On arriving at Quebec, Franklin opened a post office there with subordinate offices at Three Rivers and Montreal,[3] and established a monthly service between the Canadian post offices and New York, arranging the trips so that the courier should make as close connection as possible with the packet boats which sailed monthly each way between New York and Falmouth, England.

The postal system into which Canada was thus incorporated was of vast extent. It stretched from the river St. Lawrence to Florida. New York was its pivotal point, the mail couriers running north and south connecting there with one another, and with the packets from England. The system was under the control of two deputies, of equal authority, one of whom was Franklin, and the other John Foxcroft. As this system had a long history when Canada came to be comprised in it, it seems essential to a proper presentation of the subject that a sketch of that history should be furnished.

The first notice of a post office in North America appears in the records of the general court of Massachusetts Bay for the year 1639. The colony was just ten years old. Letters from home, always eagerly looked for, were then awaited with double anxiety in view of the distracted state of England.

King Charles was at this time midway in the course of his great experiment in absolute government, which ten years before had driven these people from their homes, and ten years later was to carry him to the block.

Some effective arrangement for the exchange of correspondence between New and Old England was a necessity. Until 1639 there was none. On the English side, it was the practice for sea captains, who intended making a trip to America, to give public notice of the fact, and to place a bag for the reception of letters in one of the coffee houses. On the day of sailing, the bag was closed and taken on board the vessel to America.

It was at this point that the scheme failed. There was no one in America charged with the duty of receiving and distributing the letters; and consequently, many letters were misdelivered, and many not delivered at all. It was to provide a remedy for this state of things that an ordinance[4] was passed on the 5th of November, 1639.

By this ordinance public notice was given that all letters from beyond the seas were to be taken to the tavern kept by Richard Fairbank, in Boston, who engaged that they should be delivered according to their addresses. He was to receive a penny for every letter he delivered, and was to answer for all miscarriages due to his neglect. The Fairbank's tavern was a resort of some prominence. Through the correspondence of the time, it appears as the meeting place for various committees of the colony, and returns to the surveyor general were ordered to be made at Fairbank's in 1645.

The ordinance of 1639, besides giving directions for the receipt and delivery of letters coming to Boston from beyond the sea, also authorized Fairbank to provide for the despatch of letters posted at his house, and addressed to places abroad. He was licensed to receive letters from the citizens of Boston for transmission across the sea; but the ordinance laid it down carefully that "no man shall be compelled to bring his letters thither unless he please."

This proviso is quite in keeping with the spirit of the time. At present and for more than two centuries past, the exclusive right of the post office to engage in the conveyance of letters is conceded without question. But at that time, its claims to a monopoly in letter carrying were contested on all sides.

Indeed anything presenting the appearance of a monopoly found small favour. The natural jealousy with which every claim to exclusive privilege is viewed, was heightened to the point of hatred during the struggle for constitutional government, by the fact that trading monopolies which were granted to courtiers, not only enhanced unreasonably the price of many of the necessities of life, but also furnished the means, which enabled the king to pursue his illegal and arbitrary courses in defiance of parliament.

The privy council in England had adopted in 1635 a scheme for the administration of the post office, one of the features of which was the bestowal upon it of the sole right to carry on the business of conveying and delivering letters in England. This was contested in the courts, and in 1646 was pronounced illegal.

The claim had received an earlier blow at the hands of the long parliament, which in 1642 condemned the post office monopoly. The arguments for monopoly, however, were not long to be gainsaid; and when Cromwell took up the question of the post office, and passed a comprehensive act on the subject in 1656, the monopoly as regards the conveyance of letters was conferred on the post office in express terms.

This act was confirmed after the Restoration in 1660; and the post office has remained undisturbed in the enjoyment of its monopoly since that date. In the North American colonies, the post office monopoly was never popular, though, owing to the ease with which it was evaded, it was regarded with indifference until close upon the war of the Revolution.

In 1663, the English government began to see the necessity for a postal service between England and its colonies in America. On the 1st of June of that year, the king wrote to the governor of Barbados[5] that it had become a matter of daily complaint that there was no safe means of communication with Virginia, New England, Jamaica, Barbados and other colonies in America; and he directed the governor to establish a post office within Barbados and the Caribbee Islands.

The post office was to be under the control of the postmaster general of England, to whom the accounts should be sent; and the rates of postage were to be the same as those fixed for England by the act of 1660. Nothing seems to have been done at this time towards establishing a post office in either Virginia or New England.

So far as the interests and convenience of the people of New England were concerned, these in no way suffered from the lack of attention on the part of the home government. The coffee house on the one side, and the tavern on the other, with the vessels passing between as often as business warranted, answered every reasonable demand.

In Virginia it would not appear that the legislature at this period took any steps towards providing a place of deposit and delivery, such as Fairbank's, for letters passing between the colonists and their correspondents beyond the sea. But the want of this convenience caused little restriction on the exchange of letters by means of the trading vessels which visited Jamestown.

New York contained the only other considerable group of settlers at this time. It was a recent acquisition, having passed into the hands of the English in 1664. The Dutch, the former possessors, had arrangements for the exchange of letters with Amsterdam, not dissimilar from those in force in New England. In 1652 the Dutch West India Company informed their director general in New Amsterdam, that having observed that "private parties give their letters to this or that sailor or free merchant, which letters to their great disadvantage are often lost through neglect, remaining forgotten in the boxes or because one or the other removes to