[45] _Mass. Historical Collections_, 3d Series, Vol. VII., pp. 55-60.
[46] The successor of Duncan and famous as the publisher of the _News Letter_.
[47] _Mass. Historical Collections_, 3d Series, Vol. VII., pp. 60, 69.
Campbell's memorandum of 1703 (July 19) is interesting as showing the cost of maintaining the office between Philadelphia and Piscataqua. The annual outlay was £680, and the receipts little more than £400, leaving a deficit of £275.
The Campbells had other grievances.[48] In a petition to the governor, the council and the assembly, soon after the act of 1693, Duncan begged that a fine be imposed for failure to deliver letters from ships to the postmaster. In 1694 the request was repeated, and in answer to this petition a bill was presented ordering all persons not bringing letters which ought to be delivered into the post office, to pay four times as much as was due on the letters, damages to be made good to the party injured. The house voted in the affirmative May 8, 1694/5, but the council seems to have taken no action in the matter. In 1696 (May 27) Campbell sent a similar petition, asking also that the rates on foreign letters might be advanced from two to three pence, and the payment to masters of ships from an half penny to 1d., "which," he adds, "will be a great encouragement to masters not to deliver news to other persons."
[48] _Mass. Historical Collections_, 3d Series, Vol. VII., pp. 56-60.
In 1703, John Campbell offered a memorial to the general court, complaining "that every body carrying of letters to and from towns where post offices are settled, is a very great hindrance and discouragement to said office," letters from Connecticut colony being carried to Piscataqua, and after lying in the office there some weeks and months, at last come to Boston, the office being blamed for the delay without a cause, and that one-half the letters from Europe and West Indies and other places by sea, were not brought to the office at all. The ferrymen also came in for their share of blame, as being very backward in carrying those employed in the post office, sometimes even demanding money for ferriage. The petition was granted (July 22, 1703), and £20 for the year past and £40 for the one ensuing allowed to Campbell. Again in 1706 (April 12 and October 30) £50 was granted to him. In 1709 (November 18) he wrote to the Governor that six months after his appointment by Hamilton in 1701, he had represented to the General Assembly that he could not serve, since the salary was so small, and two members of the upper house had then suggested a salary of £40, which, reduced by the vote of the lower house to £20, had been paid until within three years. He recalled the fact that the post office saved the country above £150 per annum, which it would be obliged to pay for express, if there were no office. The public letters, passed free, had cost more than the postmaster's allowance, besides the charge of sending the governor's letters weekly to Roxbury "in times of snow or rain." The queen, unwilling to augment the charge of the office to what it was in Hamilton's time, was then at above £200 sterling charges yearly, to support it between New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, and if the several offices had half salary allowed them, it would cost her majesty £100 sterling more. Accordingly he thought it but just that public letters for the time past should be paid for, the postmaster recompensed for sending the governor's letters to Roxbury, and some provision made for conveying them in the future. Otherwise, he would be obliged to represent the case to the postmaster-general of Great Britain, which he had foreborne to do, hoping that the general court would prevent it.