commerce might be the better preserved." The governments of New England received the proposal favorably, and gave the mail-carriers free passage over their ferries. Massachusetts established a "General Letter Office" in Boston, and fixed the rates of postage. The smallest charge 1693. was two pence "for every single letter June 9. from Europe, the West Indies, or other parts beyond the seas"; the largest, for a single letter carried between Boston and Maryland or Virginia, was two shillings. The conveyance of a letter from Boston to Salem cost three pence; to Ipswich, four pence; to Portsmouth, six pence. The carrying of letters or packets for hire by any but the servants of the postmaster-general was prohibited under a penalty of forty pounds. The postmaster-general and his servants were made. liable to fines for negligence in their duty. Under the authority given by the General Court, Hamilton appointed Duncan Campbell, a Scotsman, to be his deputy in Boston. On a representation from Campbell that his receipts did not equal his expenditures, the Court granted him for 1694. several years an annual allowance of about June 20. twenty-five pounds, sometimes exceeding and sometimes coming short of that sum.

Neale's patent was for twenty-one years. Two years before it was to expire, the House of Commons, deliberating on the "ways and 1710. means for raising the supply granted to Feb. 14. her Majesty," resolved that "towards the raising

the supply, her Majesty's revenues, both inland and foreign, to arise in the General Letter Office or Post-Office, or the office of postmaster-general, be increased "; and the series of Resolves went on to specify higher rates of postage, which were to be demanded in every part of the Queen's dominions for inland or foreign correspondence. The postage of a single letter between New York and London, for example, or between New York and Boston, was fixed at a shilling; between New York and Salem, at a shilling and three pence; between Boston and any place not more than sixty miles distant from it, at four pence. The Act which was passed in pursuance of the plan of these Resolves was entitled "An Act for erecting a General Post-Office in all her Majesty's dominions, and for settling a weekly sum out of it for the service of the war and other occasions"; and one section of it required a weekly payment of seven hundred pounds to be made "into the Queen's Exchequer, in order to a supply of money for carrying on the war, and other her Majesty's most necessary occasions."

In fact, from the first institution of a

1635. regular post-office in England, which was in the time of King Charles the First, the income from that source, sometimes obtained by a lease to a private party, had always been treated as a part of the royal revenue. It may excite surprise that while, by its English promoters, the character of this Act, as a measure for raising revenue, was

not only not concealed, but was expressly avowed, it does not appear to have raised in New England any resistance or animadversion on that account. The truth is, there was nothing in the Act, except the language of its title, to awaken jealousy as to its being a scheme for taxation by the Parliament of the mother country. Men in New England had been all along accustomed to look upon what they paid for the conveyance of their letters just as they looked upon payments for any other service rendered. It was no novelty for the persons who had rendered this service for them to be appointed under authority from the crown, and the service, as far as it included communications with England, could hardly have been well rendered otherwise. The people had been assured by their Boston postmaster, and had reason to believe, that the English post-office conducted their business for them at a cost greater than it was reimbursed for by the postage which it received; and the new arrangement promised a still better transaction of the business than that which had been experienced heretofore. In these circumstances, it would have been hard for them to make out a grievance from an Act which required useful work to be done for them at little cost, solely on the ground that the new Act, relating to all parts of the Queen's empire, called itself an Act for raising revenue.

The post-office department complained that it failed to get its dues because payments were

made to it in the depreciated colonial currencies. During the first half of the eighteenth century, the prosperity of Massachusetts was kept down by her use of a vicious substitute for money.

Even before the disastrous result of the

1711.. late expedition against Canada, the prov

ince was in arrears to her creditors to the amount of a hundred and twenty thousand pounds, and this though a tax of twenty-two thousand pounds had just been levied, and more than four thousand pounds were annually received from imposts and excise. Measures of retrenchment had been repeatedly resorted to or advised; but the difficulties of the time obstructed them, and in fact extremely little relief was obtained in that way.

This was not the worst of the difficulty. There was no sound currency for the transactions of commerce. Nearly down to the close of Dudley's administration, though in twenty years the amount of paper money had been largely increased, driving almost all the coin abroad, the precautions taken against a depreciation of it had had a considerable degree of success; but it broke down under the failure of the second costly expedition to Quebec. The embarrassments and discontents usual in such circumstances followed, and the devices, a thousand times conceived and as often defeated, for paying debts with something different from money. The brilliant prospects of the South Sea Company in England gave encouragement to schem

ers.

Some merchants of Boston presented a memorial praying "to have bills of credit 1712. made current to answer debt by laws," Oct. 29. which was received with favor by the House. The wiser Council replied by asking a conference, in which, as we hear no more of the project, it may be presumed that they succeeded in exposing, to the satisfaction of their fellow-legislators, its injustice and futility.

1714.

Oct. 20.

Nov. 5.

The governor proposed a plan of extrication from this dismal financial embarrassment, which after a sharp debate obtained legal sanction. A public bank, as it was called, was instituted, with a capital provided for it by the General Court, consisting of fifty thousand pounds in bills of credit. Its management was committed to five trustees, who were authorized to lend the bills for periods not to exceed five years, for an interest of five per centum annually, and a payment each year of one fifth part of the principal sum, the payments to be secured by mortgages of real property. The principal opposition to this plan proceeded from friends of the project of what was called a private bank. They proposed to form a company which should issue and lend its own notes, or bills of credit, the payment to be secured by mortgages on their estates. Their scheme was frustrated when the General Court, preferring the plan of the public bank, refused them an act of incorporation. But they did not despair, and the controversy which