The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the

312 LIFE OF SIR ROWLAND HILL. [1854
14 and 16; she said it was the number of a house she formerly
lived at in another street, and it (meaning the brass plate) being
a very good one, she thought it would do for her present residence
as well as any other."
Unfounded Complaints.
Reference was made to serious charges brought against the Post
Office without sufficient examination of antecedent facts ; thus it was
shown to a newspaper publisher, who complained of repeated losses,
that it was his own clerk who was the thief. In another case, a more
general complaint on the same subject led to the discovery, near
the chief office, of a thriving mart, illicitly supplied by private
messengers employed to convey newspapers to the post.
Early History of the Post Office.
In an interesting Report from Mr. Scudamore, there is a remark-
able passage which shows that general views in accordance with those
on which my reforms were founded were incidentally expressed, about
a century and a half before, by the Postmasters-General of the day,
Sir R. Cotton and Sir F. Frankland. It is as follows :
" We have, indeed, found by experience, that where we have
made the correspondence more easie and cheape, the number of
letters has been thereby much increased, and therefore do believe
such a settlement may be attended with a like effect in those parts
[viz., a particular district]."
I cite also from Mr. Scudamore's Report the following curious
passage :
" The packets in those times, when war raged for so many years,
and when every sea was covered with French privateers, gave our
Postmasters-General very great and constant anxiety. Their orders
to the captains of such vessels are urgent, that they shall run while
they can, fight when they can no longer run, and throw the mails
overboard when fighting will no longer avail. . . . [There is] a
piteous petition from James Vickers, captain of the Grace Dogger,
who, as he lay in Dublin Bay waiting until the tide would take him
over the bar, was seized by a French privateer, the captain of which
stripped the Grace Dogger of her rigging, sails, spars, and yards,
and of all the furniture 'wherewith she had been provided for the
due accommodation of passengers, leaving not so much as a spoone
or a nail-hooke to hang anything on,' and finally ransomed her to