POST-OBIT BOND (Post Obitam, Lat.), a bond given for the pur pose of securing a sum of money, the condition of which is, that the money shall be paid on the death of some person.
POST-OFFICE.—History. Correspondence is the offspring of ad vanced civilisation. When the state of society in this country anterior to the seventeenth century is considered, there can be little surprise that we hear nothing of a post-office before that period. Few of the motives to written communication could be said to exist. Each district of the country supplied its own wants. The little foreign trade which flourished was conducted between the English buyer and the foreign seller in person, at the port where the import was made. Literature and science dwelt only in the convent or the cell. There was little absence from the domestic hearth, excepting that of the fighting man following the service of his lord ; but few, either servants or masters, had the power, even if they had the will, to write letters. The king summoned his barons from all quarters of the kingdom by letters, or writs, and held frequent communication with his sheriffs, to collect his parliament together, to muster his forces, to preserve his po."e, to fill his treasury. The expenses of the esta blishment of Nuneii, charged with the conveyance of letters, formed a large item in the charges of the royal household. As early as the reign of King John, the payments to Nuncii for the carriage of letters may be found enrolled on the Close and Mime:Rolls, and these pay ments may be traced in an almost unbroken series through the records of subsequent reigns. Nuncii also formed part of the esta blishment of the more powerful nobles. In a wardrobe account of the 27th year of Edward L, we find a specimen of the mode in which the payment is entered :—" x die Januarii nuncio Domini Regis de Hastang redeunti ad eundum dominum scum cum litteris Regis, pro expensis suis sic redeundo--xiii." As correspondence grew, it is easy to sec that economical arrangements for its transmission would grow likewise. The Nuncius of the time of King John was probably obliged to provide his own horse throughout his journey ; whilst in the reign of Edward II. he was able, and found it more suitable, to hire horses at fixed posts or stations. In 1481, Edward IV., during the Scottish war, is stated by Gale to have established at certain posts, twenty miles apart, a change of riders, who handed letters to one another, and by this means expedited them 200 miles in two days.
It would seem that the posts, at which relays of riders and horses were kept, were wholly private enterprises; but that, when their importance became felt and appreciated, the state found it both politic and a source of profit to subject them to its surveillance. Before any substantive evidence appears of the superintendence of the posts by the government, the superscription often met with, of "haste poste haste," on letters written at the close of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, is sufficient to show that the posts had become the customary channel for transmitting letters in the speediest way.
A statute in 1548 (2 and 3 Edw. VI., c. 3) fixed a penny a mile as the rate to be chargeable for the hire of post-horses. In 1581, one Thomas Randolph is mentioned by Camden as the chief postmaster of England ; and there are reasons for concluding that his duties were to superintend the 'posts, and had no immediate connection with letters. The earliest recital of the duties and privileges of a post master seems to have been made by James I. The letters patent of Charles I., in 1632 (' Pat.,' 8 Car. I. p. i. m. 15 d ; Feeders,' vol. 19, p. 385) recite that James constituted an office called the office of postmaster of England for foreign parts being out of his dominions. This functionary was to have "the sole taking up, sending, and con veying of all packets and letters concerning his service, or business to be despatched into formigne parts, with power to grant moderate • salaries ; lot the office was " graunted to Mathews le Quester, and Mathewe le Quester his son : all others were publiquely prohibited that they should not directly or indirectly exercise or intrude themselves : the said M. le Quester made and substituted William Frizell and Thomas Witherings his deputies, and his Majesty accepted the substitution." The king, "affecting the welfare of his people, and taking into his princely consideration how much it imports his state and this realm that the secrets thereof be not disclosed to forreigne nations, which cannot be prevented if a promiscuous use of transmitting or taking up of forreigne letters and packetta should be suffered," forbids all others from exercising that which to the office of such postmaster pertaineth, at their utmost perils.