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Cornell University Library HE6233 .N89 History of the post-office pacl<et servic 3 1924 030 165 538 HE 623^ Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030165538 HISTORY OF THE POST-OFFICE PACKET SERVICE Frontispiece. WINDSOR CASTLE—CAPT. ROGERS, CuMMANDER. HISTORY M..^^^^^^^^^ THE POST-OFFICE PA^I^ SERVICE BETWEEN THE YEARS 1793-1815 COMPILED FROM RECORDS, CHIEFLY OFFICIAL BY ARTHUR H. NORWAY London Macmillan and Co. and New York 1895 A All rights reserved K-^°\11^\ NOTE. My acknowledgments are due to Mrs. Ball, of Roscarrach, Falmouth, for permission to make use, in illustrating this work, of four pictures in her possession, namely, two of the action of the "Duke of Marlborough " with the " Primrose," one of the " Windsor Castle," and one of the " Hinchinbrooke." To Mr. Burton, of the Old Curiosity Shop, Fal- mouth, I am indebted for an illustration of Russell's Wagons; and to many other friends, in Cornwall and elsewhere, for very kind assistance and advice. CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER I. Falmouth in the Olden Time, r CHAPTER II. Lax Administration, 13 CHAPTER III. A Firmer Rule, 35 CHAPTER IV. The West India Merchants, , .... 56 CHAPTER V. The End of the Abuses, 83 CHAPTER VI. The North Sea Packets, 106 CHAPTER VII. The Second French War, 120 viii CONTENTS. FACE CHAPTER VIII. The Struggle against the Continental System, . 147 CHAPTER IX. Two Brilliant Years, 171 CHAPTER X. The Mutiny at Falmouth, 197 CHAPTER XI. The Outbreak of the American War, . 223 CHAPTER XII. The American War, 245 CHAPTER XIII. The American WaR; 264 Index, 306 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Windsor Castle—Capt. Rogers, Commander, frmUspuce Russell's Wagons, tofacefage lo H.M. Packet, Marlborough, 128 Primrose—Marlborough : Commencement, . 274 Primrose—Marlborough : Close, .... 276 hinchinbrooke and american privateer, . 282 CHAPTER I. FALMOUTH IN THE OLDEN TIME. No nation can afford to forget its past history ; and England, of all others, whose power is so deeply rooted in sea-fights, should not be careless of her naval records. After many generations of almost ceaseless warfare, there has been a long breathing time of peace, an interval which could not be better spent than in collecting and recording the actions of those brave men whose struggles ensured our ease, and preserving them for our own benefit, as well as for that of posterity. This task has been accomplished long ago as regards the great sea-battles ; and most of even the lesser fights in which the ships of the Royal Navy were engaged have been sufficiently described. But there remains a service distinguished over and over again, an ancient service, highly useful to the public, and associated with a great department of State, whose history has been left untold till all the officers connected with it have passed away, and the personal recollections which are the life- 2 POST-OFFICE PACKET SERVICE. [chap. blood of such a narrative are lost to us irretrievably —I refer to the Post-Office Packet Service. The very name has grown unfamiliar to our ears. It brings nothing to our minds, recalls no train of recollections, stirs up no dim memories. For the whole world, with the exception of a few people in Cornwall and on the east coast of England, the Packet Service is dead, like all the men who made it, and fought in it, and laid their lives down for it. It was a fighting service, yet the naval histories scarcely mention it. It was for a century and a half the regular vehicle of travellers ; yet among the multitude of books which treat of the journeys of our grandfathers, few indeed take note of the fact that they sometimes crossed the ocean. Its records, containing many a story which other nations would have set with pride in the forefront of their history, have lain neglected for eighty years. Some have perished through the carelessness of three genera- tions ; some were wantonly destroyed as possessing neither use nor interest. Even in Falmouth itself, so long the head-quarters of the Service, the actions which distinguished it are forgotten; and you may search for half a day before finding some old sailor, mending his nets in the stern of a boat, in whose memories those stories linger which have never been collected, and which few indeed of his fellow-towns- men have cared to remember. Seeing, therefore, that this oblivion has descended on the Service, it will be necessary at the outset to I.] FALMOUTH IN THE OLDEN TIME. 3 give some description of its nature and functions, of the men who constituted it, the voyages they performed, the profits they made, and so forth. This will best be done by describing the life of a single station ; and, as it was at Falmouth that the largest number of Packets was stationed, and the most important business transacted, there is no other station so suitable for the purpose. The town of Falmouth was associated most in- timately with the Post-Office for more than a century and a half Indeed, it would scarcely be an exag- geration to say that the town was made by its connection with the Mail Service. Certain it is that when the Post-Office selected Falmouth in 1688 as the point of embarkation and departure for the newly established Spanish mail boats, the Department found not an old established town and port, but a place as yet of the smallest consequence, only recently incorporated, possessing hardly any trade in spite of its advantages of situation, and hampered in its growth by the jealousy of neighbouring towns. In all those traditions of the past which made the glory of Fowey, Looe, Penryn, and a dozen other ports along the coast, the Falmouth men had no share whatever. Their town was a bare hillside when the Fowey men vindicated their claim to rank among the Cinque Ports. It was nothing but a cluster of cottages when the Armada sailed up the Channel. This very absence of traditions and of vigorous commercial life made the place more suitable for a 4 POST-OFFICE PACKET SERVICE. [chap. Post-Office station, and may have largely influenced its choice. It would not have served the Department nearly so well to send its officers to a port where their affairs must have taken rank among other transactions, and the despatch of mails might have been delayed by the pressure of urgent commercial business. At Falmouth My Lords the Postmaster General^ took what was practically a clear board, and could write on it what they pleased. Throughout the eighteenth century the links which bound the Post-Office Service to the town grew steadily stronger. As the numbers of the Packets increased the local tradesmen prospered ; the demand for naval stores was incessant ; and in those days of difficult and slow communication it was necessary to obtain almost all supplies locally. Shipbuilding yards sprang up, rope walks were laid out, inns were built for the accommodation of the travellers who came from all parts of England to take passage for Spain or the West Indies. A considerable number of merchants found their chief occupation in supplying the officers of the Packets with goods to be sold on commission in foreign ports, for the statute which prohibited such trade was not enforced, and many more were engaged in disposing of wines and lace, tobacco and brandy, which were smuggled home on board the Post-Office vessels under cover of the opportunities created by this irregular traffic. The iThe office of Postmaster General was until the year 1823 always held jointly by two Ministers of the Crown. ; I.] FALMOUTH IN THE OLDEN TIME. 5 sons of the sailors, as they grew up, sailed with their fathers. The sons of the commanders took up their fathers' appointments, while the old men retired on their pensions and their savings to com- fortable houses in the pleasant neighbourhood of Falmouth, creating with their wives and families a society among themselves, and so binding closer with each successive generation the ties between the town and the Service in which their lives were spent. And so as the town of Falmouth grew and de- veloped it continued to be what it had been at the outset, a Packet town, every trade and interest which its inhabitants professed being drawn irresistibly to- wards the important State Department which had settled itself down in their midst. Merchants and tradesmen were to be found of course, who con- ducted prosperous businesses upon independent lines but it is probably safe to say that at the end of the last century there was hardly one person in the place who did not feel that he would have been injured in his profession, and yet more in his sympathies and his pride, by any step which impaired the per- manence of the relation between Falmouth and the Post-Office Service.