nineteen packets, all belonging to Falmouth, had been captured by the enemy.
A mail-packet, from be earliest little sloop down to the stately 'liner,' has always been an object of exceptional interest at sea. Her freight is the thought, the hopes and fears, schemes and wishes, love and tenderness of countless thousands; and for this delicate commerce other thousands, far away on lonely islands, in remote settlements, in great cities by the ocean's verge, are waiting—waiting. One can imagine the intense watch kept on the horizon in olden times, at such stations as Bombay, New York, or Sydney, for the packet from home, and what rapture attended a first glimpse of a white-winged messenger, hailed like the weary dove that descended, leaf in mouth, from the blue, to cheer the prisoners in the ark!
For some time before 1788 the packets belonged either to the Crown or to members of the Post-Office Staff and their friends. The service was (from 1635 to 1887) controlled by the Post-Office; in the latter year it was placed under the control of the Admiralty, and in 1860 the Post-Office resumed control The first commercial contract for the conveyance of mails was entered into by the Postmaster-General in 1883, with the Mona Isle Steamer Company, which agreed to run steamers twice a week between Liverpool and Douglas.
In 1788 the Commissioners of Fees and Gratuities recommended that the packets should be provided by open tender.
In 1799 the Ship-Letter Act was passed, by which letters were to be conveyed at half packet rates.
In 1885, thanks to Lieutenant Waghorn, letters were, for the first time, sent by the overland route across the Isthmus of Suez to India and Australia. And we all remember how, thanks to M. de Lesseps, our mail-packets were at last enabled to steam right through the Isthmus from the Mediterranean into the Red Sea.
Some of the old charges make one wince to this day. Sir Walter Scott absently opened a bulky letter from
