meant the city of Cork rather than the county.28 Things did not even go smoothly for the popular Penny Post. Charges of incompetence caused William Dockwra, its founder, to print a pamphlet defending his system. He reminded his readers that such miscarried and delayed letters were not necessarily the fault of the Penny Post; they could stem from human error as well: a correspondent might choose not to respond, servants could forget to deliver a letter, or a letter writer could scribble an incomprehensible address.29
Beyond the well-recognized snags of institutional incompetence and governmental prying stands the less frequently acknowledged fact that it was not always easy to send a letter. After the Restoration, mail still mainly flowed along six roads that started in London and went south to Yarmouth, southeast to Dover, northeast to Berwick and then Scotland, northwest to Chester and then Ireland, west to Bristol and southwest Plymouth.30 As long as writers wished to send letters along these roads corresponding was relatively easy, but many Britons lived far from these major routes. For these individuals sending a letter and receiving one were more difficult. Nicholas Blundell, who we know went to the Post Office often, assured a correspondent he would have written sooner but “being I live some distance from Leverpoole it oft happens that letters lye some time before I recive them.”31 Even if one lived close to a Post Office, the undeveloped nature of the system caused problems. The lack of cross posts between major roads meant that a letter sent from Bristol to Portsmouth, a distance of one hundred miles, had to pass through London first, which added extra postage and an additional hundred miles to the journey. The major postal reforms implemented under the watchful eye of Ralph Allen, the postmaster of Bath who ran the bye and cross posts, revolved around the establishment of new postal routes such as these, so that by 1756 the number of cross posts had increased and there were at least two hundred Post Offices in England.32 But even with these reforms, sending a letter by the post was not easy and many, especially those far from London, found they had to seek out alternative means.
Searching Letters
Letter writers often expressed a hope that their letters would “find” their receivers. John Perceval hoped his correspondent was up to date when “this letter finds you” and Cassandra Brydges worried that she knew not “where a letter would find” the recipient.33 One of Peter Collinson’s correspondents was more confident in her letter’s abilities. After stating that Collinson was “quite lost,” she expressed her belief that “this letter will find him out.”34 With such phrasing these writers gifted their letters with agency and created a picture of dogged letters intrepidly searching out their receivers like bloodhounds on a scent. Examining exactly how letters found their recipients shows how complex and difficult that process could be and how it altered according to one’s geographic location. Even with an address firmly written, letters often had to pass through multiple hands to make it to their intended destination. Following four searching letters sent to or by John Perceval from London, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Virginia reveals this complexity.
With the General Post Office stationed on Lombard Street and the presence of Penny Post offices throughout the city, London was the British world’s postal heart. Letters flowed in and out again, and sending a letter within London was done with greater ease than in any other area in the British world. With access to the Penny Post, Londoners could send a letter by post as easily as by messenger and many did so interchangeably. One of Hans Sloane’s correspondents simply asked Sloane to send him a few lines by the Penny Post if his servant did not find him at home.35 But even using the Penny Post could be tricky.
Between 4 and 6 November 1723 Henry Newman, secretary of the Proselyte Society and London resident, wrote four letters to John Perceval who, at the time, was living in Charlton about ten miles away. The Proselyte Society was in crisis due to the death of its treasurer, John Chamberlayne, on 2 November, which gave those who wished to reform the society an opening for change. Perceval was among those who favored reform and Newman wanted him at the Society’s next meeting.36 Luckily for Newman, sending a letter from his lodgings in Middle Temple to Perceval in Charlton near Greenwich was seemingly simple. On 4 November he sat himself at his desk, sharpened his pen, and wrote a quick letter to Perceval informing him of Chamberlayne’s death and the other issues facing the Society. Once finished he probably shook some pounce on the letter to keep the ink from smearing, folded it up, wrote Perceval’s address on it, sealed it with a dab of wax, and then sent it off to a nearby receiving station for the Penny Post, accompanied with two pennies to pay for its conveyance.37 If Newman was lucky his servant would have instantly dropped off the letter, unlike some less responsible messengers whom Penny Post officials accused of destroying their letters and pocketing the money or loitering at alehouses before dropping off their letters.38
Once the letter was in the hands of the Penny Post, employees marked it with the two official Penny Post stamps that noted what office it left from and the time it left the office. From the receiving station the letter was sent to the Penny Post sorting house across the river in Southwark, near the Church of St. Mary Overy, from whence letters were carried twice a day, at 8 a.m. and 1 p.m., the ten miles or so down the river to Charlton.39 Once an official carried the letter to its place of delivery in Charlton it sat waiting for collection by one of Perceval’s servants, who probably checked often, or, if Newman paid a bit extra, it was delivered by a messenger to Perceval’s home.40
In an ideal world this letter would have made it into Perceval’s hands the day Newman sent it, with a response making its way back to Newman the same day if he was lucky or if he was not by the following morning. However, judging from Perceval’s response penned on November 6, the system rarely achieved such rapid turnover. Perceval informed Newman that he would attend the meeting if he knew of it two or three days in advance, but Newman needed to be quick “for the letters that are put in the penny Post at London do not arrive here the same day, nor frequently the 2nd but on the 3rd.”41 The rapidity of the post pleased Newman, however, since he declared on 6 November: “I was this morning surprised to receive your Lordship’s letter, when I thought it scarce possible that mine of yesterday shou’d have reach’d your hands.”42 The exchange reveals the complexity of using even the Penny Post. The writer needed to know how to address his letter and where to deliver it. He had to hope his receiver knew to look for letters or have them delivered. And all knew that the system was slower than desired. But these obstacles did not keep them from using it and London letters arrived much more quickly and regularly than those sent to other areas of the British world.
Sending a letter got harder the farther one moved away from London. Using the post was not easy or especially rapid for those residing in Scotland. Postmen traveling from Edinburgh to Glasgow went by foot rather than horse until 1717, as did those traveling to Aberdeen until 1740.43 In 1726 one letter writer in Kent chose to send a letter by a friend to Aberdeen because “you was removed to a great Distance [and] I knew not how to send a letter to you.”44 He knew that his friend could search out his correspondent in a way the postal system could not. However, many a letter went through the Scottish post and many letters arrived in Edinburgh faster than those sent to Dublin.45
John Perceval’s estate agent Berkeley Taylor, who watched over Perceval’s estates near Cork, knew the difficulties of sending a letter from Ireland to England. On 9 December 1720, three years before Newman penned his letter, Taylor sat down to write a letter to his employer in London.46 Since landlords wanted their letters up to date, Taylor probably acted as a future agent did and wrote his letters on the eve of post days, so Mondays and Thursdays.47 Keeping his employer promptly informed was difficult and on this occasion Taylor was responding to letters from 10, 15, 17, and 26 November because delayed Irish packet boats had kept the letters longer than usual. Taylor began by addressing the tardy nature of the letters and then proceeded to comment on the exact items his employer had mentioned in his past letters. In fact, the last matter Taylor addressed was the final issue Perceval had noted in his last letter of the 26th: a tenant’s wish to hold the church’s glebe.48 After the post boy came calling at Ballymacow he took the letter to the
