THE PROGRESS AND PRESENT CONDITION OF THE GENERAL POST OFFICE.

In our last number we detailed the principles and objects of that prodigious reform which was about to be introduced in the Post Office System in England.

In the simplicity of its arrangements, and the grandeur of its results, it may be justly called the greatest practical improvement which the genius and energy of a single man have ever effected in the intercourse of society, on which so intimately depends all the blessings of civilization. We are glad to perceive that our article has had the desired effect in attracting attention to the subject of this reform, in which no country has so deep a stake as our own. The reduction of postage to a low, uniform rate, to be effected by simplifying present arrangements, and concentrating present means, without occasioning the loss of a dollar to the revenue, is an improvement which, more than any other we could name, would accelerate the giant progress of this country, give a permanent and wide diffusion to its own principles, and, with them, to the great cause of moral reform, and carry benefits and blessings to every home in the Union. In fact, the advantages are so obvious and so universal, and the reasons for it so irresistible, that, to establish the mere fact of the possibility of its accomplishment will be to insure its introduction.

America has never yet lagged behind in improvement; and our Government is the only one on earth expressly instituted to afford the greatest happiness to the greatest number, emanating from the people, and immediately controlled, in all its departments, by them, and which, in consequence, in its policy and practice, makes that maxim its actuating principle. There, then, cannot be a shadow of doubt but that this vast reformin which every man, woman, and child, throughout the land, is directly and personally interested-which confers the franking privilege upon a nation-will be introduced as soon as the successful experiment of England shall have demonstrated its practicability. We propose, therefore,

in the present paper, to give a succinct and historical view of the existing establishment, in order that our readers may have a clearer view of the whole subject when we come to examine the adaptation of such a sweeping change to the widely different circumstances of our Government and country.

The necessities of the inhabitants introduced the system of communicating by post into the Colonies before it was established by legislation in the Mother Country. In July, 1683, William Penn, among other benefits resulting from his enlarged philanthropy, did not neglect those of regular communication, and established posts from Philadelphia to the principal settlements of Pennsylvania and Maryland; and a regular Act of Assembly authorizing the Post Office at Philadelphia was passed in 1700, preceding the Act of Anne, which is the basis of the system in England, by eleven years. * Soon after this, Colonel John Hamilton, son of Governor Andrew Hamilton, obtained a patent for a plan of a General Post Office for all British America, of which the profits were to be his own. This patent he afterwards sold to the Crown, and a postmaster for North America was appointed, who was to have a deputy at New York, with power to reside in any other part of the Continent. In 1717, a letter from John Dickenson gives us a view of the Post Office operations at that time. There was a settled post along the main line of communication through the Northern Colonies and Virginia and Maryland. The distance between Boston and Williamsburgh was completed in four weeks, except in winter, when double that time was required. In 1747, a letter from Dr. Douglas informs us, that the general communication was not regular, as the post was not despatched until a sufficient number of letters had been deposited to pay the charges. Indeed, except between Philadelphia and the North, there appears to have been no regular departure of the mail, the practice being, when a post-rider proposed starting to the South, to advertise his intention, and to take along with him, and bring back, in addition to his letters, "led horses or any parcels." In 1753, Dr. Franklin was appointed General Deputy Postmaster of the Colonies, with a salary between him and his confederate of £600, "if they could get it." Franklin made such great efforts to improve the condition of the office, that he brought himself in debt £900, instead of gaining the £600, which he was to make, if he could. His success in quickening the mail, which he dwells upon with much satisfaction in his writings, will create a smile in these days. He increased the accommodation from once a week in summer, and once a fortnight in winter, at which it had been stationary for twenty-five years,

* Communication by posts appears to have been more or less general in England from the time of Elizabeth. In 1656, Cromwell and his Parliament established the Post Office by law, which was again confirmed by Charles II. in 1661. The whole revenue in 1663 was settled upon the Duke of York; and when this person became James II., he had an act passed declaring the Post Office the King's private estate for ever.

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to thrice a week in summer, and once a week in winter. In the next year after effecting this improvement, he gave notice that the mail to New England, which used to start but once a fortnight in winter, should start once a week all the year, "whereby answers might be obtained to letters between Philadelphia and Boston in three weeks, which used to require six weeks." Franklin was removed by the Ministry from his office just as his exertions had succeeded in making it profitable to himself, but he was soon after reinstated by a more congenial authority. In 1775, the Congress of the Confederation; having assumed the practical sovereignty of the Colonies, appointed a committee to devise a system of Post Office communication-who made a Report recommending a plan on the twenty-sixth of July, which, on the same day, was adopted, and Dr. Franklin unanimously appointed Postmaster General. His salary was fixed at one thousand dollars per annum. His office was to be held in the city of Philadelphia, and, to aid him in the discharge of his duties, three hundred and forty dollars per annum were allowed him for a secretary and comptroller, with power to appoint such and so many deputies as to him might seem proper and necessary. By the same resolution, a single post-route was established, to run from Falmouth, in New England, to Savannah, in Georgia, with as many cross posts as the Postmaster General might deem necessary. Twenty per centum of the sums collected and paid into the General Post Office, annually, not exceeding one thousand dollars, and ten per centum for all sums exceeding one thousand dollars, paid in in like manner, were allowed to the deputy postmasters in lieu of salary, and all contingent expenses. The several deputies were required to account quarterly with the General Post Office, and the Postmaster General was further required to make an annual report to the Continental Treasurers, and pay to them the profits of the office; and if the necessary expense of the establishment exceeded the produce of it, the United Colonies bound themselves to make good the deficiencies by payments to the Postmaster General, through the Continental Treasurers: the Postmaster General, at the same period, was requested to establish a weekly post to South Carolina.

July 8th, 1776.-Postmasters were excused from military duty; August 8th, 1776, post-riders were exempted from military duty; May 12th, 1777, it was recommended to the several States to exempt all

persons concerned

in conducting the business of the Post Office from military duty.

July 17th, 1777.-The Postmaster General was authorized to appoint two additional surveyors of the Post Office, and all surveyors were allowed six dollars per day for compensation and travelling expenses.

The tour of the surveyors was ordered by Congress as follows:

One from Casco Bay to Philadelphia, or while the enemy was in possession of that city, to Lancaster; one from Philadelphia or Lancaster to Edenton, in North Carolina; and the third from Edenton to Savannah, in Georgia. The salary of the Postmaster General, and of the surveyors, was doubled on the sixteenth of April, 1779; and the

duties of the office continuing to increase in the troublous time of war, Congress, by another vote on the twenty-seventh of December, in the same year, raised the salary of the Postmaster General to five thousand dollars per annum, and that of the Comptroller to four thousand dollars. The three surveyors were also allowed forty dollars per day until further orders-a liberality of compensation which, in those thrifty times, denotes services of the most arduous description. An Inspector of Dead Letters was also appointed, at a salary of one hundred dollars per annum, who was under oath faithfully and impartially to discharge the duties of his office, and enjoined to take no copy of any letter whatever, and not to divulge the contents to any but Congress, or those who were appointed by them for that purpose.

This was all the legislation deemed requisite at the commencement of our Government for the establishment of such an important branch of its functions as a General Post Office, and the simplicity of the times did not find it necessary to increase it much during the existence of the Confederation. On the seventeenth of September, 1785, the first line of mail coaches was established by Congress from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to Savannah, Georgia, with a spur line from New York to Albany.

Dr. Benjamin Franklin, who commenced the list of Postmasters General with his glorious name-the first in the service, and the longest to be remembered by posterity-continued in the office until he had got it into something like systematic operation, the knowledge he had acquired under the Crown being usefully employed in laying the foundation of one of the pillars of the Government. With but one line of posts and sixty post offices, it is not strange that the philosopher found ample opportunity to pursue his favorite studies. Except his portrait, no existence of his connection with it now lingers in the Department of his founding. Under his directions, many improvements were suggested and adopted. We find the Post Office conducted on hard currency principles from the beginning. The men of that time were too sagacious to surrender the principle of sustaining the public credit by sound money for any temporary convenience. Franklin himself was a good judge of paper money. He had printed quantities of it in his young days, and, therefore, was aware of its convertibility and other virtues. It is delightful to find, from the precedents of those days, examples of the opinions and conduct of the Fathers of the Revolution under circumstances that, in our own time, have produced the bitterest opposition of party. Amos Kendall's instructions will hardly produce another ten cent rebellion, under the auspices of members of Congress, when we find the Congress of the Confederation form his precedent in refusing irredeemable shinplasters for postage, and (on the twenty-first of June, 1786) approving of the conduct of the Postmaster General in ordering the deputy postmasters not to receive the paper money of the States; and, again, on the twentieth af September, directing him to issue instructions to his deputies "to receiveno other money in payment for postage than specie."

Harassed with the presence of an enemy, and scattered as the settlements were upon this Western Continent, the post-rider had then no easy task. Expresses were principally made use of in sending communications, especially between the army and Congress, and occasionally the Postmaster General took up his residence in camp, and drew his rations by special law. The picture is deeply interesting which imagination presents of these primitive arrangements;-the immortal Franklin seated under the waving of the battle flag, and opening his mail in the heart of the American Camp, while the bugles of the battalions called up the hardy sons of the Revolution to receive the remembrances of virtuous and high-souled mothers, and the soft and gentle prayers of lovelier friends, cannot be recalled without emotion.

Franklin left the Post Office to serve his country in the more important station of Ambassador at the Court of France.

That all may be aware of the manner in which the first Democratic Postmaster General was received in society abroad, we give the following extract, from Madame Campan's Memoirs, of his appearance at the Court of Louis XVI.

"Franklin appeared at Court in the dress of an American cultivator. His straight, unpowdered hair, his round hat, his brown cloth coat, formed a contrast with the laced and embroidered coats and the powdered and perfumed heads of the courtiers of Versailles.* This novelty turned the enthusiastic heads of the French women. Elegant entertainments were given to Dr. Franklin, who, to the reputation of a most skilful physician, added the patriotic virtues which had invested him with the noble character of an apostle of liberty. I was present at one of those entertainments, when the most beautiful woman out of three hundred was selected to put a crown of laurels upon the white head of the American philosopher, and two kisses upon his cheeks. Even in the palace of Versailles, Franklin's medallion was sold under the King's eyes in the exhibition of Sevres porcelain."

How the philosopher stood the kissing we are not told, but presume that he who ruled the fires of heaven was proof against the dark-haired beauties of Versailles.

Franklin, on the seventh of November, 1776, was succeeded as Postmaster General by his relative, Richard Bache, who had been his comptroller. There is but little notice recorded of him in the archives of the Department. This is not remarkable, as the Post Office was little better than a clerkship, under the Committee of the Old Congress, and few pub

And we fear would form a contrast still stronger and stranger with the tinselled and tasselled trumpery in which his successors, our modern American Diplomatists, are permitted to belittle themselves in European Courts. State dresses forsooth, of gold tinsel and embroidery, as if the simple man, in a government expressly based upon an equality of rights in men, were unfit to represent his country, till the monkey taste of an exploded monarchical fashion had decked him in its gaudy trappings, in imitation of the stars and mantles of hereditary aristocracy. Admitting the principle in this instance, where it strikes us that it ought most expressly to be denied, how can we refrain, in justice, from applying it in all others. If court dresses and embroidery are requisite to give dignity to an American Ambassador, why can we not also see justice in a huge wig, and wisdom and a superior nature in garters, coronets, and ermine? We believe with Burns,

"The rank is but the guinea's stamp,

A man's the gowd for a' that."