danger of loss or interruption, he is obliged to send several convey ances of every important communication. A similar aggravation also presents itself in regard to lawpapers, and other important do cuments, which are at once voluminous, and therefore expensive for a single postage, and of which, for the reason already given, several copies must be sent, and therefore several heavy postages incurred.

I

But, beside these, there is another description of correspondence which yields in nothing in its claims on every well-wisher of the best interests of society, and on which the regulations make a serious attack. This is the correspondence between friends and families. need not suggest to your reflections, Sir, what is the value, in a private or a social view, of preserving, during absence, this species of intercourse. I need not point out to you, how often its interruption leads to cessation, and its cessation to the most serious effects on the fortunes, the fates, and the happiness of individuals. Still less, need I call upon you to remember, how often natural indolence, in a great many minds, renders such an intercourse, under the best encouragement, that is, amid the greatest facility, slow, unsteady, and difficult of continuance; and how little, in general, there is need of any artificial let to assist this neglect, subsidence, and obliteration of former attachments and affections. And how much will it not be assisted, by a cause which must so often be accepted as an apology, and so often operate as a serious motive, for an omission to write!

It appears, that the third part of the packet-rates authorized to be

taken on each sheet of a letter intended for India, is fixed at one shilling and two pence. Now, family letters are seldom comprized within less than two sheets and an envelope, and are thus taxed at nearly four shillings, previously to receiving the post-mark. If to this is added the ship-postage levied by the local governments in India, every letter is charged with a postage of five shillings, over and above the inland postage, both in India and in England, before it reaches the hand of the person to whom it is addressed. This tax increases with the size of the packet; and it must not be omitted to remark, that even restraint upon the size is a private and social evil, scarcely less than the total suppression of correspondence. How often are not those interests, to which I have before alluded, promoted by the very garrulity of familiar intercourse; by the practice of saying every thing which can be said, rather than the attempt to say the least that may answer the immediate purpose. In the resolution to save a sheet of paper, how many things may be omitted, dear to the heart, and of influence on our future lives!

In looking, as in few words I shall now do, to the political considerations which belong to the subject, these private interests will be seen to constitute not the least important among those of the public. The provocation to evade so severe a law, the facilities it in itself affords to smuggling, and the loss to the revenue from the necessary aiminution of the number of letters passing through the London PostOffice, are obvious mischiefs, attached to, and inseparable from the innovation:

But even these are