III. MAIL PACKETS AND THE POST OFFICE.
The State Papers and Post Office Records afford some information as to the working of the Passage Boats in the reign of Charles II. At the Restoration the Post Office had been granted in " farm," and that arrangement may be said to have placed the Passage Boats, more especially those that carried the mails, under triple observation, for, added to the ancient control of the Court of Lodemanage, there was the agent of the Mail Packets acting in the interest of the " Farmers," and the clerk of the Passage, who was responsible to the Privy Council. The Lords Arlington and Berkeley became joint farmers under a ten years lease in October 1667. During five years, from 1672 to 1677, the business was managed in London for riiCse noble "farmers" by Colonel Roger Whitley, who was de facto the PostMaster General of that day. Alter this Arlington and Berkeley lease ran out the Duke ol York farmed the Post Office, and for a while Roger Whitley managed the Post Office for the Duke. That farming arrangement and the triple observation it entailed, caused many details relating to the Passage to be recorded which otherwise might have passed r)ut of knuwledge. For the purpose of this business, Roger Whitley, the sub-farmer, kept a Dover Letter Book, or rather, a series of them. In those boLs there are several illuminating items respecting the Dow r Packet Boats.
At that time the Dover Passage v/as served by about thirty sailing packets owned by DoNcr mariners, as it had been from ancient times, but, as far as can be gleaned from the records, the independent Passage Boats did very little business owing to the Straits being infested with pirates, and because the privateers of the Continental powers, hostile to England, frequently attacked them. The greater part of the cross Channel traffic, both in passengers and cargo was then done by the Post Office Packets, which, owing to the international service they rendered, iisually sailed under "letters of protection." The service at Dover under uie Post Office contract from 1672 until 1677, was carried on by four Dover Packets, aided by other Dover Passage-boats from time to time specially hired for emergencies. These boats plied from Dover, between Calais and Dover and Nieuport and Dover alternately, and, a year or two later, the Port of Ostend was adopted owing to the delays in entering and leaving Nieuport. The officials and masters of the four packets engaged by the Post Office at Dover between 1672-77 were, Mr. J. Carlisle, a jurat. Clerk of the Passage; Mr. Houseman, a clerk in the Custom House, had the oversight of the mails and the four subsiding Packets, and the Masters of the four Packets were John Lambert, Richard Hills, Walter Finnis, and Ambrose Williams. The first named Master lost his life in a storm on the i6th January, 1673. Francis Bastinck, in 1674, succeeded Carlisle as Clerk of the Passage, and in 1678, also took the office of Mail Master as the successor of Housman. There was at this period, on the part of the King and the Privy Council, a great desire to improve the speed and increase the regularity of the Packet-boats; but the Masters of the Packets, probably with the encouragement of the subfarmer, Roger Whitley, were more concerned about increasing their earnings by carrying cargo and suiting the convenience of passengers than by speeding up the mails. The greater part of the correspondence left on record consists of complaints about the delay of the mails, and excuses for the same. The Clerk of the Passage told the Privy Council that much time might have been saved at Dover if the mails had been put on board in the Road, but that frequently from 12 to 24 hours were lost by bringing the Packets into harbour to take passengers and cargo. Although it is well known that Dover Harbour was shallowed by shingle and mud at this period, the small Packet-boats do not seem to have been retarded; the Clerk of the Passage in May, 1675, told the Privy Council that the Packets found no difficulty in sailing out of Dover Harbour except when there were strong East and South-East winds.
As to fares for the passage, at this time, there seems to have been no regular rule. For "the quality," as the better class of travellers were styled, it was " what your honour pleases " with a minimum of los. ; and this sum was charged to all the poorer persons who desired to cross, if they had money ; but if they were destitute natives of this country, sailors or soldiers, the Packets were bound to bring them over, the Admiralty or the Privy Council, after a good deal of correspondence, defraying the cost.
During the twenty-five years of the reign of Charles II., the Post Office was farmed, and the Mail Packets were run with more or less regularity, as before intimated, excepting some temporary interruptions during the Dutch Wars. Towards the end of the reign the Harbour mouth was so often blocked with shingle that the Packets had great difficulty in entering and leaving. Later, in the reign of William III. and Queen Anne it was so much worse that the smallest vessel engaged in the Passage could not enter, and for that reason Queen Anne, by letters patent granted authority to appoint a Water Bailiff to superintend the embarking and disembarking of Channel passenger in the Bay.