The change which has taken place in the carriage of oversea mails during the last hundred years is as great as the revolution which happened in the case of the inland postal service. And in both instances, of course, it was the discovery of the steam engine which accounted for the change. In both instances, also, it meant the closing of a period during which romance and adventure were the usual accompaniments of service in the Post Office. The sailing vessel, beautiful to look at and with her capacity to carry his Majesty's mails speedily and punctually depending largely on a fair wind and freedom from capture by his Majesty's enemies, is a more inspiring subject for the writer than the crossing of the Atlantic within five days of the Mauretania in spite of wind and weather. Neither poetry nor art has found much inspiration in mere speed. It is only a prosaic ideal of the modern Post Office.

In a previous chapter I have stated that the Dover Road is probably the oldest mail route in the kingdom. The reason is obvious, because it was the road by which the foreign mails travelled. The correspondence between the Court and foreign governments was of no small account in the time of the Tudors and Stuarts, and “ocean mails” in those days were probably considered of greater importance than inland posts. But all the mails except those to Ireland went eastward. “Stepping Westward” in those days was to be an adventurer or discoverer. The Atlantic was not yet a ferry: it was the Great Unknown. Dover, Ramsgate, Harwich, and Yarmouth shared in the duty of providing packets for the mails. During every French war Dover was useless as a packet station, and the correspondence then went by Harwich or Yarmouth. It was partly owing to the necessity for obtaining a port of departure less liable to the dangers from foreign enemies that in 1688 Falmouth, an extreme westerly port, was selected for the headquarters of the Post Office Packet Service. Gradually this port became the most important station of the service, and it not only served Southern Europe but the United States and America. The story of this service has been admirably told by Mr. A. H. Norway, and it is not my purpose here to do anything more than summarise briefly the life of the old days. It is a tale of stirring adventures and sea fights. In times of war and sometimes even of peace there was constant risk of seizure, and every packet was armed to meet emergencies of this kind. The instructions to the captains of these vessels were to run while they could, to fight when they could no longer run, and to throw the mails overboard when fighting was no longer possible. Within these instructions there was abundant scope for exciting voyages. These were great days for Falmouth, and her position as a mail port gave her an advantage over the rest of the Kingdom. She knew of wars and revolutions before even London could be in possession of the facts.

The packets brought also bullion in large quantities, and on reaching Falmouth the treasure was despatched by road to London in vehicles which were known as Russell's Wagons. A walking pace of about three miles an hour was kept up throughout the long journey, but there were many people to whom the high coach fares were prohibitive, and who were ready to travel by these wagons, sleeping by night beneath the tilt. The drivers were armed, and when treasure was on board a guard of soldiers marched with the wagons. It was a tedious but picturesque way of travelling to London, and in the old days, when the roads were bad, and exposed to attacks from highwaymen, there was perhaps very little enjoyment to be obtained out of the journey. Still these wagons continued, not to run but “to stroll,” long after the introduction of railways, and Mr. Norway tells us that it is only fifty years since they “might have been met toiling at their leisurely pace along the western road.”

Mr. Norway quotes from a letter written by a Spanish traveller who visited England in 1808. What he says will help us to realise how much the Packet Service meant to Falmouth. Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella was the traveller, and he had just arrived by the packet at Falmouth when he wrote the letter. This is what he says: “The perpetual stir and bustle in this inn is as surprising as it is wearisome. Doors opening and shutting, bells ringing, voices calling to the waiter from every quarter, while he cries 'Coming' to one room and hurries away to another. Everybody is in a hurry here: either they are going off in the packets and are hastening their preparations to embark, or they have just arrived and are impatient to be on the road homeward. Every now and then a carriage rattles up to the door with a rapidity which makes the very house shake. The man who cleans the boots is running in one direction, the barber with his powder-bag in another. Here goes the barber's boy with his hot water and razors: there comes the clean linen from the washerwoman, and the hall is full of porters and sailors bringing up luggage or bearing it away. Now you hear a horn blow because the post is coming in, and in the middle of the night you are awakened by another because it is going out. Nothing is done in England without a noise, and yet noise is the only thing they forget in the bill.”

This extract is extremely interesting, not only for the picture which it gives us of Falmouth a hundred years ago, but because it bears out the experience of most travellers from the Continent at the present day. The more leisurely ways of Spain in particular are as sharply contrasted at the present time with those of England as they evidently were in 1808.

There was considerable progress made in the building of sailing ships during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A ship performing the Packet Service in 1693 was described as one of “eighty-five tons and fourteen guns, with powder and shot and firearms, and all other munitions of war.” The sailors were not extravagantly paid for their services, but there were many recognised and unrecognised ways of improving their income. One of the recognised ways was the permission to take prizes if such fell in their way. There are in existence curious records showing also that the sailors received donations and pensions for wounds obtained in action. With that passion for precision and organisation which has always characterised the Post Office, a financial value was attached to almost every part of the human body. “Each arm or leg amputated above the elbow or knee is £8 per annum; below the knee is 20 nobles. Loss of the sight of one eye is £4, of the pupil of the eye £5; of the sight of both eyes £12, of the pupils of both eyes £14; and according to these rules we consider also how much the hurt affects the body, and make the allowances accordingly.” And we find that Edward James had a donation of £5 because a musket shot had grazed on the tibia of his left leg, and Thomas Williams had £12 because a Granada shell had stuck fast in his left foot. Such were some of the inducements and special increments offered to men to join the Post Office Packet Service.

With the peace which followed Waterloo the fighting times of the Packet Service came to an end, and in a few years the introduction of steam navigation began a completely new order of things. The Post Office gave up her packets, Falmouth was given up as a mail station, and the era of mail contracts began; and if we measure distance by time instead of mileage, the shrinkage of the world became more marked year by year. It is interesting to trace this in the story of what is now called the Atlantic Ferry. The first vessel to cross the Atlantic by steam was the Savannah in 1819, but she was partly under sail, and she took thirty-five days to make the passage. The Royal William crossed under steam in 1831; but she took forty days over the voyage. Up to that date, therefore, steam power was scarcely a rival to the sailing vessel. Indeed there were cases in which sailing vessels had crossed the Atlantic under favourable conditions in less than fourteen days. In 1838, however, a great advance was made. First the Sirius and then the Great Western in that year made record passages, the one in eighteen and a half days, the other in thirteen and a half days. The latter vessel made passages for several years, and her average per voyage was fifteen days and a half.

Then in 1840 came the contract with the Cunard Company to carry the mails for the British Government, and the history of that company has been a continuous breaking of records and of improvement in services. The names of the huge vessels belonging to this company which have successively lowered the Atlantic record are familiar to most of us, and they belong in a special way to the story of the Post Office. There was the Britannia in 1840, which began with a voyage of fourteen days, and the China in 1862 and the Batavia in 1870 reduced this record considerably. Then followed in 1881 the Servia, the first of the modern type of vessel; in 1884 the Umbria and Etruria with speeds of 19 knots an hour; in 1893 the Campania and Lucania with 22 knots; and in 1895 the Lusitania and Mauretania with 25 knots. The record has now been reduced to considerably under five days. The present contract is for a weekly service to the United States via Liverpool and New York. The British Post Office only pays its contractors for the weight of mails actually carried, and reserves the right to send specially addressed letters by foreign ships: most famous among these are the vessels of the Hamburg-American line, which have at different times held the Atlantic record.

The White Star line has also since 1877 been regularly employed by contract to carry the mails between Liverpool and New York, and the Teutonic and the Majestic, completed in 1889 and 1890, were the first merchant ships constructed with a view to their use as auxiliaries to the British navy.

The idea of the Travelling Post Office is especially suited to overseas mails, and on these liners sea post offices are established, where the mails are sorted in transit and made ready for delivery at the completion of the voyage. The sorters are at work during the whole of the voyage; as many as 250 bags are often opened, and the number in an exceptional mail has often reached 700. The sorters are required to wear uniform, and are regarded as officers subject to the discipline of the ship, but they take their meals in the first class saloon. They have two or three days in New York before the return voyage: it is a popular branch of the service, and there is considerable eagerness to join it, in spite of the fact that the Transatlantic mails are sometimes extraordinarily heavy.

I can only deal with the chief steamship companies which contract with the British Government for the carriage of the mails. And chief among these is the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company, which, during almost the whole of its career, has acted as the agent of the Government in the conveyance of mails to the East. Until 1835 all our mails for India were carried round the Cape of Good Hope, and the approximate time occupied was four months. In that year a change was made, and the mail was sent via Egypt. The first contract with the P. & O. Company dates from 1837, and this was an arrangement for a monthly service between Falmouth and Vigo, Oporto, Lisbon, and Gibraltar. The company obtained a charter of incorporation in 1840, and one of the conditions was that steam communication with India should be established within two years. This condition was fulfilled, and the Hindustan was despatched to India, via the Cape of Good Hope, on the 26th September 1842. But the advantages of the route across the Isthmus of Suez, even before the opening of the Canal, were sufficiently obvious to the directors of the company, and they practically organised what came to be known as the Overland Route. But the man who first established a service along this route was an officer of the East India Company named Lieutenant Waghorn. He deserves honourable mention in any account of the service to India. He believed in this route, and worked hard to make it practicable in face of innumerable obstacles. He was a man of indomitable energy and of extraordinary stature. There is a story told of his visit to a country fair with a friend. He endeavoured to enter one of the shows and was refused admission twice. The friend sought an interview with the proprietor. The only reply was, “I pray you, sir, take that gentleman away. The fact is he is two inches taller than my giant.”

Waghorn lived long enough to see the Peninsular and Oriental Company establish a regular service across the isthmus. This meant an uncomfortable passage by canal boat and steamer to Cairo, then by a two-wheeled omnibus for ninety miles across the desert of Suez. For many years camels carried the mails from Cairo to Suez, where the P. & O. steamers again resumed charge. The first mail service to Australia via the Isthmus of Suez was opened in 1852. In 1859 a railway was made across the isthmus, and this considerably simplified the journey. Then in 1869 the Suez Canal was opened, but owing to difficulties raised by the British Government it was not until many years after that the mails were permitted to pass through the Canal. Since 1888 the direct sea mail service between England and India, China, and the Australian colonies has been continuous.

The mails leaving London on Friday nights are despatched from Brindisi in specially designed twin screw vessels, which arrive at Port Said about ninety-six hours after the mails have been despatched from London. On this service the Osiris and Iris are employed, and there is the curious fact concerning them that they are the only vessels in the mercantile marine which cross the sea with mails and passengers only. At Port Said the mails are transferred to the big liner which has come from London via the Straits of Gibraltar. The service is weekly to Bombay, to Shanghai and Australia fortnightly, but since 1888 a contract with the Orient Company for a fortnightly service to Australia has given that colony a weekly mail.

The Union Castle Line to Madeira and the Cape provides the mail service to South Africa, and ships like the Edinburgh Castle and the Balmoral Castle, which sail from Southampton, make very swift passages.

But the catalogue is a long one of oversea contracts, and besides there is little variety in the nature of the service. There is an interesting table in the Post Office Guide showing the approximate time taken in the transmission of correspondence from London to certain places abroad. According to this list the longest journey for a letter now figures as 44 days, and that is to the Fiji Islands via Suez, but if you send it by Vancouver the journey is reduced to 30 days. The longest journey without an alternative route is to Hobart, 34 days, but Brisbane and Manila run it very close, 33 and 32 days respectively. Bombay is under 15 days and Cape Town is 17 days. We are practically within a month's touch on paper of the whole civilised world. We have travelled far since the 25th of December 1815, when Charles Lamb wrote to his friend Thomas Manning, who was in China: “Dear old friend and absentee, this is Christmas Day, 1815, with us: what it may be with you I don't know—the 12th of June next year, perhaps.” Lamb's idea was that in writing to a friend it was the day of the receipt of the letter that was the thing to be concerned about, and how difficult it was to be with your friend in imagination six months hence. When your friend was reading your words “all your opinions will be out of date, your jokes obsolete, your puns rejected with fastidiousness as wit of the last age.” But thirty days is a different matter, and even our friends in New Zealand or the Fiji Islands seem only in the next street compared with similar conditions a hundred years ago.

At home we grumble at the Post Office, and are irritated at the delay of a single post, but if we are living abroad, or have friends and relations in distant countries, the very word “mail” has a sweet sound in our ear. If we spoke in rhythm, as people sometimes do when labouring under strong emotion, we should say of the Post Office in a foreign land or when parted from our friends, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings.” “The feet” may be a twin screw steamship, but the sight is none the less beautiful.

But besides the big foreign services there are a very large number of contracts for conveying mails in British waters. Indeed, to examine the list is to understand in the fullest meaning the term British Isles. When we use the term we think of Great Britain and Ireland, and we perhaps concede the Isle of Man and the Isle of Wight to the group. But there are also the Scilly Islands, the Channel Islands, the Western Isles of Scotland including Skye and the Hebrides, the Arran Islands in Ireland, and the Orkney and Shetland Islands off the coast of Scotland.

Chief in the Home Packet Service is perhaps the mail service between Holyhead and Kingstown. In the old days Milford and Holyhead were both stations for the Irish mails, but Holyhead has always held the premier position, and now Fishguard has supplanted Milford. Here is a copy of an old advertisement published in 1810 in a Dublin newspaper. It will show how the service was performed in the days before steam navigation:—

“Notice is hereby given that the Postmasters-General are willing to receive Proposals for a Contract, for a period not exceeding seven years, for Two Stout Wherries of from forty-five to fifty tons burden for the performance of His Majesty's Express Services between Dublin and Holyhead.” This is one of the stormiest and most uncertain of channel passages, and the express services occupied anything from seven to twenty hours or longer in making the voyage. The Ulster, Munster, Leinster, and Connaught, the fine vessels of the City of Dublin Steamship Company, have a speed of 23 knots an hour, and keep excellent time. The Isle of Man Steam Packet Company's vessel, Ben-my-Chree, averages 24 knots at sea. There are fine services between Southampton and Weymouth and the Channel Islands, and services slow but sure to the western islands of Scotland and the distant Shetlands.

There is one British island at least which has no regular mail service, but occasionally improvises a curious service of its own. St. Kilda is a remote island lying off the west coast of Scotland about 50 miles from the nearest land. The scenery is wild and rugged, sheer cliffs rising from the sea in some parts to a height of 1250 feet, and covered by myriads of sea birds. There are about sixteen cottages on the island and eighty inhabitants. Two or three times a year during the summer a tourist steamer calls there, but the island is cut off from the mainland from August to May except for the occasional visit of an Aberdeen trawler. The islanders, left to their own resources, endeavour to open up communication with the mainland in this manner. They construct a sheepskin buoy, and the letters are enclosed in a tin canister with sufficient money to pay postage, and a wooden label is attached bearing the inscription: “St. Kilda mail. Please open.” The mail can only be launched with a hope of success in a gale of north-west wind, which drives it across to the island of Lewis, a distance of 60 miles. In a gale of this kind in 1905, the mail arrived on the shores of Lewis within two days. In the mail boat was found money to defray the cost of the postage. The dealer who sells in Glasgow and London the tweed woven by the St. Kilda islanders received half-a-dozen letters. They were salt with the lime of the sea, and in places scarcely legible. One of the islanders wrote: “Very few of the trawlers have visited us this year owing to the bad weather. I wish we could hear how you are all getting on on the mainland, and especially how the Churches are progressing.” The St. Kilda folk are keen theologians, and the struggle between the “United” and the “Wee Free” Churches interested them keenly. They were “Wee Frees” almost to a man.