Her Majesty's Mails

[115] Select Committee on Postage, 1843, p. 93. CHAPTER IX. THE POST-OFFICE AND LETTER-OPENING. It will be fresh in the memory of many readers, that the year 1844 revealed to the public certain usages of the Government, and a branch of post-office business--previously kept carefully in the dark--which went far to destroy the confidence of the nation in the sanctity of its correspondence. In the session of 1844, Mr. Thomas S. Duncombe presented a petition from Mr. W. J. Linton, M. Mazzini, and two other persons residing at 47, Devonshire Street, Queen's Square, complaining that their letters were regularly detained and opened at the Post-Office. The petitioners declared that they "considered such a practice, introducing the spy-system of foreign states, as repugnant to every principle of the British constitution, and subversive of that public confidence which was so essential to a commercial country." The petitioners prayed for an inquiry, and Mr. Duncombe supported their prayer. Sir James Graham, then Home Secretary, got up in the House and stated that, as regarded three of the petitioners, their letters had not been detained; as for the case of M. Mazzini, a warrant had been obtained from the Home-Office to stop and open the correspondence of that person. He had the power by law and he had exercised it.