The Sun.
London, England, 1844-08-07 00:00:00

lONAGE.

COMMONS' REPORT.
The Committee of Secresy appointed to inquire into the state
of the law in respect of the detaining andopeniug of letters
at the General Post-office, and into the mode under which
the authority given for such detaining and opening has
been exercised, and to report their opinion and observa-
tions thereupon to the House, and to whom several peti-
ttions were referred;—have examined the matters to them
referred, and have agreed to the following report :
Your Committee, in performance of the duty which the
House has devolved upon them, of iuquiring into the state
of the law respecting the detaining; and opening of letters
at the General Post-office, beg to state in the outset that
although the wording of the 33d and 36th chapters of the
Ist of Victoria, which now mainly regulate the Post-office,
is, in respect of the matter in hand, somewhat different from
that of the 10th chapter of the 9th of Anne, for which they
were substituted, yet that there appears to be no such vari-
ance between the statutes of those two periods respectively,
as to prevent your Committee from assuming, for the con-
venience of their inquiry, that the same powers are con-
veyed or recognised in all.
The inquiry, therefore, what the state of the law now is
respecting such detention and opening, is reduced to the in-
quiry what the state of the law was, respecting the same
matter, immediately on the passing of the statute of Anne,
unless in the intervening period, the principles which regu-
late the interpretation of Acts in general should have under-
gone modification, or cases should have been decided in the
superior courts of law which might have a bearing on the
construction to be given to this particular Act. With that
reservation, the law on the matter in question was the same
in 1711 that it is in 1844.
In preference to discussing the purely legal question, how
far the statute of Anne, in recognising the practice, on the
part of Secretaries of State, of issuing warrants to open
letters, rendered it lawful for the Secretaries of State to issue
such warrants, your CoMinittee propose, so far as they have
materials for that purpose, to give the history of this prac-
tice, prior and subsequent to the passing of that statute;
these materials being such as ought not to be overlooked in
investigating the grounds on which the exercise of this au-
thority rests.
In these early researches your Committee will have occa-
sion to inquire into the condition of the posts in this country
at various periods of our history, and into the connection
that subsisted between them and the supreme authorities of
the country. In these inquiries your Committee have been
assisted by Sir Francis Palgrave, of the Rolls Office, by
Messrs. Lechmere and Leman, of the State Paper Office, and
by Mr. Reeve, of the Council Office.
It does not appear at what precise period the Crown under-
took to be the regular carrier of letters for its subjects.
The Crown, doubtless, found it necessary at a very early
period, to the exercise of the functions of sovereignty, to be
able to convey with speed and security its own dispatches
from one part of the realm to another, and from and to parts
beyond the seas; and for that purpose it appointed certain
messengers or runners, called the posts. These posts were
also employed for the personal convenience of the Sovereign,
and the individuals composing the royal court. In course of
time, a master of the posts was appointed, and the first of
these on record was Brian Tuke, Esq., afterwards Sir Brian
Take, Knight, who held that office in 1516, and whose letter
to Thomas Cromwell, respecting the performance of its duties,
dated 17th August, 1533, is given in the appendix. The
joint successors of Sir Brian Tuke were Sir William Paget,
Knight, Privy Councillor, and one ofHenry the Eighth's chief
secretaries, and John Mason, Esq., secretary for the French
tongue. The letters patent, dated 12th November, 1545,
conveying to them this office, grant to them, during their
lives and the life of the survivor, the office of master of the
messengers, runners, or posts, as well within the kingdom
of England as in parts beyond the seas in the King's
dominions, together with the wages or fee of 66/. 13s. 4d.
a-year, to be held by themselves or "their sufficient deputy
or deputies, &c. ; but, besides his fee, the Master of the Posts
received from the Crown the amount of his expenses for con-
veying letters, of which he rendered in an account, many
samples of which are given in the appendix. There is a
succession of patents (including recitals of patents), granting
the same office, at the same fee, to other parties for life, in
the times of Elizabeth, James 1., and Charles I.
With regard to correspondence conveyed by other messen-
gers than their own, our monarchs viewed it with great
suspicion ; but it was especially towards letters arriving
from or going to parts beyond the seas that their vigilance
seems to hare been directed. The frequency of disputed
successions to the Crown, and the constant jealousy enter-
tained of the Court of Rome, will assist in explaining their
desire to prevent such correspondence. All letters coming
from beyond the seas were directed to be seized ; but in
the time of Edward 11., to whose reign the first record of this
kind belongs, the King's bailiffs, in assisting the admiral
of the fleet to search for letters, were forbidden under
the pretext of such powers, to attack or oppress any mer-
chants or others crossing the seas. Th. -`-'' re 0Y
te.x, uc Lae aispatenes sent from this country
by the ambasador of the Emperor Charles V., is a proof
of the extraordinary jealousy with which foreign corre-
spondence was regarded, and of the vigilance with which it
was watched.
After the grant of the office of Master of the Posts to any
new person, a royal proclamation always followed, to notify
the new appointment. Consequent on the grant of the office
by Queen Elizabeth, in the year 1590, to John Stanhope,
Esq., there is a proclamation, prohibiting all persons what-
soever from gathering up, receiving, bringing, or carrying
out of the realm any letters or packets, without the allowance
of the masters and comptrollers of the posts, or their deputies.
All mayors, bailiffs, &c., are ordered to make diligent
search for all mails, &c., of all such disavowed carriers, &c.,
or suspected persons, coming into ongoing out of the realm
with packets of letters ; and -all such to apprehend, &c.,
keeping them in safe custody, until, by the view of their
writings, sent up to the Privy Council, it be seen and advised
what further shall be done with them." Exception is
made of the dispatches of her Majesty's principal secre-
taries, of ambassadors, and of others sufficiently authorised.
Similar prohibitions are contained in the proclamations an-
nouncing the appointment of new postmasters in the two
subsequent reigns.
The practice probably began at an early period, and after-
wards grew into a regular custom, of allowing private per-
sons to avail themselves of the King's posts for transmitting
their correspondence. This probably became a perquisite to
the postmasters, while, at the same time, it gave to Ministers
of State the power of narrowly inspecting the whole of the
written communications of this country.
The employment of the posts for carrying the letters of
the subjects of the Crown is recognised in a proclamation,
dated 1591, consequent on the before recited grant by Queen
Elizabeth to John Stanhope, Esq., of the office of Master of
the Queen's Posts. The Lord Treasurer and others are
thereby directed to notify to all merchants, both strangers
and others, in the city of London, that they are not to take
upon them to employ any disavowed persons to convey their
letters, but are to use such only as are lawfully appointed
for that purpose: The same direction is repeated in a procla-
mation of James 1., dated 1609. In the year 1628, in an
address from the House of Commons to Charles 1., it is
stated that the deputy of the King's postmaster, appointed
to carry the letters from the Crown beyond the seas, was
likewise employed for the same purpose by the English
merchants.

With regard to inland letters, in a document obtained
from the State Paper-office, and dated 1635, it is stated that
the King's postmasters carried the subjects' letters, but up to
that time had never reaped any benefit from it.

The officer who has been hitherto mentioned as the King's
postmaster, was the master of the posts within the King's
dominions, at home or beyond the seas. To him, however,
had hitherto belonged the transmission of letters both at
home and abroad; but in 1619 a new Patent-office was esta-
blished by James 1., called that of the Postmaster of England
for foreign parts out of the King's dominions. The patent
gave rise to a long legal contest between Lord Stanhope, who
held the former of these two offices, and Matthew de Ques-
ter, the new patentee. During these proceedings, lest the
merchants of London should sustain inconvenience from in-
terruption to their foreign correspondence, an order was
issued permitting them to convey their letters to and from
parts beyond the seas, by nTessengers of their own choosing;
and moreover, the Lords of the Council, to whom the dis-
pute had been referred, advised De Quester, by letter, not to
give any interruption to the conveyance and reconveyance of
the merchants' letters. On the subject of this letter, the Secre-
tary of State, Sir John Coke, wrote to his co-Secretary of
State, Lord Conway, calling the power of sending foreign let-
ters a branch of the royal authority, affirming that no place
in Christendom can be named where merchants are allowed
to send their letters by other posts than those authorised by
the State; that his colleague best knew what account they
shall be able to give in their places of that which passeth
by letters in or out of the land, if every man may convey
letters, under the covers of merchants, to whoni and what
place he pleaseth, &c. The order, " upon weighty reasons of
State," was afterwards limited to the Company of Merchant
Adventurers alone, and they were only to convey their let-
ters to the towns of Hamburgh and Delf, and they were to
give bond to carry no other letters than those concerning the
Company; no one was to be appointed messenger to the Com-
pany, unless approved of by the Secretaries of State; the
other companies of merchants were to send their dispatches
by De Quester only ; and, in times of war and danger to the
State, the said Company, and all other companies of mer-
chants, if required, were to acquaint the Secretaries of State,
from time to time, with their letters and dispatches into fo-
reign parts. In the end, by the influence of the Crown, Lord
Stanhope was made to surrender his patent. De Quester's
patent came into possession of one Thomas Witherings, who
suggested to the Crown a plan for the entire re-organisation
of the inland posts, which, instead of producing at that time
any revenue to the State, were a burden to it of 3,4001. per
annum. The plan proposed consisted essentially of three
parts—the establishment of fixed rates of postage; substi-
tuting horse posts, which were to travel at the rate of 120
miles in twenty-four hours, instead of foot posts, which tra-
velled at the rate of 18 miles • and giving to the public gene-
rally the use of the Post-office. This plan was adopted;
Witherings was appointed to the office ; and thus became
centered in the same person the offices of Postmaster for in
land and for foreign letters. In 1635 and 1637 appeared two
proclamations, to notify and give effect to the new plan of
Mr. Witherings; and in both these there were clauses pro-
hibiting any other than Mr. Witherings, or his deputies, from
carrying letters.

In 1640, on a charge of divers abuses and misdemeanours
committed by Witherings in the execution of his said two
offices, they were sequestered into the hands of Philip Bur-
lamachi, of London, merchant, who was to execute the same
under the care and oversight of the principal Secretaries of
State; and without tracing at this day the disputes which
the conflicting pretensions of different individuals to the p6s-
session of thes offices gave rise in the year 1642, it will be
sufficient to say that, shortly afterwards, the management of
the affairs of the Post-office fell into the hands of Mr. PH-
deaux, who was Chairman of the Committee appointed by
the House to consider the inland department of the Post-
office, and was afterwards, under the Commonwealth, At-
torney-General to the State. Mr. Prideaux was appointed
Master of the Posts, in 1644, by the authority of both Houses
of Parliament.
The validity of the clause in the grant to Witherings of
the inland letter office, prohibiting any but the persons ap-
pointed by the patentee from receiving or delivering letters
at any- place where the patentee should settle posts, was
brought in question, in 1646, before a Committee of the