A LETTER TO A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT, ON MAIL-COACHES.
BY THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ.
LONDON: PRINTED FOR R. FAULDER, NEW BOND-STREET.
MDCCXCII.
DEAR SIR,
I AM much obliged to you for your favour of the 5th instant. I pay such deference to your opinion, that I entirely lay aside all thoughts of troubling your honourable House with the affair of repealing the act of exemption of Mail Coaches from the payment of tolls. I would avoid every adventure which does not promise success, and should be much mortified to be unhorsed and laid sprawling on the
arena
of St.
Stephen's.
Yet I shall be extremely sorry that any member of your House should, through any quickness of misapprehension, wilful or natural, imagine me to be so wild as to think of an attempt that was not founded on reasonable and honest principles.
I am sensible that the exemption of the Mails from the payment of tolls commenced very early: I think, first by an act of
William
and
Mary,
which was afterwards repeated in several others, till it was oppressively confirmed by that of the 25th Geo. III.
The most second-sighted of your House could never have foreseen that the usage of the single horse and post-boy, afterwards in many parts converted into the light mail-cart drawn by one horse, would be superseded by a
royal
carriage drawn by four horses, and filled by passengers, who before rode in the common stages, and contributed to support the roads which they passed over. This unfortunate change proceeded from an extent of prerogative, repined at only, when perverted to the injury of the subject; as this most incontestably must be allowed to have done.
Under the sanction of the first act, turnpike gates were erected, and immense sums of money lent on the national faith. For a long time the security was esteemed good; and in
Wales,
where five per cent. was given, people at first were happy to place their money on mortgages they imagined so safe. The transfer was then easy, and the public rested perfectly content. The commissioners did their duty fully: they laid out the money to the best advantage; nor did they desist till the lowering of the tolls, by the fatal change of the mode of conveyance, had taken place.
I will exemplify the hardships only in the country I live. Other places equally remote from the capital must come in for their share of the grievance: but they will fall under the common description.
Before the institution of mail-coaches, two stage-coaches ran through the county of
Flint.
And, were it not for an evasion, the change of horses between gate and gate in the
Mostyn
district, one of the districts principally aggrieved, each would have paid forty pounds a year. This unhappily was left unguarded in the act. By the help of that evasion both together only paid that sum: and even that sum, had we not been deprived of it, would have enabled us to take up 800l. more; and given us the power of repairing every part of the road which was not unexceptionably good.
Many parts may have been allowed to have been indifferent; but they were adequate to the uses of the country, not only for the use of the farmers and the carriers, but also for the luxury of carriages.
In this state they were found at the introduction of mail-coaches. These soon occasioned the suppression of the common stages, and deprived us at once of forty pounds of annual income. In the year 1789, a person was sent from the General Post Office to survey the roads. From his report, and by the orders of the Post-Office, indictments were preferred at the great sessions at
Mold,
against the whole extent of road in the narrow but long county of
Flint.
In some instances, I fear the grand jury made a strain of their consciences in finding the bills; for some of the indicted places were in most admirable repair. But we were unwilling to obstruct any thing that tended to promote the public good.
Fines to the amount of 1200l. were imposed on the several townships, many of which were very small, and the inhabitants composed of small farmers, and labourers, poor and distressed to the highest degree.
Two of these townships had a great extent of road, and only a few labourers, and a few miserable teams, to perform their statute duty. One of these townships, terrified with the prospect of ruin, by the execution of the
summum jus,
performed twenty-two days duty upon the road. The other township had only a single farmer living in it, who performed a duty of twenty-eight days.
The vast expences which the commissioners had been at in the repairs of the roads, had almost exhausted the credit, in some totally; so that at present 50l. cannot be obtained for 400l. worth of our parchment securities.
At this period I was moved with compassion at the complaint and distresses of the poor. This induced me to write my Circular Letter to the several grand juries of
England
and
Wales,
in order to induce them to unite in a common cause. I blush at my want of success, resulting from either ignorance of, or indifference to, the first principles of security of property. I was simple enough to think that the justice of the cause would have insured an approbation of my plan. Instead of that, I am told, that in some places it was even treated with rudeness and contempt. I ventured even to write to two gentlemen with whom I was not personally acquainted: they never paid the lest attention to my letter: they forgot my character, and they forgot their own.
I took the liberty of getting my Circular Letter conveyed to a third gentleman high in office, with whom I was acquainted. It was returned with (written on a corner of it) "Mr.
Pennant
is in the wrong, and I will have no concern in the affair." The gentleman may be politically right; but I am confident that Mr.
Pennant
is not morally wrong.
There has certainly been a strong misapprehension of my meaning. I did not intend the abolition of mail-coaches: they have their objections; whether we consider the barbarity with which the poor horses are treated, or the very frequent destruction of the passengers—our old
Jehus
may have slain their thousands; our modern, their tens of thousands. I only wished that they might not prove oppressive to many of our counties, by causes I have before mentioned. True it is, that, in my first Circular Letter, I did most rashly and unadvisedly hint, that they might, without injury, be converted into the mail-cart. The gentlemen of
Somersetshire,
who, I must confess, did admit that something should be done for us, very justly fired on the idea of sending their
Thespis
again into his cart. A worthy friend of mine of that county warmly but kindly expostulated with me on the subject: but I hope this my declaration of repentance will be admitted, and atone for my error.
The grand juries of
Cheshire, Berkshire, Monmouthshire,
and those of
North Wales,
united in the support of my design. The rest of the counties proved to me the truth of the remark of Swift,
That he never knew any person who did not bear the misfortunes of another perfectly like a Christian!
Far the majority of the roads in
England
have great revenues, arising from the multitude of stage-coaches that keep their ground in defiance of mails. Our stages are obliged to desist from travelling and give the former a most unjust, and oppressive monopoly. The counties interested in them feel not our unhappiness, and want generosity to contribute to the alleviation of the distresses we suffer.
We should have made a claim on the justice of the House, had we had the most distant prospect of success. We are now in the case of creditors defrauded by the superior cunning of an artful debtor. Had an individual received an adequate mortgage on his estate, and had afterwards the dexterity to lessen the income, what name would he have deserved? The highest term of reproach; but such a one that could never be applied the most remotely to any member of your honourable House.
This affair has never yet been seriously considered. Good men, I trust, will now awake as from a sleep; and stand amazed and confused at the sad delusion they discovered that they had laboured under. Favourite systems run away with mankind, and totally annihilate all attention to the inconveniences they occasion. The act was obtained late in the sessions, hurried through a very thin house, and with the slightest opposition. The legislature obliges a certain time of notice to be given before the introduction of a common turnpike bill. Let me ask, should not at lest the interval of a session have been given for the discussion of so strange and unequal a taxation?
What, may I ask, could make the individual liable to censure; and the actions of the collective body be passed over without blame? Either the numbers defend, or some daemon, like the ghostly father of
Charles
I. has whispered in your ears, Have a double conscience! one that is to make you consult the plain dictates of honesty: the other telling you to support some fancied public good, at the expence of a certain number of persons, who, in times not very remote, had trusted their money to the security of the public faith.
Or may you not hold the same doctrine as the nuns in
Tristram Shandy;
that the divisibility of sin may enable you to fritter it away into almost nothing?—You certainly have the advantage. The nuns were but two, you are five hundred and fifty-two to bear the feather-weight of the wrong decision, you had most unwarily been induced to make.
Let me now ask, are there no instances of repeal of acts on far less important occasions? I well recollect two. The first is the
Jew Act,
which had in fact no consequences to be feared, religious or political. The other was the cyder tax, esteemed like ours a partial grievance; and yet its overthrow was easily effected. I reflect on these two acts repealed without cause, and on our oppressions continued in defiance of every principle of justice.
Since your honourable House was determined to weaken our securities, ought it not to have first paid off every turnpike mortgage? and then you might have had full liberty of doing what you pleased with the income of the gates.
I beg leave to lay before you a case in which your House once shewed a most scrupulous attention to the rights of creditors. That was by the repeal of a clause in the
Kingsland
turnpike act. Part of it leads from
Shoreditch
to
Ware,
and this part was crossed by the
Newmarket
Road, and tolls were taken by the commissioners of the
Ware
Road, from all travellers to and from that seminary of virtue, merely for crossing the road. On the renewing of the
Kingsland
turnpike act, the
Newmarket
people insisted that they should pass free of tolls. A clause was inserted in the new act for that purpose, and the cross-gates were pulled down. The creditors of the
Kingsland
turnpike petitioned to the House of Commons for redress; they succeeded, and the crossgates were again erected, and the tolls taken till the whole of the creditors were paid.
NEWMARKET ROAD.
SHOREDITCH TO WARE.
I imagine that there is not a member of the House who has not acted as a commissioner of the turnpikes. Let me request him to call to mind, whether he has not in that character, or in the character of a magistrate, treated with a harsh severity the delinquent who through poverty has defrauded the gate of nine-pence. What plea of conscience has the commissioner urged for maintaining the interests of the gates, and discharging his trust like a man of honour? Is there not a
Lethean
atmosphere in the chapel of St.
Stephen,
so suddenly to efface all memory of transactions in the common air of the world? I trust that there is: otherwise the individual who in one place and in one character had been so strenuous to save a poor nine-pence, should in another place and in another character vote as a perquisite to the Comptroller General of the Post-Office, an exemption of the mails from toll, a sum amounting to not less than 90,000l. a year, on which he has a most considerable poundage, besides some very good pickings from other articles. This I am assured of by a worthy member of your House. I think his salary is but 1500l. per ann. What a monstrous quantity of sack is allowed to his halfpennyworth of bread!
So liberally supplied as the Comptroller has been with the means, cannot something be deducted to relieve our complaint? If the honourable House does not choose this mode, a small, a very small tax on the passengers, and on the immense sums got by the carriage of parcels, would compensate for the loss of exemption of tolls. The rich
English
districts would be above taking advantage of this diminution of revenue to the Comptroller General. It is only for the poor
Welch
districts, and a few others like circumstanced, for which it is humbly asked.
I have a respect for the plan of the mailcoaches, and for the inventor; but I never could think of applying to him as the
nizam al muluc,
the regulator of the posting-empire. There ought not to be in our constitution such a monster as a comptroller uncontrollable by his legislature, or his superiors in office: legislature must now see its imprudence in permitting a latitude of so dangerous a nature. I, an individual, never could bear the thought: I looked for redress to the Post-master General, or to the three estates of the kingdom.
I fear too great a veneration has been paid to this new-created office, and mode of conveying the mail. I always wish to pay every individual and every office a due respect; but in this case I must preserve the independent and useful man, and endeavour to correct every abuse that falls within my sphere as a provincial magistrate. What I am going to say may be deemed foreign to a legislative friend; yet as it may prove useful to many who behold these new vehicles with a kind of veneration, I shall mention an affair which happened in our county in the last autumn. Let me premise, that those protectors of the mail, the guards, relying on the name of royalty, had in the course of the
Irish
road through
North Wales,
committed great excesses. One, on a trifling quarrel, shot dead a poor old gate-keeper: a coroner's jury was huddled up; and, in defiance of the tears of the widow, no judicial notice has been taken of the affair to this very day. In
Anglesey,
another of these guards discharged his pistol wantonly in the face of a chaise horse, drawing his master, the Rev.
John Bulkely,
who was flung out, and died either on the spot or soon after. I think that his wife, who was with him, survived but a very short time. These guards shoot at dogs, hogs, sheep and poultry, as they pass the road, and even in towns, to the great terror and danger of the inhabitants. I determined to put a stop to these excesses, and soon had an opportunity.
A neighbouring gate-keeper laid before me a complaint, that one of the guards had threatened to blow his brains out; and had actually shot a dog that had offended him by his barking. I issued out my warrant, had the guard seized, and brought before me. He was a man who, for his great beauty and elegant person, was called the
Prince
of
Wales.
I did not hesitate to play the Judge
Gascoigne;
but from the goodness of his appearace, and the propriety of his behavour, I did not go quite the length that famous magistrate did. I took bail for his appearance at our quarter sessions. He appeared before us, when, by the permission of the chairman, I took the lead in speaking. I represented to the audience, that the guards were intrusted with arms merely for the protection of the mail and the passengers, not for the terror of his Majesty's subjects; that a mail-coach was no sanctuary; that the bailiff might drag the debtor out of it. The constable, the felon, the exciseman might rummage it for contraband goods, and that with as little ceremony as if it had been a higgler's cart. I farther added, had the driver been the offender, as the guard was, he should have been taken into custody, and the post-master of the district left to provide another to convey the mail to the next stage. The behaviour of the delinquent was so becoming his situation, that by the leave of the court I dismissed the offender with such a reprimand as became the high station of a
British
justice of the peace: an office in dignity and constitutional utility inferior to none in the land. Young men of the age, early initiate yourselves into that great character!
I beg pardon for detaining you so long, but so much I thought was due to myself and to the public. A few papers I have subjoined will fling some farther light on the subject, as well as on my proceedings from the beginning. I remain, with much regard,
DEAR SIR,
Your faithful and affectionate humble Servant, THOMAS PENNANT.
George-street, Hanover-square,
March
31, 1792.
Letter to
Thomas Williams, Esq.
of
Llanidan,
Member for the Borough of
Marlow.
Downing,
Oct.
18, 1791.
DEAR SIR,
I AM much indebted to you for your late favour, with an official letter inclosed. I have no kind of doubt but that the Comptroller General will, on cool re-consideration of his design of altering the course of the
Irish
mail, be induced to lay it totally aside. He will admit the importance of the county of
Chester
in its ancient staple of the cheese, on which our fleets and armies so greatly depend. The city itself (if I may judge by the frequent advertisements) is about to enter deeply on the fustian manufacture. We have the comfort of seeing
Manchester
burning itself to ashes: so that we shall have all the manufacture to ourselves. The great remittances of taxes from the county, and from great part of
North Wales,
and the remittances to and from
Ireland,
and those occasioned by the great biennial linen fairs, must be flung into the scale.
The port of
Park-Gate
has of late years risen into much consequence. It at present maintains four stout pacquets, which uninterruptedly ply between that port and
Dublin.
The correspondencies of the numbers of passengers embarking or disembarking, and the great remittances through this channel, are of no small moment, and of great general concern.
The county of
Flint
(little as it is of itself), thanks to you and other companies, settling among us, is now rising into an amazing state of opulence: few perhaps can rival it. Our ancient lead trade was always considerable; but by the introduction of the copper and cotton business,
Holywell,
its environs, and their dependancies, may boast of commercial property, probably to the amount of a million sterling.
I have always considered Mr.
Palmer
's plan as useful to his country, and an honour to himself, except in one article. I can never suppose that he will persist in deviating from the utility of his scheme, by diverting the mail from such a country as I have described.
Shrewsbury
has already its mail; after
Oswestry
is past, the greatest part of the road to
Conwy
is mountainous, poor, and half depopulated.
It gives me concern to find our interests clash with those of the county of
Salop.
I must allow the excellency of the great staples of its capital, brawn and rich cakes; but still we have the balance in our favour; for on the most exact and impartial calculation, I do not find that at present the annual consumption (of both together) can possibly exceed the sum of 152341l. 163. 9¾d.
The exceptionable article I allude to is the exemption of the mail-coaches from tolls. This falls heavy on the lesser districts: possibly we might have endured even that, had we not been insulted with indictments, and compelled to repairs beyond the real wants of the country. That is now over; we only wish the restoration of our lost tolls, to enable us to support the roads in the present state, and to take away all future grounds of complaint from every quarter. This will induce me to persist in my design of applying to Parliament for redress of the grievance that affects the gates from
Chester
to
Conwy,
let the rich
English
districts take what share they please in their own concerns. There is one difficulty in
Flintshire
in respect to the road itself— I mean
Rhiallt Hill;
the alteration is beyond the power of the poor parish it lies in, and beyond the power of the poor
Mostyn
district to effect. Possibly the improvement may cost from 300l. to 400l. I wish a small sum might begot from Parliament, for that and the relief of a few other poor townships. I cannot bear to drive over roads smoothed by the bread of the poor peasantry. If the mail will be permanent, I will cheerfully subscribe fifty guineas towards that improvement
The subscription is now begun: by advice of my friends I subscribed only 25l. for fear of discouraging others from joining in this salutary design. Mr.
Williams
meditates an embankment across part of the
Conwy,
to secure passengers from the terrors of the quicksands at low water; and to lessen the length of the ferry passage at high.
. I shall conclude with saying that a small addition to the fare of passengers between
Chester
and
Conwy,
will indemnify the coach from the loss by toll. Let Mr.
Palmer,
who cannot but be fertile in expedients, consider of the matter. My earnest wish is to have harmony restored, and the strongest mutual efforts made for the general good.
I am, DEAR SIR, Your most obedient humble servant, THOMAS PENNANT.
A Letter to the worshipful
Peter Broston,
Esq. Mayor of
Chester.
Downing,
January
23, 1792,
SIR,
ON
Thursday
two letters were laid by Mr.
Smalley
before the commissioners of the
Flint, Holywell,
and
Mostyn
districts, signed D.
Smith,
and G.
Boulton;
in which our attention was requested to the repair of the roads which lay in our county in the course of the mail. It falls to my lot to desire you to communicate to your respectable corporation, what the commissioners have done, and what they intend to do of their own proper motions, not from the fear of any of the very unbecoming menaces sent forth.
On the road from
Holywell
to the extremity of the district (which is called the
Flint
), has been laid out, within two years, 9531. in the space of five miles: great part of which, long before the indictments, was in most admirable repair.
The
Mostyn
district begins at the western end of the
Flint:
much of it is in very good order: part is very indifferent, owing to the impoverished state of the
Mostyn
district, and to the inability of the poor inhabitants of the township in which
Rhiallt-hill
lies, to repair that part which is bad by nature. I propose a subscription: you see my offer in the inclosed. We look up to the city of
Chester,
as both are engaged in a common cause.
The
Holywell
district is, excepting near
Halkin,
in excellent repair. The part complained of will be attended to at the next meeting at
Holywell,
at eleven o'clock on
Wednesday
the 8th of
February.
We shall be happy to see any gentlemen on the part of your city.
Excuse me if I remind the city of
Chester,
the county, and also the county of
Flint,
that our importance is such, that our demand of a mail is a matter of right; not a petition for favour. How superior is the justice of our claim to that of
Salop,
which had long since its independent mail!
In respect to my particular actings, I never will persist in any thing that is wrong; nor desist from any thing that is right. Our claim for abolishing the exemption from tolls is founded on common honesty. My seizing on the guard was the act of an attentive magistrate, to prevent future murders. Two, if not three, had been committed: one near
Conwy;
another in
Anglesey:
besides the terror spread along the whole road by the wanton conduct of the profligate guards. I brought the affair before our quarter-session; more to set it in the true light than to punish the offender. I was aspersed in your city; but the examination wiped away the dirty paragraph.
I am, Sir, Your most obedient humble Servant, THOMAS PENNANT.
To the worshipful the Mayor of Chester.
To the Printer of the
SHREWSBURY CHRONICLE.
SIR,
Downing,
August
6, 1791.
I REQUEST you to lay before the public the following advertisement, addressed by the commissioners of the
Mostyn
turnpike district, in order to avert in future the hardships several of the townships of the county of
Flint
labour under in the repairs of the roads. The advertisement itself relates to the greater part of the grievances. It was sent to the paper too late to inform the
English
circuits, but has been approved by the grand juries of
Cheshire, Denbighshire,
and
Flintshire,
at the Spring assizes, and by that of
Berkshire
and
Monmouthshire,
being the first of the Autumn assizes. Let me here inform you, that, by indictments from the General Post-Office, fines to the amount of 1200l. have been laid on the several townships lying in the course of the post-roads in the little county of
Flint,
many of which are very small, and labour under the greatest poverty. One in particular has a vast extent of road to repair, and only a few labourers, and four miserable teams to perform their statute labour. Under those circumstances, terrified with the prospect of ruin, they performed twenty-two days statute duty. The French
corvées,
now so reasonably abolished, were introduced on British ground, yet in vain; for a fine of 82l.10s. was imposed on the poor people. So little interested were they, and numbers of others of the
Welsh
townships, in the passage of the mail-coach, that possibly they do not receive a letter in a year; yet these townships must suffer equally with the most opulent and commercial towns. Many of the roads were unexceptionably repaired; the rest were in sufficient repair for the uses of the farmer, for the uses of the gentlemen's carriages, and for the uses of the mail, before the late unguarded innovations. We are like the
Israelites,
required to make brick without straw. The means of repair are taken from us, and we are fined for not performing impossibilities. A post-road is a national concern; that to a neighbouring kingdom doubly so: and certainly that consideration should induce legislature to afford an aid in such cases in which it is found necessary; and if a road must be finished with finical perfection, the expence ought never to fall on those who are totally uninterested in it. Justice can never require that the poor should keep pace with the innovations made for the benefit of commerce or luxury. Much of the road-laws calls loudly for a reform: in all laws there should be a point of limitation. The attention of the grand juries is requested at the ensuing assizes. It is hoped that they will direct their representatives to make the mailcoaches liable to tolls. We mean no injury to Mr.
Palmer:
let him, before the meeting of parliament, suggest any remedy for the evil, and we shall rest content. They will certainly do away the great parliamentary opprobrium of the act passed by their predecessors; which lessens a security granted on the faith of parliament. And much more may be said on this subject; but the detail is reserved for another occasion; you may be again troubled with my complaints, as well as some account of a township grievance, brought on it by those whose peculiar office it was to have guarded against the deceptions which imposed on their judgment, and brought on a most erroneous and disgraceful adjudication.
I am, Sir, Your most obedient humble servant, THOMAS PENNANT.
"GENERAL TURNPIKE CONCERN.
1. AT a meeting of the trustees of the
Mostyn
turnpike, held at the house of
Joseph Roberts,
at the
Blue Bell,
on
Saturday, July
30, 1791, the state of the roads was taken into consideration:
2. When it appeared, that parts of the coal-road were greatly out of repair; the trade in which was the original foundation of this turnpike.
3. That the present annual tolls are very inadequate to remedy the evil.
4. That the failure of the tolls does not arise from any decay of trade in the country, but from the exemption granted by parliament, by the 25th Geo. III. c. 57, to the mail-coaches from the payment of any tolls.
5. That, by such exemption, the common stage-coaches have been obliged to desist from travelling, by reason of the burthen they are singly to sustain, and which the mail-coaches are freed from, and now in many places monopolize the business.
6. That the
Mostyn
district alone suffers a loss of 40l. a year, which is the interest of 800l. the loss of which prevents the trustees from the repairing of road equal to the expenditure of such a sum.
7. That the clause of exemption in favour ot the mail-coaches is highly detrimental to the credit of the tolls, and the security of the lenders, who had lent their money under the pledge of parliamentary faith.
8. Ordered, That the expediency of petitioning parliament on this subject be farther taken into consideration, and that these resolutions be published in the next
Chester
paper, as they are public concerns; every post-road, and its several creditors, being interested therein.
9. That the sum of ten guineas be paid into the hands of the solicitor, towards the expences of the proposed bill, for repealing the exemption of tolls of the mail-coaches, and for subjecting them to tolls, in case such bill be brought into parliament: and that the commissioners of the several turnpike districts in
Great Britain
be invited to correspond, by their treasurers, on the subject, with
Samuel Small,
treasurer of the
Flint
and
Holywell
districts, and
John Lloyd,
assistant treasurer of that of
Mostyn.
10. That the thanks of the commissioners be given to the foremen and grand juries of the counties of
Cheshire, Denbighshire
and
Flintshire,
for their liberal concurrence with the resolutions of the commissioners of the
Mostyn
district.
11. That it is requested of the gentlemen of this county to attend at
Mold,
on
Saturday
the 9th of
April,
to give a sanction to this proposal, and to prepare one or more petitions, or to give necessary instruction to the representatives of the county and borough, &c. as may then be thought proper.
12. And in order to give force to this reasonable claim on parliament, it is recommended to the gentlemen of neighbouring counties, who may attend the duty of their country on the ensuing grand juries, to take the above into consideration, and add their weight to the common cause. Signed, by order of the commissioners,
JOHN LLOYD,
Assistant Clerk and Treasurer.