Her Majesty's Mails

"MR. EDISBURY--The woman whose complaint we herewith send you, having given us much trouble upon the same, we desire you will inquire into the same, and see justice done her, believing she may have had her brandy stole from her by the sailors.--We are your affectionate friends[!], R. C., T. F." It would be difficult to fancy such a letter as the above proceeding from officialdom in the year of grace eighteen hundred and sixty-four. In another letter we find the authorities affectionately scolding an agent because "he had not provided a sufficiency of pork and beef for the prince" (who this pork-loving prince was does not appear); in another, because "he had bought powder at Falmouth that would have been so much cheaper in London." In other cases they act as public guardians of morality and loyalty, suspending one because "he had stirred up a mutiny between a captain and his men, which was unhandsome conduct in him;" bringing one Captain Clies to trial, inasmuch as "he had spoken words reflecting on the royal family, which the Postmasters-General took particular unkind of him," and can by no means allow; and reprimanding another captain for "breaking open the portmanteau of a gentleman-passenger, and spoiling him of a parcel of snuff." What with all these cares and duties, the Postmasters-General of those days could scarcely have had an easy time of it. This sole control over the resources of the packet-service explains much in the history of the franking system, which would be quite unintelligible without the information just given. The Treasury warrants of that day franked the strangest commodities--articles which certainly would not be dropped into any letter-box, and which would neither be stamped nor sorted in the orthodox way. The following list of a few franked commodities is culled from a still larger number of such in the packet "agent's book," found amongst the old records to which reference has already been made:--