations. On the contrary, no law existed enabling the Postmaster-General to send bags of letters by the same medium until 1799, when an Act was passed with this object. Masters of such ships refusing to take bags were subjected to heavy penalties.[71] The postage of letters so sent (on account of the slowness of transit in the majority of cases) was fixed at half the usual rates. This Act is the foundation of the ship-letter system, by means of which, besides the regular packet communication, letters are forwarded to all parts of the world. At the same period the Government rigorously adhered to the law as laid down with regard to letters brought by private vessels. A case was tried in 1806 in the Court of King's Bench--"King v. Wilson"--in which the defendant--a merchant who had had letters brought from the Continent in a ship of his own, and pleaded that he had a right to do so--was cast in heavy damages, and told that "all and every such letters, as well as others," must pass through the Post-Office in the usual way.