Her Majesty's Mails

[44] At the investigation in 1763 it was related that "one man had, in the course of five months, counterfeited 1,200 dozens of franks of different members of Parliament." [45] As an example of the summary proceedings of those days, we may here just note the remarks which Mr. Pitt made in his place in Parliament when he proposed this increase, calculating that the change would produce at least 120,000l. additional revenue out of the Post-Office. The tax upon letters, said he, could be calculated with a great degree of certainty, and the changes he had to propose would by no means reduce the number sent. It was idle to suppose that the public would grumble in having to pay just one penny additional for valuable letters safely and expeditiously conveyed. He proposed "to charge all letters that went one stage and which now paid one penny in future the sum of 2d., and this would bring in the sum of 6,230l. All that now pay 2d. paying an additional penny would yield 8,923l. Threepenny letters paying another penny would produce 33,963l. The increase of fourpenny letters would produce 34,248l." The cross-roads he could not speak of with great certainty, but he thought they might calculate on at least 20,000l. from that source, and so on, till the estimated sum was reached. [46] Domestic Annals of Scotland. By Mr. R. Chambers. Vol. ii. p. 142. [47] A Short Account of Scotland, published in London in 1702. [48] The wording of the qualifying clauses in the proclamations of stage-coaches, &c. are very various, and sometimes exceedingly amusing. In England the Divine Hand was generally recognised in the formula of "God willing," or, "If God should permit." On the contrary, the human element certainly preponderated--whether it was meant so or not--in the announcement made by a carrying communication between Edinburgh and a northern burgh, when it was given out that "a waggon would leave the Grass market for Inverness every Tuesday, God willing, but on Wednesday whether or no."