THE BRITISH MAIL PACKET SERVICE The first regular Government mail packet service was estab lished by Queen Elizabeth in 1598 between Holyhead and Dublin. At that period, however, foreign communications were of greater postal importance than those with Ireland, and when James I. reaffirmed the post office monopoly in the case of foreign letters and appointed a postmaster for foreign parts, it clearly became incumbent on the post office to provide a regular means of com munication with foreign countries. Witherings, who subsequently reformed the inland post, began his career by establishing ef ficient and regular communication with France by means of hired boatmen engaged to carry the mail between Dover and Calais. For the next so years the service appears to have been somewhat unsatisfactory and development slow; but in 1686 a regular service was established by Government packet between Harwich and Holland, which was followed in 1688 by a service from Falmouth to Corunna, and in 1703 by a weekly service from Falmouth to Lisbon. The growth of the British oversea possessions in the i8th century led to further developments. After an unsuccessful attempt at the beginning of the century, regular packets were put on from Falmouth to the West Indies in 1745; packets also ran to North America ; and by the end of the i8th century they served a great part of the world.
Efficient as the packet service was in many respects, its history, which is known in considerable detail, is a curious commentary on i8th century administration. The packets themselves were small, being only 7o tons on the shorter services and on the ocean routes 'so—vessels of the latter tonnage being, according to a report of 1788, considered fit to go to any part of the world. The crews, at any rate in peace time, were small, and the pay very low. The commander of a Falmouth packet in 1797 received the sum of 3os. a week in peace time, and £2 in time of war ; the boatswain drew 7s. 6d. a week and the able seaman 7s. There was naturally every temptation to increase their incomes by such means as presented themselves, the favourite one being smuggling and, in war time, the capture of enemy ships when opportunity offered. The first practice led naturally to a good deal of trouble with the customs, in which the postmasters general supported their captains ; the latter was often inevitable and was the well earned reward of a hard fight against heavy odds; occasionally it was hardly distinguishable from piracy. The management of
the service, however, is a sordid history of corruption and mal administration. The cost went up rapidly towards the end of the century. The agents at the ports abused their powers by supplying defective stores, or claiming payment for provisions never supplied ; by drawing the wages of non-existent hands, or the pensions of sailors long dead; by selling passes and pocketing the proceeds, and the like. Finally in 1787 the scandal became so intolerable that a parliamentary enquiry was instituted, at which it was discovered that the post office itself was also impli cated, the secretary to the post office being not only a large owner of the boats (which were in many cases hired, not owned, by the Government), but also drawing 21 per cent on the total expenditure on packet services—a privilege which brought him altogether some .£5o,000.
The next important event in the history of the packets was the introduction of the steamship. Steamship communication with Ireland was established in 1816, and in 1821 a mail packet of 205 tons burden was put on this service, being followed in the next year by a steamship on the Dover–Calais route. It soon became evident, however, that mails could be carried more ad vantageously by private companies than by the government, and in 1831 the principle of inviting tenders for the mail service from private companies was introduced. In 1837 the Admiralty de cided that the post office packets ought to be considered as form ing a naval reserve of both ships and men and succeeded in hav ing the management transferred from the post office to them selves. It was an inopportune moment, however, as the system of state-owned packets was already moribund, and being grad ually displaced by the employment of private ships under con tract. The Admiralty, however, retained the control of packet services for over 20 years and it was not till 186o that it was retransferred to the post office.