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Eighteenth-Century Authors and the Abuse
of the Franking System
by
James E. Tierney
Although it is well known that the English franking privilege was much abused during the eighteenth century, very little specific evidence has come forward to show the extent to which literary figures illegally used the free postage accorded government officers and members of Parliament. Howard Robinson has called our attention to the infringements on the privilege by both Samuel Johnson and Horace Walpole, pointing to the occasions when Johnson requested Mrs. Thrale to have her husband frank their correspondence and when Walpole franked letters for his friends George Montagu and the Rev. William Cole.[1] However, little else has reached print.
The present essay, by drawing upon the correspondence of the mid-eighteenth-century London bookseller Robert Dodsley, will add a number of otherwise law-abiding authors to the list of those who winked at the prescriptions of the franking privilege by employing franks for their private correspondence. On the broader scale, it should also become clear that the illegal employment of franks during the period had come to be accepted, actually expected, even by those to whom the privilege was specifically
I
To begin, it would be helpful to recall briefly some of the major developments in both the law and practice of franking prior to, and concurrent with, the period under consideration. Franking had originated with Cromwell's government. In 1652, the Council of State ordered that ". . . all public packets on extraordinary dispatches, letters of members of Parliament and Council of State, secretaries, clerks, or officers employed in public service under them, or their committees, or in any other service of public concernment, shall be carried free. . . ."[2] Extended into the Restoration, the privilege was noticeably abused, as reflected in a Royal Warrant on 4 March 1693: ". . . the King has suffered great prejudice in the Post Office Revenue by the free carriage of letters and packets which ought to have been paid for."[3] In response to the abuse, this warrant restricted free carriage to the two principal Secretaries of State, the Secretary of Scotland, the Secretary in Holland, and the earl of Portland; two days later members of Parliament were accorded the privilege, but only during the session and forty days before and after. In addition, to forestall further abuse, members were required to write their names and to give the impression of their seals in a book provided for the purpose. A few months later, the privilege was further extended to the Treasury Lords, the Secretary of War, and the Secretary of the Admiralty.
These prescriptions, however, proved ineffective in constraining abuses, which continued to proliferate into the eighteenth century. Typical abuses were of several kinds: enclosure of private letters within franked packets by authorized persons; forging of members' names by constituents without complaint from the former; letters sent from the country to be re-addressed for delivery under members' signatures; letters directed to be sent under a privileged person's name to a City coffee house where it would be picked up by the intended recipient; the inclusion of private letters within newspaper packets that had been franked by a privileged person.
In 1715, complaints from the Postmasters-General prompted the House of Commons to enact further stipulations: franks on letters and packets were to be written in the hand of the privileged person; a letter would pass free only if a member was actually residing in the place to which the letter was addressed; a member was forbidden to frank a newspaper unless it was entirely in print (no letter enclosed).[4]
The ongoing anxieties of Postmasters-General were reflected in the reported losses to the King's revenue as a result of franked material, both legal and illegal. For instance, from Lady Day (25 March) 1716 to the same day of the following year, the government audit office reported losses to revenue of £18,471 as a result of franking by the King's ministers and an additional £237 as the loss from M.P.'s franking.[5]
Despite continuing government clarifications regarding persons entitled to the franking privilege and warnings to violators, the illegal use of franks proceeded to escalate through the first three decades of the eighteenth century. Finally, reported annual losses to revenue of £36,864 during the period 1730-1733 prompted the House of Commons to undertake its own investigation of the problem in 1735. Various Post Office officials were summoned to testify on the manner and extent of the misuse of franks. Although Edward Cave, a supervisor of franks, provided elaborate evidence of false franking (notably, M.P.'s franking of letters not concerned with their business and non-privileged persons' use of blank franks supplied by members), the House became irate when it learned of Cave's methods of discovering and dealing with illegal franks. He reported that when he knew a member was not actually residing at the address on a letter, he charged the letter with postage. More distressing to the House, however, was Cave's method of detecting fraudulent franks: examining all franked letters by candlelight.[6]
Ironically, the principal effect of the investigation was the enactment of restrictions on the Post Office rather than measures directed at curing the franking problem. The House passed a Resolution forbidding the tactics employed by Cave, regarding them as infringements on members' privacy and privilege.[7] When the Postmasters-General complained to the Treasury (who set policy for the Post Office) that they were now prevented from protecting the King's revenue by this new restriction, they were told to obey the House's Resolution.[8]
Four years after George III had surrendered the Post Office revenue in favor of a Civil List settlement in 1760, Parliament passed an act, giving sanction to this longstanding privilege and repeating the principal points of the original royal proclamation. However, it put some "teeth" into the new act by including an elaborate set of regulations against abuses, and, among them, one stipulating that anyone found illegally avoiding postage would be guilty of felony and liable to transportation for seven years.[9] Initially, the act significantly reduced the illegal use of franks, but, shortly after, when the
II
It is from the nineteen-year period preceding 1764—a time of lax government control—that the relevant Dodsley correspondence presented below originates. Evidence of specific franking abuses in this correspondence derives from twenty-three separate letters written by eleven different persons, including Dodsley himself. An additional fourteen letters show the bookseller actually franking his own letters. The former originate from a variety of places, including Aberdeen, Bath, Birmingham, Carlisle, Durham, and Nottingham. Mostly regular correspondents, the writers include the printer John Baskerville; John "Estimate" Brown; John Gilbert Cooper, a prolific miscellaneous writer; the poet John Dyer; David Fordyce, professor of moral philosophy at Aberdeen; Richard Graves, author of The Spiritual Quixote; John Scott Hylton, a numismatist from Hales-Owen; Robert Lowth, the grammarian and future bishop of London; William "Pliny" Melmoth; and the poet William Shenstone.
Not all of the instances are de facto violations of the franking privilege, but where they are not, it is clear that the writers, short of counterfeiting a signature, would not hesitate to so infringe. Generally the abuses are of three types: the endorsement by M.P.s of letters or packets that have nothing to do with their own business but franked as a favor to a friend; letters or packets sent to a local M.P., who, upon reception, franked his friend/neighbor's mail; and, perhaps the most notorious of all, the circulation and use of blank but franked sheets.
Five letters from Dodsley's correspondents solely concerned with the writers' literary interests or productions (and not at all with an M.P.'s business) are either franked by an M.P. or request that favor of Dodsley. Two of John Gilbert Cooper's letters, written from Derby on 18 February 1747 and from Leicester on 23 September 1749, are franked by Borlace Warren, M.P. for Nottingham (1713-15, 1727-47), and by George Wrighte, M.P. for Leicester (1727-66), respectively.[10] The first is wholly concerned with essays that Cooper encloses for Dodsley's fortnightly Museum: or Literary and Historical Register (1746-47); the second is taken up with directions for indexing the author's soon-to-be-published Life of Socrates (1749). Another letter on 16 January 1749 asks Dodsley to send Thomas Seward's pamphlet The Conformity between Popery and Paganism illustrated in a frank, thereby calling upon the bookseller to supply the free postage.[11] A similar favor is begged of Dodsley by John Brown on 8 November 1746, only he would like two pamphlets—Nathaniel
The franking of Dodsley's own letters, upon receipt, was assured in two further letters from Cooper. On 7 April 1746, he directs Dodsley to send every number of the Museum to the Hon. John Stanhope, Lord of the Admiralty, at Alderman Frances's in Derby, "where I shall receive it without any post charge."[14] On 9 December 1749, he enjoins Dodsley to send him "in two Separate covers (for I'm afraid one will weigh above two ounces) the last Monthly Review [containing a review of Cooper's Life of Socrates], directed, for Wrightson Mundy Esqr Membr of Parlt. at John Gilbert Cooper's in Leicester, which expedient will save me the expense of carriage, & you two franks."[15]
If one can generalize from the bulk of evidence found in the correspondence, the most common abuse of the franking privilege consisted of the wholesale endorsing of blank sheets by privileged persons for the use of their friends. The earliest instance, found in a Cooper letter on 15 November 1746, shows the author promising Dodsley another two papers for his Museum "as soon as I can procure franks." Apparently he did more than keep his word, for, in a letter of the following 11 February, he is reminding Dodsley that "about two months ago I sent you some franks of Mr Warren's," thereby allowing the bookseller to respond to his many queries free of charge.[16]
John Baskerville, the Birmingham printer, implicitly reveals the extent and common acceptance of the abuse in the conclusion of his letter to Dodsley on 19 October 1752.[17] There he suggests to the bookseller, whose shop in Pall Mall was near to the Houses of Parliament, that "As you are [in] the Land of Franks: half a Doz. would do me a particular pleasure, As a good Many things not worth a groat might be communicated by Yr Most obedt hble Servt." A similar impression of Bath's seasonal "resources" is conveyed by Richard Graves when writing on 30 September 1756.[18] Graves hopes "to get some Franks when our Season comes in." From another quarter, John Scott Hylton of Hales-Owen, near Birmingham, complains in a letter of 6 December 1757 that "Lord Dudley's death [5th Baron Dudley] has put an
Obviously Shenstone himself made regular use of franks to cover his personal letters, and from whatever source he could procure them. Dodsley's response to the poet in a letter of 19 September 1758 implicitly acknowledges the free flow of franks that did not even require the user to procure them directly from a friend, or even be acquainted with his benefactor: "As to Franks, you could not have ask'd at a worse time, as I have no body in Town to apply to: however I have enclos'd three, & will send You more as soon as I have an opportunity of getting any."[21] Shenstone had revealed a reliance upon franks for his personal correspondence even earlier. On 21 December of the previous year, when sending Dodsley corrections for poems to be included in Volumes 5 and 6 of a Collection of Poems by Several Hands, Shenstone says he believes he will write again tomorrow, for which he has "reserv'd my only Frank."[22] Still another request for a supply of franks comes from William Melmoth on 3 July 1760.[23] Although missing, Dodsley's response was probably little different from that to Shenstone, for Parliament, of course, did not sit during the summer months.
Another seven allusions in the correspondence implicitly acknowledge the casual circulation of franked sheets among non-privileged persons, but, for the most part, they consist of simple apologies to Dodsley for momentarily lacking franks to cover letters, thereby requiring the bookseller to pay the post. Three such letters come from Richard Graves, on 10 October 1757, 21 May 1763, and 6 January 1764.[24] John Dyer the poet is responsible for another letter on 12 May 1757; John Scott Hylton, for one on 9 February 1758; and Robert Lowth, for one on 9 June 1758.[25] Finally, another such apology appears in Dodsley's own letter on 9 December 1758, a brief piece hastily dashed off to Shenstone amidst the excitement surrounding the performance of Dodsley's tragedy Cleone at Drury Lane.[26]
III
Surely the most perplexing use of franks in the correspondence involves a series of fourteen letters Dodsley wrote to Shenstone and which he franked himself. On the cover of each of these letters appears, in the bookseller's hand, "R. Dodsley free." The letters come midway in Dodsley's lengthy correspondence with Shenstone, covering a period of almost two years; that is, from September 1753 through July 1755.[27]
By what authority Dodsley presumed to endorse these letters escapes detection. However, it is reasonable to assume that Dodsley's endorsements do not reflect an infringement on the franking privilege. First of all, such a blatant abuse of franks, because it would amount to arrogant defiance of the law, does not fit the character of the mild-mannered, law-abiding bookseller. Moreover, as evident throughout his correspondence, Dodsley was keen to protect his business reputation, which, at the time of these letters, was rising to its zenith. As London's premiere publisher of belles lettres, he certainly would not have jeopardized his business for the paltry pence to be saved in this brief series of letters. Clearly, an explanation must be found within the prescriptions of the law, or at least within accepted custom. Unfortunately, nothing we know of Dodsley affords a certain explanation. No record, for instance, shows Dodsley to have held any of the offices or to have served in a secretarial capacity to any of the offices accorded the franking privilege. We are left to speculate.
One possible explanation derives from a Dodsley business activity of the time, the publishing of periodicals. David Foxon has suggested that perhaps Dodsley had gained the privilege from the Post Office Clerks of the Road, who officially franked newspapers sent into the provinces. The Clerks, Foxon notes, employed numerous agents in London to collect, wrap, and frank these papers. Dodsley, as the publisher of the weekly periodical The World (January, 1753-December, 1756) and as a shareholder (at least since 1747) in the most influential newspaper currently being sent into the country, the London Evening Post, might have been so employed.[28] If Foxon is correct, perhaps Dodsley had loosely construed the privilege of franking as extending to his private letters—an understanding that might well fit the current liberal interpretation of the franking privilege. On the other hand, if such was the case, one might question why Dodsley suddenly discontinued the practice in mid-1755 when the forementioned publications continued to be issued. No new government investigation of franking abuses seems to have occurred in that year, nor were there any new restrictions on persons entitled to the privilege.
Dodsley does seem to have come to the government's attention in late 1754 or early 1755 when the London Evening Post carried a series of scurrilous attacks on the Rev. Richard Blacow and probably also when, in July 1755, the paper's printer, Richard Nutt, was imprisoned for printing a libel
Another possible explanation for Dodsley's franking activity arises from a practice that would become, in short time, a prescription of the law of franking; namely, that Dodsley had been appointed by a privileged person to endorse letters on the latter's behalf. One prescription of the Act of 1763 allowed ministers to appoint others to frank their letters, on the condition that the names of such proxies be registered with the Postmaster-General. Those sending letters were to sign their names on the outside and themselves write the address.[30] Although this extension of the privilege does not officially become law until eleven years after Dodsley's initial frank, it is quite possible that the practice had originated much earlier than the date of legal sanction, that the law merely codified what had been the accepted custom for some time. It is unlikely that such a prescription would have been enacted if there had not been some such pressure to legitimize it.
If such had been the case, Dodsley would certainly have been in line for such an appointment, for he had some close friends in the Ministry during these years, friends who would have been agreeable to such an arrangement. A likely benefactor in this case would have been his friend George Lord Lyttleton, significantly both a Lord of the Treasury and Shenstone's neighbor at Hagley. Moreover, as Lyttelton's bookseller, Dodsley had already put two of Lyttleton's works through several editions.[31] No doubt the author would have been sympathetic to Dodsley's postal expenses during years when he carried on an extensive correspondence with Shenstone regarding the preparation of Volume 4 of his Collection of Poems (1755). In fact, Lyttelton might have served as one of the bookseller's advisors on the publication. Also significant, as mentioned earlier, it was the Treasury that controlled the operation of the Post Office, appointing the Postmaster General, setting its rates, and generally determining its policy. Dodsley could not have wanted a friend in a more appropriate place.
Even these fortuitous links, however, and the potential extension of the franking privilege they suggest do not fully correspond with the peculiar circumstances of Dodsley's franking activity. During the period in question (September, 1753 to July, 1755), Dodsley's extant letters (38 pieces, in toto) show no other instances of franking than when writing to Shenstone.[32] Did
IV
Important for the history of franking during the eighteenth century is the single impression emerging from the foregoing evidence; namely, that notable, law-abiding citizens, despite the illegality, could openly and regularly use franks for private purposes and be supported in the practice by those who were officially accorded the privilege. Such common and casual usage suggests that the practice was universally accepted, even expected. In several instances, it appears that franks were passed about openly, much like modern grocer coupons. Certainly the writers of these letters do not seem to imagine themselves guilty of anything untoward, for none of their allusions to the acquisition or use of franks hints of conscious covert or fraudulent behavior. The origin of the franks was readily acknowledged, the letters were posted in the usual manner, and those to Dodsley sent directly to his shop, not to some intermediate place to cover the trail. Significantly, all of the correspondents were respectable and respected gentlemen: four of them were clergymen, one a professor, and one a future bishop of London. Dodsley himself enjoyed an enviable reputation as a major London bookseller.
By extension, it seems reasonable to assume that the liberal use of franks by this coterie of literary personalities was reflected in the practice of society as a whole. Surely other booksellers and their authors indulged in the practice. In fact, one cannot imagine Dodsley's having skirted the law unless he had felt supported by the custom of common usage. Likewise there is no reason to limit the observation to relations between booksellers and their authors. Surely the world of politics, for instance, with its vested interest in outlying constituencies, swelled the ranks of likely users. The full story, however, remains to be told. Study of other collections of extant holograph letters from the period would doubtless afford additional evidence. The interpretation of the evidence, however, will probably depend on conquering the uncatalogued resources of the British Post Office archives.
Notes
The British Post Office. A History (1948), pp. 117-118. For Johnson, for instance, see his letter to Mrs. Thrale on 7 November 1779 in the Hyde Edition of The Letters of Samuel Johnson, ed. Bruce Redford (1992-94), III, 210. Her husband, Henry Thrale (1728?-81), was M.P. for Southwark at the time. For Montagu, see his letter to Walpole on 17 November 1761, in Horace Walpole's Correspondence with George Montagu, ed. W. S. Lewis and A. Dayle Wallace (1941) I, 402; for Cole, see his letter to Walpole on 11 February 1764 in Horace Walpole's Correspondence with the Rev. William Cole, ed. W. S. Lewis and A. Dayle Wallace (1937), I, 59. For some of the following general notions on the history of franking, I rely on (besides Robinson) George Brumel, A Short Account of the Franking System in the Post Office: 1652-1840 (Bournemouth: Bournemouth Guardian, Ltd., 1936); Kenneth Ellis, The Post Office in the Eighteenth Century (1958); and J. C. Hemmeon, The History of the British Post Office (1912).
Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1651-1652, ed. Mary Anne Everett Green (1877), p. 507.
As Ellis notes (pp. 39-40), despite the Treasury's setting policy for the Post Office, its attitude toward franking had always differed from that of the Post Office: whereas the Treasury was always anxious to protect the privilege, the Post Office regularly sought to curtail it.
Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Misc. d. 174, ff. 27-29; 45-46. Printed in The Correspondence of Robert Dodsley, 1733-1764, ed. James E. Tierney (1989), pp. 110-111, 129-130. All subsequent references to this edition will be indicated simply by Correspondence.
Simon Gratz Collection, Case 11, Box 6, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Correspondence, pp. 121-122.
Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Misc. d. 174, ff. 19-[21]; 23-25. Correspondence, pp. 105-106; 109-110.
Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Robert Dodsley/Recipient 1/Bound, ff. 13-16. Correspondence, pp. 315-316.
Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Robert Dodsley/Recipient 1/Bound, ff. 33-36. Correspondence, pp. 348-350.
Somerset County Record Office, DD/SK, 28/1, 7; 15; 79. Correspondence, pp. 293-294, 474-475, 482.
Correspondence, p. 280; Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Robert Dodsley/Recipient 1/Bound, ff. 25-28 (Correspondence, pp. 339-341); British Library, Add. MS. 35,339, ff. 23-24 (Correspondence, pp. 361-362).
Lyttelton's Discourse on Providence (1747) passed through three editions within its first year; his Observations on the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul had reached a fifth edition by 1754.
On 26 August 1751, John Gilbert Cooper wrote to Dodsley: "I recd about three days ago a letter from an unknown hand, which was directed & frank'd by you . . ." (Bodleian Ms. Eng Misc, d. 174, f. 61; Correspondence, p. 140). It is not absolutely clear whether Cooper means that Dodsley personally franked the letter or whether he is saying that the bookseller procured a frank to cover the postage. Since the Dodsley letter to which Cooper refers is missing, first-hand evidence is lacking. Given the isolated circumstances of the "frank"— two years before Dodsley's franks begin to appear, and addressed to someone other than Shenstone—it is impossible to conclude whether or not Dodsley's franking actually dates from 1751.
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