Note 55 — Chapter XI

1: The Present State of Great Britain and Ireland, published in 1742, states that at that time compensation was still given for losses sustained in the penny post. The words are: "If a parcel happen to miscarry, the value thereof is to be made good by the office, provided the things were securely inclosed and fast sealed up under the impression of some remarkable seal." This is an error; and that an error should be made on the point serves to confirm the view that little was known of the Post Office and its doings even 150 years ago. That compensation was not at that time given for losses is beyond all question. It happens that in that very year, 1742, a Mr. Vavasour appealed to Whitehall to grant him compensation for the loss of bank notes to the amount of £20 which had been stolen from a letter in its transit through the post; and the postmasters-general, after stating that no precedent existed for granting compensation, implored the Treasury not to create one. "All persons," they write under date the 4th of August 1742, "that for their own convenience send notes or bills of value by the post inclosed in letters do so at their own risque without any foundation that we know of for recovery of this office in case they should be stolen or lost by robbery or other accidents. And this we take to be not only reasonable but just in all construction of law." Again, in 1778 an action for compensation was brought against the Post Office, and Lord Mansfield, after delivering the unanimous opinion of the Court of King's Bench that the postmasters-general were not responsible for losses sustained in their department, proceeded to observe that no similar action had been brought since the year 1699. Giles Jacob, in his Law Dictionary, published in the last century, gives this account of the matter: "It was determined so long ago as 13 Will. III., in the case of Lane v. Cotton, by three judges of the Court of King's Bench, though contrary to Lord Chief Justice Holt's opinion, that no action could be maintained against the postmasters-general for the loss of bills or articles sent in letters by the post."