use became general throughout England.

The mail service of North America, which in its magnitude and
regularity, and in the extension of its benefits to every settlement and
fireside, has, it is believed, no superior, probably had its beginning
in private enterprise; although perhaps sanctioned at the very outset,
by local authority.

As early as 1677 Mr. John Hayward, scrivener, of Boston, Mass., was
appointed by the General Court to take in and convey letters according
to their direction. This was probably the first post-office and mail
service authorized in America. Other local arrangements, necessarily
very imperfect in their character, were made in different colonies soon
after; some of them having the sanction of Colonial Governors or
Legislatures.

Thomas Dongan, the Governor of New York under the Duke of York, in a
letter to the Duke's secretary, dated February 18, 1684, says:

You are pleased to say I may set up a post-house, but send me noe
power to do it. I never intended it should be expensive to His Royal
Highness. It was desired by the neighboring colonies, and is at
present practiced in some places by foot messengers.

In the same letter Gov. Dongan says he will endeavor to establish a
post-office in Connecticut and at Boston. Under date of August 27, 1684,
Sir John Werden, the Duke's secretary, wrote to Gov. Dongan:

As for setting up post-houses along the coast from Carolina to Nova
Scotia it seems a very reasonable thing, and you may offer the
privilege thereof to any undertakers for ye space of 3 or 5 years,
by way of farm; reserving wt part of ye profit you think fit to the
Duke.

At least as early as January, 1690, there was what was called a public
post between Boston and New York, and in 1691 there was a post of some
kind from New York to Virginia, and from New York to Albany. This was
during the war with the French, and these posts were probably
established by the military authorities.

On the 4th of April, 1692, Thomas Neele, having obtained a patent to
establish post-offices throughout the American colonies, appointed
Andrew Hamilton (afterwards Governor of New Jersey), his deputy for all
the plantations. Mr. Deputy Hamilton brought the subject before Gov.
Fletcher and the New York Colonial Assembly in October following, and an
Act was immediately passed "for encouraging a post-office."

In 1705 Lord Cornbury, the Governor of New York, informed the