that the last four mails between New York
and Boston had been held up and violated on the journey, and he had
discharged the post riders on the ground that it was no longer safe to
send them with mails. The committee thereupon themselves immediately
arranged for the despatch of mails from New York, and a few days later
issued a notice "to acquaint the publick that a constitutional Post
Office is now rising on the ruins of the parliamentary one."

In the course of the next few months several provincial congresses
passed resolutions establishing Post Offices in the respective colonies.
Massachusetts fixed rates of postage at 5-1/4d. for a single letter for
not more than 60 miles, and increased rates for greater distances. The
whole matter was at the same time under the consideration of the
Continental Congress sitting at Philadelphia. Goddard had, from the
first establishment of the constitutional Post Office, expected Congress
to assume control.[147] In May, Congress appointed a committee to
consider the matter, and on the 26th July, having received the
committee's report, agreed to resolutions providing for the
establishment of a Post Office. Benjamin Franklin, who had been a member
of the committee, was unanimously chosen to be the first
Postmaster-General. It was provided that the remuneration of the
deputies should, in general, be 20 per cent. on the sums they collected,
the rate which had usually been paid under the parliamentary
system.[148] Postage of letters was to be 20 per cent. less than those
appointed by Act of Parliament. It was feared that such rates would
prove too low, and the proceeds of the office be insufficient to support
the necessary riders; and as people were in general well satisfied with
the rates lately paid, or at least had made no complaints regarding
them, the lowering of the rates was deferred.[149]

The parliamentary post continued for some years, concurrently with the
constitutional post, as the new independent Post Office was called. On
the 7th October 1775 a debate arose in Congress as to the expediency of
stopping the "parliamentary or ministerial posts." The stopping of the
post was desired chiefly as a means for hindering the correspondence of
their enemies. Inaction in the matter was advocated by some who
professed to find the royal post of great convenience; and by others
who, although desirous of seeing the parliamentary post stopped, thought
it unnecessary to take active measure