The Opened Letter. Lindsay O'Neill
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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 Post Office in a smaller town like Kinsale, two miles away, or Mallow, twelve miles away. Next, the letter traveled to Waterford or Dublin, over on a packet boat to Milford Haven or Holyhead, and thence to London.49 However, Taylor was often suspicious of the Post Office. He knew they often sorted his letters from Perceval erroneously, sending them to the city of Cork rather than to Mallow in the county of Cork. Taylor was justified in many of his gripes, but what could one expect from an office with only a dozen employees?50
Taylor often tried to lower the cost of letters for his employer by enclosing them in letters to Perceval’s relative who could “frank” his letters or send them free due to parliamentary privilege. This practice ended in 1721 when the corner of a letter ripped and the enclosed epistle became visible. An annoyed Perceval paid the postage.51 Perceval franked his own letters when he was a member of Parliament, but this too caused problems. As another of Perceval’s agents informed him in 1735, when Perceval asked if his letters came free, there was a complaint made in the Irish House of Commons that the Post Office in Dublin was charging for franked letters from England.52
However, Taylor’s unfranked letter, if it was a single sheet, cost 10d.53 Perceval bore the charge since it was usually the receiver who paid the postage. Where he paid the postage on this letter is unclear. Unbeknownst to Taylor when he wrote his letter, Perceval was no longer in London but in Bath or on his way there.54 Luckily for Taylor, Perceval still wanted his letters directed to London. But somehow this letter did make it to Bath, for Perceval answered it from there on 28 December, nineteen days after Taylor wrote it.55 It could have come to Bath through the post (with another 3d added to the postage) or it could have arrived with a friend or relative; Perceval does not say. On another occasion he did have his letters directed to the Post Office in Bath, and on his trip back he had Taylor enclose them to his cousin in London and direct them to St. James Coffee House.56 When in London Perceval could receive his letters in many ways. He picked them up at the Post Office itself, at coffeehouses, or had them delivered to his Pall Mall residence.57 Simply to send a letter to his employer Taylor had to know the ins and outs of the postal system. He had to know when the post days were,