and a like sum, also in advance, for
its transmission by sea, until it shall arrive at its port of destination.
To this should be added, as fast as penny postage shall be propagated in
other countries, an international arrangement for prepaying the inland
postage of the country to which the letter is sent. Nothing can be more
simple in theory than such an arrangement, nothing easier or more
unerringly just in execution. It would make the postage stamps of the
cheap postage nations an international currency, better than gold and
silver, because convertible into that which gold and silver cannot buy,
the interchange of thought and affection among friends.

In pressing his project first on the British nation, both because he
happened to be then commorant in England, and because that government and
not ours had already adopted cheap postage as the rule for its home
correspondence, he is not chargeable with any lack of a becoming respect
for his own country. I confess, however, that I feel strongly, what he has
not expressed, the desire that my own country should have both the honor
and the advantage of being the first to carry out this glorious idea.

Mr. Burritt states the number of letters to and from places beyond sea in
1846, through six of the principal seaports of England, at

8,640,458
Number of newspapers 2,698,376
Gross revenue from letters and L301,640
papers,
Letters sent to and from the 744,108
United States,
Newspapers 317,468
Postage on letters and papers, L46,548
Whole expense of packet L761,900
service,

In addition, he has been so fortunate as to enlist the coeoperation of a
distinguished member of parliament, of whom he says:

"At my solicitation he readily moved for a return of all the
letters, newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, &c., transmitted from
the United States in 1846, and which have been refused on account
of the rates of postage, and are consequently lying dead in the
English post-office; also for a return of the amount of postage
charged upon this dead mail matter. I am pretty confident that
this return will startle the people and government with some
remarkable disclosures with regard to the amount of mail matter
conveyed across the ocean, for which John Bull does not get a
farthing, because he asks too much for the job."

By the arrangement of the Br