Note 145 — I THE RATE FOR LETTERS (continued 2)

Evidence of Benjamin Franklin before House of Commons Committee, 28th January 1766. The Committee were, of course, most anxious on points having relation to the taxation of the colonies by the English Parliament, and Dr. Franklin was asked questions directed to discovering whether the colonists regarded postage, which was fixed by Act of the British Parliament, and had been newly fixed by such Act in the previous year (5 Geo. III, cap. 25), as a tax. On this point Dr. Franklin emphatically held that the postage paid on a letter was not of the nature of a tax, but that it was simply payment for service performed; and, moreover, the payment of postage was not compulsory, since a man might still, as before the passing of the Act, send his letter by a servant, a special messenger, or a friend, if he thought it cheaper or safer. Dr. Franklin said that every Assembly encouraged the Post Office in its infancy by grants of money; that they would not have done this if they had thought the postage charge a tax, and as a matter of fact the system was always regarded as supplying a great convenience (W. Cobbett, Parliamentary History of England, vol. xvi. cols. 137-160).