r the delivery of letters in
the City and its precincts, the Duke complained of the scheme as an
infraction of his monopoly, and the courts of law decided in his favor.
That grant ceased, as a matter of course, on the Duke's accession to the
throne; and in the reign of Queen Anne a portion of the Post-office
proceeds was appropriated, with the general consent of a grateful
country, to reward the great achievements of the Duke of Malborough, a
perpetual charge on it of L5000 a year being annexed to the dukedom. In
those days the postage of a letter was twopence for short distances, and
threepence for any distance beyond eighty miles.[251] But those charges
had been gradually increased; about the middle of the century the lowest
charge was fixed at fourpence, rising in proportion to the distance,
till the conveyance of a single letter from one extremity of the kingdom
to the other cost eighteen-pence. Such a rate could not fail to be very
profitable; and by the beginning of the present reign the yearly profit
exceeded a million and a half of money. The heaviness of the charge,
however, had latterly attracted attention, and had been the cause of
many complaints, as being a great discouragement, and, in the case of
the poorer classes, a complete obstacle to communication. However,
neither the ministers nor the Parliament had succeeded in devising any
remedy, since a system affording so large a return was not a thing
lightly to tamper with, when those who complained suddenly found a
practical leader in Mr. Rowland Hill, who published a pamphlet on the
subject, in which he affirmed the cost of the conveyance of each letter
even for such a distance as from London to Edinburgh to be infinitely
less than a farthing; and that, consequently, all the rest of the
postage was a tax for the purposes of revenue. When this fact was once
established, it needed no argument to prove that to increase the tax
paid by each recipient of a letter in proportion to the distance at
which he lived from the writer was an indefensible unfairness; and,
after much investigation and discussion, Mr. Hill succeeded in
converting the ministers to his view. Accordingly, the Budget for 1839,
introduced by Mr. Spring Rice, then Chancellor of the Exchequer,
contained a clause which reduced the postage for every letter weighing
less than an ounce to a uniform charge of a penny, to be prepaid by
means of a stamp to be affixed to each letter by the sender. It was n