o despatch and
receive letters by vessels other than the regular sailing packets. On
letters despatched by private ship the Post Office was authorized to
charge half the packet rates in the case of letters for places to which
a packet service existed; in cases in which no rate of postage was
established, the charge was to be half the rates then paid, as near as
could be ascertained.[688] On letters brought in by such vessels, in
addition to the inland postage, a charge of 4d. a single letter, and so
in proportion, was authorized. A fee of 2d. was payable to the master of
the ship in respect of every letter delivered to or received from him by
the Post Office in proper course.

A Ship Letter Office was opened on the 10th September 1799. No vessel
was allowed to make entry or break bulk until letters brought by it had
been handed over to the Post Office. The chief object in view was not,
however, achieved. Letters sent out of the country by private ship still
continued for the most part to be handed to the shipmaster without the
intervention of the Post Office. Efforts were made to secure the
assistance of coffee-house keepers as agents of the Post Office, but
without success; and for many years the proportion between incoming and
outgoing private ship letters was eighteen to one.[689]

In 1814 a further Ship Letter Act[690] raised the rate on inward single
letters from 4d. to 6d., and made it compulsory to hand all outward ship
letters to the Post Office to be charged. The East India Company, whose
servants had previously been allowed to send and receive letters free,
protested strongly against the new Act, although the official
correspondence of the Company had been exempted. The Company pointed out
that the Post Office maintained no packet communication with the East
Indies, and to charge postage was to levy a charge where no service was
performed, and in effect to lay a tax on letter-writing. They had a
stronger weapon than sound argument: the ships sailing between England
and India were to a large extent controlled by them, and the Act laid no
compulsion on the owners of private ships to carry letters for the Post
Office. When, therefore, the Post Office requested the Company to carry
post letters to India, the Company replied that they did "not see fit to
authorize the commanders or owners of any of their ships to take charge
of any bag of letters from the Post Office subjected to a rate of
postage for sea conveyan