Whatever might have been the consequence of a strict interpretation of the law, as intimated by the postmaster general, the deputy postmaster general did not discontinue the convenient, and, to him, profitable practice of providing for the transmission of unpaid letters from the United States addressed to Canada.
So far from that, Sutherland improved on this arrangement. At the solicitation of Canadian merchants, he obtained the consent of the United States department to having British mails, landed at New York, passed on to Canada without being held for the United States postage.
The postage due for the conveyance of the letters through the United States was collected by the deputy postmaster general, and transmitted by him to Washington, and the delays incident to having this work done in the United States were avoided.[186]
On the 15th of February, 1825, a memorial[187] was addressed to the British government by the Marquess of Ormonde, the Knight of Kerry and Simon McGillivray, proposing to establish communication between Great Britain and the British North American colonies by steam vessels, and asking for the exclusive privilege of providing such a service for fourteen years.
At this time steamboats were in pretty general use in the inland and coastal waters of Great Britain, United States and Canada, but nothing had up to this time been done to demonstrate that it would be practicable to cross the Atlantic by a steamboat.
In 1819, a sailing vessel, the "Savannah," fitted up with a boiler and engine and provided with a pair of paddles which could be hauled on deck at will, started from Savannah, Georgia, for Liverpool. The voyage occupied twenty-seven days. Only for three days and eight hours was the "Savannah" under steam.
There was nothing in this experiment to induce the conviction that steam could be successfully employed as a means of propulsion on the transatlantic service, and as a matter of fact the machinery was removed from the "Savannah" on her return to her American port, and she spent the rest of a short existence as an ordinary sailing vessel between New York and Savannah.
Lord Ormonde and his associates were convinced of the practicability of steam navigation across the Atlantic, but to make an enterprise of that kind a success, they would have to satisfy the public on the point, and this would involve a large outlay. In asking for a fourteen years'
monopoly, they argued that their proposition would not produce the ordinary ill-effects of a monopoly, as any tendency they might exhibit towards excessive charges would be held in check by sailing vessels, and by steamships, which would inevitably be run between the United States and ports on the continent of Europe.
The proposed line was to consist of six vessels, three of 1000 tons, and three of 600 tons, which would make their way across the Atlantic in pairs, one large and one small steamer. The vessels would sail together between Valentia, Ireland, and Halifax, Nova Scotia. On arrival at Halifax, the vessels would separate, one going to New York and the other to Quebec. When the two vessels reached Valentia on the voyage home, one would proceed to Glasgow, and the other to Bristol. The memorial was not entertained, and the project dropped.
Sutherland, in his personal relations, showed much more tact than Heriot; and in the controversies which arose between him and the colonial legislatures, Sutherland contrived to range himself on the side of the governors, thus making the post office one of the matters of which the ultra-British parties undertook the defence against the attacks of the Radicals.
But the situation of the deputy postmaster general was too difficult for him to secure unalloyed success. The various interests he had to serve, and, as far as possible, to reconcile, were too antagonistic for complete success. On the one side was a country being settled rapidly and clamouring for postal service in all directions. On the other stood the general post office fixed in its determination that its profits should not be diminished, and scanning anxiously every fresh item of expenditure.
Any serious inclination in one direction was sure to arouse resentment in the other. A curious instance of this occurred in 1819, three years after Sutherland had taken office. A number of merchants and others in Montreal appointed a committee to wait on the deputy postmaster general with a memorial containing an expression of their opinions and desires respecting the postal service in Canada.
The post office in Montreal it was urged had become unsuitable as regards site and space for the accommodation of the public, and the assistance employed by the postmaster was unequal to the requirements of an efficient service. The communications with the United States, Upper Canada and within the province, should be increased in frequency, and an interchange of mails should be opened with the Genesee and other settlements in New York state by way of Prescott and Ogdensburg. The memorialists also desired that letters might be sent to the United States without prepayment of postage.
Sutherland, in his reply to the memorial, dealt with the committee with an engaging frankness.[188] He was well aware, he said, that the accommodation in Montreal post office was inadequate, but what was to be done? The postmaster had only 300 a year salary, and out of that he had to pay office rent and stationery. It was not to be wondered at, that the postmaster endeavoured to economize in every way possible. He, himself, had on more than one occasion advised the postmaster general of the necessity for greater clerical help, but so far without the desired effect.
Only the year before, Sutherland told the memorialists, he had submitted to the postmaster general with his strongest recommendation, a petition from the postmaster of Montreal for increased salary and assistance, but the petition was refused. As for the increase in the frequency of the communications it was beyond his power to authorize such an expenditure.
He had done his best on two recent occasions to induce the postmaster general to allow letters to go into the United States without the prepayment of postage, but was told that British postage must be paid on letters going into foreign states.
The memorial and Sutherland's reply were transmitted to the general post office. There they excited much indignation. Freeling, the secretary, in a minute to the postmaster general, professed his inability to understand whether this unreserved disclosure of Sutherland's proceeded merely from indiscretion or from some other motive. The postmaster general was, in effect, accused of inattention and supineness in the discharge of his duties. His decisions were placed in the most invidious light before the inhabitants of Montreal.
Indeed the whole circumstance had to Freeling the air of an understanding between Sutherland and the committee. The postmaster general was equally indignant, and ordered Sutherland's dismissal. But, as so often happened, Freeling changed his attitude, urging a number of countervailing circumstances against this extreme measure, and the postmaster general, who appeared to do little more than to convert the opinions and suggestions which Freeling so humbly submitted into departmental decisions, concurred in this recommendation.[189]
In 1824, Sutherland met with a serious financial loss. The postmaster at Montreal became a defaulter to the extent of 1706. Sutherland took action against the postmaster's sureties, but owing to informalities his suit was thrown out. He appealed to the general post office, alleging that the reason of his non-suit was its failure to answer certain questions which he had put to the postmaster general. The appeal was not allowed. In 1827, Sutherland retired owing to ill-health, and was succeeded by his son-in-law, Thomas Allen Stayner, the last and, in some respects, the most distinguished of the representatives of the British post office in Canada.
FOOTNOTES:
[167] _Can. Arch._, Br. P.O. Transcripts, III.
[168] _Can. Arch._, C. 284, p. 211.
[169] _Memoir of G. J. Mountain, D.D._, Montreal, 1866, p. 53.
[170] _Can. Arch._, Br. P.O. Transcripts, III.
[171] C. F. Grece, _Facts and Observations respecting Canada_, London, 1819, p. 52.
[172] _Can. Arch._, Br. P.O. Transcripts, III.
[173] _Quebec Almanac_, 1818, and _Can. Arch._, Br. P.O. Transcripts, II.
[174] _Quebec Gazette_, July 17, 1826.
[175] Record Office, _Admiralty-Secretary In Letters_, Bundle 4073.
[176] _Can. Arch._, Br. P.O. Transcripts, III.
[177] _Ibid._
[178] _Can. Arch._, Q. 166, p. 371.
[179] _Ibid._, C. 285, p. 63.
[180] _Ibid._, Br. P.O. Transcripts, III.
[181] _Memorandum of W.B. Felton_, October 1826 (_Can. Arch._, Br. P.O.
Transcripts, II.).
[182] At the inquiry respecting Hill's proposition for penny postage, the assistant secretary of the general post office stated that the American packet, which sailed from England every ten days, carried 4000 letters each voyage, which did not pass through the post office (_Life of Sir Rowland Hill_, by George Birkbeck Hill, I. 303).
[183] _Can. Arch._, G.P.O., Br. P.O. Transcripts, II.
[184] _Can. Arch._, Br. P.O. Transcripts, III.
[185] _Can. Arch._, Br. P.O. Transcripts, III.
[186] _Can. Arch._, Br. P.O. Transcripts, III.
[187] _Ibid._, Q. 173, p. 372.
[188] _Can. Arch._, Br. P.O. Transcripts, III.
[189] _Ibid._, II.
CHAPTER VIII
Postal conditions in Upper Canada--Serious abuses--Agitation for provincial control.
To those who have followed the course of events thus far, noting the uncompromising attitude of the general post office towards all propositions for the extension of the postal system in Canada, it will be obvious that a struggle for the means of communication impended, which the rapid growth of the country was fast precipitating.
The general post office claimed that it, and it alone, had power to establish a postal service in any part of the country, and it used its arrogated powers in the same manner as any commercial monopoly would be exercised. Post offices were opened in all the better settled parts of the country, where they could be operated profitably. They were refused in the newer districts, unless satisfactory guarantees were given that there would be no loss in working them.
A population was coming into the country rapidly, and was tending towards the inland parts of the province far from the line of post offices which skirted the shores of the St. Lawrence and lake Ontario, and the situation was becoming embarrassing, as well as humiliating to the sensitive pride of the people.