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WEST INDIES MARITIME MAIL. PRE-1842

Two covers sent free to Jamaica. Abuse of the system was normal within the U.K.; but
examples going abroad are unusual. The 1820 act said, “Foreign and Ship Letters are excluded
from the Privilege”. However, it could be applied to the inland portion of the journey. But in both
these cases at the port of departure there was no charge and no indication as to whether they
were sent as ship letters or by the packet. This may have influenced the treatment the letters
received in Jamaica, where there was no incoming ship letter charge and no inland charge, which
there should have been. The alternative that they were smuggled does not stand up to examination as
the use of the free frank in the U.K. meant that the letter was put into the care of the Post Office.
The first was written by Mrs Murray in London to her husband in Garland Grove in St James’s,
on 2nd December 1824. Unfortunately, I cannot decipher the signature of the authority in the bottom left
hand comer, who also addressed the envelope, but clearly it is a different hand to that of Mrs Murray.
The second consists of a very early envelope from Dublin with no contents, sent to the Receiver
General in Kingston, on 4th September 1836. It was marked “Private” and although the signature cannot
be identified it is not that of an elected representative, so on both grounds it was an abuse of the system,
even within the U.K.