Her Majesty's Mails

He seems to have himself borne the charges of attending to the office "without any reasonable allowance therefor;" and petitioning the Committee of Estates to that effect, they allowed him to retain the "eighth penny on all letters sent from Edinburgh to London (no great number), and the fourth penny upon all those coming from London to Edinburgh." At the Restoration the office was bestowed on Robert Main, and considerable improvements were made under his management, although only with existing posts. Little was done for other parts of Scotland. A traveller in Scotland so late as 1688, commenting on the absence of stage or other coaches on most Scotch roads, says,[47] that "this carriage of persons from place to place might be better spared, were there opportunities and means for the speedier conveyance of business by letters. They have no horse-posts besides those which ply between Berwick and Edinburgh, and Edinburgh and Portpatrick for the Irish packets.... From Edinburgh to Perth, and so on to other places, they use foot-posts and carriers, which, though a slow way of communicating our concerns to one another, yet is such as they acquiesce in till they have a better." Our traveller is somewhat wrong in his date, for in 1667 a horse-post to Aberdeen from Edinburgh, twice a week, was started, with the consent of Patrick Graham, of Inchbrakie, his Majesty's Postmaster-General, "for the timous delivery of letters and receiving returns of the samen." Two years afterwards Inverness got dissatisfied with the want of postal communication, when Robert Main, the Edinburgh postmaster, was commissioned to establish a constant foot-post between Edinburgh and Inverness, going once a week, "wind and weather serving."[48] "Wind and weather serving" is an amusing qualification, as pointed out by Mr. Chambers, considering that there was only one ferry of six or seven miles, and another of two miles, to cross. In 1661, we find the Edinburgh postmaster useful in another capacity, for in that year the Privy Council grant a warrant to him "to put to print and publish ane diurnal weekly, for preventing false news which may be invented by evil and disaffected persons."