James Macqueen

A General Plan for a Mail Communication by Steam, Between Great Britain and the Eastern and Western Parts of the World James Macqueen

Book Excerpt: ...try, trade, and commerce, becomes also, from the correspondence to which it (p. 004) gives rise, and by which it can alone be carried on, an immense and direct source of Post-office revenue: but the direct postage derived from the correspondence required in the foreign trade, great as it is, is small when compared to the addition which the correspondence in the foreign trade directly and immediately gives to the internal postages of the kingdom. If it is examined narrowly, it will, it is not doubted, be found that almost every letter of the moiety of those which come from the British transmarine possessions, and from other foreign parts, whether by packets or by merchant ships, (of the latter, it may be said, a number equal to the whole which pay postage do, because the very great number of letters directed to consignees come free, ) produces, perhaps, ten letters, on which the largest single internal postages are charged and paid. This arises from orders sent to different places to tradesmen, me...