Note 403 — III THE RATE FOR PARCELS
Reading edition
"In 1839 Sir John Burgoyne wrote to complain that, for a packet of papers sent to him at Dublin, which had been forwarded from some other part of Ireland by mail-coach, as a letter, instead of a parcel (i.e. a coach-parcel), he had been charged a postage of £11; that is to say, for a packet which he could easily have carried in his pocket, he was charged a sum for which he could have engaged the whole mail-coach, i.e. places for four inside and three outside passengers, with their portmanteaus, carpet bags, etc."—The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago, London, 1890, p. 7.