Printed and Published at the Dover Express Works. 1916.

TO BE FORMATTED

ANNALS OF DOVER.
SECTION THREE.
THE PASSAGE.
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 Post-
Master 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



THE PASSAGE 151

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 over-
sight 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 sub-
farmer, 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 com-
plaints 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



152 ANNALS OF DOVER

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.



THE PASSAGE



153