Transatlantic Postal Service, 1756
“Philadelphia, February 12, 1756. GENERAL POST OFFICE. PUBLICK NOTICE is hereby given, That the first of the Pacquet Boats provided and established, at Falmouth, In England, for carrying on a regular monthly Correspondence between Great-Britain and his Majesty’s several Colonies on the Continent of North-America, arrived at New York, on the third Instant, and will stay no longer than twenty Days, from that Time, unless his Majesty’s Service should absolutely require it.
Letters and Pacquets for England, or other Parts of Europe, will be taken in at several Post-Offices on this Continent. Those taken in at the Offices distant from New-York, will be forwarded thither by Post, and from thence to London, whence they will be sent to their respective Places as they are directed to.
The full Postage from New-York to London, of all Letters and Pacquets sent by the Pacquet Boat, must be paid at they Time they are put into the Post-Office, according to the Rates settled by Act of Parliament, viz. For a single Letter, for Penny Weight of Silver, and so in proportion for double and treble Letters, and for Pacquests. And all such as are put into the several Post-Offices on this Continent, different from New-York, must over and above the Rates paid from New-York to London, pay the full Inland Postage to New-York, without which they cannot be forwarded.
By Command of the Postmaster-General, William Franklin, Comptroller.”
—New-York Mercury, 16 February 1756.
TMT: From early in the Seven Years’ War, transatlantic mail service linked Great Britain to New York City, headquarters of the British Army in North America. For an earlier attempt to establish a transatlantic packet, see John J. McCusker, “New York City and the Bristol Packet: A chapter in eighteenth-century postal history,” in John J. McCusker, Essays in the Economic History of the Atlantic World (London, 1997), 177-189.
Posted in communications, New York City, Seven Years' War |
