[39] _Gentleman's Magazine_, August, 1760.
[40] Mr. Scudamore, of the General Post-Office, to whom we are indebted for much of the _minutiæ_ in question, has been successful in his efforts to preserve permanently some of the old records of the Post-Office; and the result of his labours may be found in the Appendix to the Postmaster-General's First Report.
[41] Son of the James Craggs who succeeded Addison as Secretary of State, and who obtained such an unusual portion of the poetical praise of Pope. The son came in for a share also, as, for example:--
"Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere, In action faithful, and in honour clear."
[42] Campbell, in his _Tales of the Highlands_, relates two or three incidents which show that little improvement had taken place in post communications in some part of Scotland even a hundred years later. The English order of posts and express posts seem there to have been reversed, express work being done the worst. For instance: "Near Inverary, we regained a spot of comparative civilization, and came up with the post-boy, whose horse was quietly grazing at some distance, whilst Red Jacket himself was immersed in play with other lads. 'You rascal,' I said to him, 'are you the post-boy and thus spending your time?' 'Nae, nae, sir,' he answered, 'I'm no the post, I'm only an Express!'"
[43] What the Right Hon. John Methuen wanted with two bales of stockings is, of course, a mystery, if he was not embarking in the haberdashery line. It may be he was desirous of regaining the favour of the Portuguese Court, by supplying the whole with English stockings. This was the Methuen who gave his name to a well-known treaty, which, by the way, was found so distasteful to the Portuguese that when, in 1701, he carried it to Pedro II. for his signature, that monarch gave vent to his displeasure by kicking it about the room.--_Marlborough Despatches_, vol. v. p. 625.
[44] At the investigation in 1763 it was related that "one man had, in the course of five months, counterfeited 1,200 dozens of franks of different members of Parliament."
[45] As an example of the summary proceedings of those days, we may here just note the remarks which Mr. Pitt made in his place in Parliament when he proposed this increase, calculating that the change would produce at least 120,000_l._ additional revenue out of the Post-Office. The tax upon letters, said he, could be calculated with a great degree of certainty, and the changes he had to propose would _by no means reduce the number sent. It was idle to suppose that the public would grumble in having to pay just one penny additional for valuable letters safely and expeditiously conveyed._ He proposed "to charge all letters that went one stage and which now paid one penny in future the sum of 2_d._, and this would bring in the sum of 6,230_l._ All that now pay 2_d._ paying an additional penny would yield 8,923_l._ Threepenny letters paying another penny would produce 33,963_l._ The increase of fourpenny letters would produce 34,248_l._" The cross-roads he could not speak of with great certainty, but he thought they might calculate on at least 20,000_l._ from that source, and so on, till the estimated sum was reached.