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1921 THE CORUNNA PACKETS 539 reserved for the concurrence of the Dutch and the empire, 1 that is, it was to be let alone. Thus it was that the ' harsh and disrespectful ' letter of Admiral Russell to William III in 1695 could be sent through Fra-nce, either, as William suspected, in order that it might be opened, or, in Shrewsbury's more charitable interpretation, by mere inadvertence. 2 At the end of the war, Aglionby was again employed on a postal mission, that of restoring the postal arrangements with France. Matthew Prior wrote to him : My Lord [Portland] understands it that our putting down the Corunna packets was the condition we were to yield to in case the French came to reasonable terms, and if they do so, we cannot well insist upon their being kept up. 3 It seems, however, that the French were not able to stop the direct communication between England and the Peninsula, in order that they might profit from acting as intermediaries. The service was maintained until the outbreak of the war of the Spanish Succession. 4 This fact is not without interest as marking the stage that had been reached in the development of European postal systems. Nor was this the only occasion on which the mutual exclusions of two belligerent areas caused an improvement of communications within the boundaries of each. G. N. Clark. 1 Dispatch of 27 November/7 December (State Papers, For., Spain, 75). 8 Coxe. Shrewsbury Correspondence, pp. 104-5. 3 30 March/9 April 1698 {LongUat Papers, Hist. MSS. Comm., iii. 203 : see also ibid. iii. 200-1, 207). 4 Chamberlayne, Angliae Notitia, 1700, p. 425; Cal. of State Papers, Dom , 1702-3, p. 30.