At the risk of repetition, the reader is reminded that these charges are for letters consisting each of a single sheet, weighing less than one ounce, and that in case the letters should weigh above an ounce, the rates given were multiplied by four, as a letter weighing over an ounce was regarded as equal to four letters.
The postage from Fredericton to London, England, was sixty-four cents for a single letter. As one glances over the long newsy letters in the published correspondence of the time, he is persuaded that those letters did not pass through the post office. The lately published Winslow correspondence[228] is full of such letters, but they let us into the secret of how they came to be sent.
Leading Loyalists, men who had given up their comforts and taken on themselves the severest hardships for the sake of the old connections, thought no more than the merest rebels of evading the postal laws, and sending their letters by any convenient means that presented themselves.
Ward Chipman, the solicitor general of New Brunswick, in writing to Edward Winslow in London, tells him that he would write more freely if it were not for the enormous expense, but he would tax the good will of every person he could hear of, who was going to England. No person was allowed to go on a journey, long or short, without a pocketful of letters entrusted to him by his friends, unless he were unusually disobliging. When he reached his destination, he either delivered the letters in person, or posted them in the local post office, whence they were delivered at a penny apiece.
The service as established in 1788 was carried on unchanged until the war of 1812 made certain alterations in the routes necessary to secure the safe conveyance of the mails. The presence of American privateers in the bay of Fundy rendered the passage of the packets between St. John and Digby hazardous. The course down the St. John river and across the bay to Digby was, therefore, temporarily abandoned.[229]
The courier with the mails from Quebec did not continue the river route farther south than Fredericton. At that point he turned inland, taking a road which led to the juncture with the old Westmoreland road which ran from St. John to fort Cumberland, on the eastern boundary of New Brunswick. The road from fort Cumberland was continued on through Truro to Halifax.
For a short period before the war and during its course, the deputy postmaster general was under steady pressure on the part of the provincial governors to extend the means of communication throughout the province of Nova Scotia.[230] Population was increasing rapidly--the census of 1817 gave it as 82,373--and settlement was well distributed over all parts of the province.
The governors for their part were anxious to have the means of corresponding easily with the militia, who were organized in every county. The deputy postmaster general was in a position of considerable embarrassment. His orders from the home office as respects the expenditure of the postal revenue were as explicit as those under which Heriot was struggling in Canada. He won through his difficulties, however, with more success than attended Heriot's efforts, although he did nothing that Heriot did not do, to meet the two incompatible demands of the post office, on the one side, that he should establish no routes which did not pay expenses, and of the local administration on the other, that he should extend the service wherever it seemed desirable to the governor.
Howe brought a little more tact than Heriot seemed capable of, in dealing with the provincial authorities. He laid the commands which had been impressed on him by the secretary of the general post office before the legislature, and obtained the assistance of that body in maintaining routes, which did not provide sufficient postage to cover their expenses. On his part he engaged, in disregard of the injunctions of the secretary, to allow all the sums which were collected on a route to be applied to paying the postmasters and mail couriers as far as these sums would go, the legislature undertaking to make up the deficiencies.
In April 1817,[231] Howe made a comprehensive report of the mail services in operation at that date, together with the arrangements for their maintenance.
There were two principal routes in the province. The first in local importance was that through the western counties from Halifax to Digby and thence by packet to St. John. The section between Halifax and Digby cost 348 a year, of which the legislature paid 200. The packet service across the bay was maintained by the legislatures of the two provinces.
The settlements beyond Digby as far as Yarmouth and on to Shelburne, were served by a courier who received 130 from the legislature, and all the postage on letters going to the settlements, which amounted to 65 a year.
The second leading route was that between Halifax and Fredericton by way of Truro. This route, which was begun in 1812, was discontinued at the close of the war. It had been found so advantageous, however, that it was re-established in the beginning of 1817, as the permanent route between Quebec and Halifax.
From Truro, a courier travelled through the eastern counties to Pictou and Antigonishe. This was a district which Howe regarded with much satisfaction. He wrote that the large immigration from Scotland and other parts of Great Britain had increased the number of settlements and thrown open the resources of this part of the province to that extent, that the revenue of the eastern districts would soon surpass that from those in the west.
Antigonishe collected the letters from all the eastern harbours and settlements, and although the post office had been open for only about nine months, the results, as Howe conceived them, were very encouraging.
The expenses of the courier at this period far outran the revenues, and accordingly the legislature made a contribution of 130. The remainder of the shortage was made up partly by postages and partly by private subscriptions.
Howe, the deputy postmaster general, set forth the favourable aspects of the service with an eagerness that betokened nervousness, and indeed there was some reason for this feeling. When his statement reached England, the secretary at once drew the attention of the postmaster general to the fact that, while Howe had done extremely well, his actions in appropriating the revenue to any specific object and in establishing new routes and making new contracts without first receiving departmental sanction were inconsistent with the principles which governed the post office.
But it was something that, while Heriot's official zeal was embroiling him with the governor general of Canada, Howe was managing to secure the good will of the lieutenant governor of his province, and his compromises with post office principles were passed over with a slight warning. Howe retired in 1818 on account of old age, and was succeeded by his son, John Howe, junior.
The postal service of New Brunswick did not advance with equal step with that of Nova Scotia. Until 1820 there was no progress made in improving the system, except that the conveyance between St. John and Fredericton had been increased from fortnightly to weekly.
The first district off the established lines to manifest a desire for postal accommodation was that on the Miramichi river.[232] There were two flourishing settlements on the river--Chatham and Newcastle--largely engaged in lumbering and fishing, and some means for the exchange of letters was a necessity.
For some years before 1820 a courier travelled between these settlements and Fredericton along the course of the Nashwaak river. He was paid partly by a subsidy from the legislature of New Brunswick, and partly by private subscription. Those who did not subscribe to the courier, might or might not receive their letters. It depended on the caprice of the courier. If he chose to deliver them, he exacted a payment of eleven or twelve pence for each letter. This arrangement was far from satisfactory, as the following illustration will show.
In February 1824, a brig from Aberdeen reached Halifax, bringing a mail, which contained sixty letters for the Miramichi settlements. These letters were forwarded to Fredericton by the first courier. It happened that among the persons to whom the letters were addressed were a number who were not subscribers, and the courier refused to take the letters for these persons with him.
The consequence was that the letters had to be returned to Halifax, to take the chance of the first vessel that might happen to be sailing in that direction. To guard against any similar mishap in future, Howe left the letters for the Miramichi districts with the captains who had brought them over, and allowed them to arrange for their onward transmission.
The lieutenant governor of New Brunswick urged the establishment of a regular post office on the Miramichi. The trade of the district was of considerable proportions. In 1823, four hundred and eight square-rigged vessels from the United Kingdom loaded on the Miramichi. There was some bargaining between the deputy postmaster general and the lieutenant governor. The expense of the courier would be heavy, and the revenue from it would not be large.
Howe proposed that the postages from the route be devoted to its maintenance, and the balance be made up by the legislature. Howe does not seem to have had his usual success in these negotiations, for the governor declined to deal with him, insisting on corresponding directly with the postmaster general in England. This caused some delay, and it was not until 1825 that the post office was sanctioned.
The year 1825 was a notable one in the history of the New Brunswick post office. In that year several important offices were opened. Howe, in his report to the postmaster general, gives an interesting account of his trip in establishing these offices.[233] He took a vessel from St. John to Dorchester, where he opened an office; thence to Baie Verte, from which point he sailed to Miramichi and to Richibucto. Returning to Dorchester he travelled to Sussexvale.
Howe appointed postmasters at all these places. On arriving at St. John, he was met by the request of the lieutenant governor to open an office at St. Stephen. He finished up his tour by visiting Gagetown and Kingston where offices were opened.
The very considerable enlargement of the system in New Brunswick gave much satisfaction to the lieutenant governor. But as usual the deputy postmaster general received a douche of criticism from the secretary of the post office, who could not bear to sanction an extension of the service which did not turn in something to the treasury. Howe had, indeed, been careful that the post office should not be even a temporary loser by his arrangements. He had gone no further than to apply the postages collected at the new offices to pay the postmasters and couriers, as far as these sums would go. The postmaster general took a larger view of Howe's activities, and expressed his gratification at what had been accomplished.
It was during this period that Cape Breton was brought within the postal system of the Maritime provinces. This island, which had been the scene of great exploits during the French and English wars, had not begun to come under permanent settlement until after the close of the American revolution. After the fall of Louisburg, in 1758, the island was attached to Nova Scotia, and remained a part of that province until 1784, when it was erected into a separate government.
The first lieutenant governor of Cape Breton, Major Desbarres, in casting about for a suitable site for his capital, had the advantage of an intimate knowledge of the coast line of the island, acquired during a series of surveys of the coasts and harbours of the Maritime provinces.
Contrary to what might have been expected, he turned away from Louisburg, and placed his capital in a town which he established at the head of the southern arm of Spanish river. Desbarres called the town Sydney, in honour of Lord Sydney, the secretary of state for the colonies.
After an inglorious career of thirty-six years, notable only for the perpetual strife which reigned among the administrative officials, during which the domestic affairs of the colony were almost entirely neglected, the colony of Cape Breton was re-annexed to Nova Scotia in 1820.
The growth of population during this period was slow. In 1774 there were 1241 people on the island, including some roving bands of Indians. On the west coast, about Arichat and Petit de Grat, there were 405 persons, all French. About St. Peters there was a mixed English and French population numbering 186; and on the east coast in a line running north and south of Louisburg there were tiny settlements containing in all 420 persons, nearly all English.
So little progress had been made during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, that at the end of 1801 the population was only 2531, of whom 801 were in the Sydney district, and 192 in and about Louisburg. The remainder were strung along the west coast from Arichat to Margaree harbour.
The increase on the west coast was due to a number of Highland Scotch immigrants, who reached Cape Breton by way of Pictou, and took up land between the Gut of Canso and Margaree harbour. In 1802, the Scotch movement into Cape Breton began to assume considerable proportions. A ship bringing 300 settlers into Sydney, was followed by others year after year, until, at the date when Cape Breton again became part of Nova Scotia, the population had reached between eight and nine thousand, most of whom were Highland Scotch. The district about Arichat remained French.
There was a post office in Cape Breton as early as 1801. It was at Sydney, with A. C. Dodd as postmaster.[234] Dodd was a man of prominence on the island, being a member of the legislative council and afterwards chief justice. He held the postmastership until 1812, when he was succeeded by Philip Eley, who was in office in 1817, when the lieutenant governor, General Ainslie, pointed out to the home government the necessity of improving the communications between the island and Great Britain.
The exchange of correspondence was slow and uncertain. The Cape Breton mails were exchanged by the Halifax packet, but it was usual for two months to elapse between the arrival of the letters from England and the first opportunity of replying to them. Half the delay, Ainslie thought, might be avoided, if the packets on their homeward voyages would lie off the harbour of Louisburg for an hour or two to enable a small boat to reach the packet.
The commanders in port at Falmouth were consulted, and gave it as their opinion that the fogs and currents, which prevailed about Louisburg would make it inadvisable to attempt to land the mails there, and the proposition was rejected. In the winter of 1817, an overland communication was opened between Sydney and Halifax, an Indian carrying the mails between the two places once a month during the winter.[235]
When the annexation of Cape Breton to Nova Scotia took place in 1820, the lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia, Sir James Kempt, managed to obtain a weekly mail between Sydney and Halifax.[236]
The earliest period in which we find a postal service in operation in Prince Edward Island is 1801.[237] John Ross is mentioned as postmaster of the island in that year. He was succeeded by Benjamin Chappell, in whose hands and in those of his family, the postmastership remained for over forty years.
The connections with the mainland and the mother country were maintained for some years by such vessels as happened to visit the island. The postal service of the island was within the jurisdiction of Nova Scotia.
It was not, however, until 1816, that the deputy postmaster general made any mention of the island service in his reports to the general post office in London.
Howe then informed the postmaster general[238] that when Lord Selkirk was in Nova Scotia some years before, that nobleman urged upon him the necessity of a courier service to Pictou, and thence to Prince Edward Island by packet. This service was established in 1816, and an arrangement was made with the island government, by which the postage was to be applied as far as it would go to maintain the packet and pay the postmaster's salary, and the government would make up the balance.
There were no accounts between the island post office and the general post office. The postmaster simply presented to the deputy postmaster general periodical statements of the postages collected, and his expenses, together with a receipt for the deficiency which was paid by the government. This arrangement had the immense advantage that from the very first the island service was in the hands of the local government, which carried on the post office with no more than a formal reference to the general post office. The postage on a single letter from Charlottetown to Halifax was eightpence.
The communication between the Maritime provinces and the mother country was the subject of some discussion. Halifax was determined to retain, and extend the utility of the packet service at all costs. Owing to the greatness of the charges, and the long delays, the Canadian merchants made but little use of the Halifax packets, but had their letters sent by way of New York.
The merchants of New Brunswick insisted on the same privilege. The provincial government established two courier services between St. John and Fredericton, and St. Andrews on the United States boundary, and the United States post office arranged to have the British mails for New Brunswick conveyed by its couriers to Robbinstown, a point in Maine a short distance from St. Andrews.
Against this Nova Scotia protested. John Howe, the elder, came out of his retirement in 1820, and made a strong plea for an exclusive packet service between England and Halifax, the vessel to remain at Halifax for one week before returning. He would have the public despatches for New York and Bermuda brought to Halifax, and from that place forwarded to their destination by one of the war vessels in the harbour or by a packet kept for the purpose.
Buchanan, the British consul at New York, urged the opposite view, that all the British mails for the colonies should be sent by way of New York. Dalhousie, who was lieutenant governor in Nova Scotia, at the time supported Howe's view, and matters remained as they were.
The question of newspaper postage was agitated in the Maritime provinces, as well as in the provinces of Canada. Indeed it would be inconceivable that publishers anywhere could be satisfied with the arrangements then in operation. But, most curiously, when the question came before the house of assembly in Nova Scotia, the sympathies of that body ran, not with the publishers, but with the deputy postmaster general.
In 1830, Edmund Ward, a printer, who published a newspaper in Fredericton, petitioned the legislature to be relieved of the charges for the conveyance of his paper. The post office committee of the house of assembly in Nova Scotia took the application into their consideration.
The committee reported[239] to the house that, having examined the imperial acts, they were of opinion that it was no part of the duty of the deputy postmaster general to receive, or transmit by post, newspapers printed in the colonies, or coming from abroad except from Great Britain. They found, moreover, that the secretary of the general post office in London, under this view of the case, had for a long time made a charge for each paper sent to the colonies by packet, the proceeds from which he retained to his own use.
It also appeared that about sixty years before that date (that is about 1770), the deputy postmaster general made a charge of two shillings and sixpence per annum on each newspaper forwarded to country subscribers by post, which was acquiesced in by all the publishers at that time.
The committee believed, therefore, that the deputy postmaster general was fully justified in the charges he made, but they were much in favour of having newspapers transmitted free. In accordance with this idea, the committee suggested that the assembly should take on itself the charges due for the conveyance of newspapers. They found that there were seventeen hundred newspapers of local origin distributed by post each week, and three hundred British or foreign newspapers. The assembly did not act on this suggestion.