The Opened Letter - Lindsay O'Neill The Early Modern Americas

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of December, six months after Byrd wrote it, he responded, declaring, “Nothing could give one greater pleasure than to hear from an Old friend of theirty years standing.”104 However delighted he was with the letter, it is likely that Perceval allowed Byrd’s letter to sit a while before answering it. In the next set of letters they exchanged, he waited two months after receiving Byrd’s letter to respond.105 This rarely bothered Byrd since he usually expected only one letter a year from English correspondents. Those in the colonies delayed responding immediately as well. When Perceval’s friend George Berkeley was living in Rhode Island he allowed Perceval’s letter to sit three weeks before responding.106 Unlike Perceval’s letter from Newman, that from Taylor, or even that expected from Dering, these colonial letters did not require an instant response. Their purpose was to nurture a social connection and Byrd’s letter did not ask Perceval to do anything but write in return when it suited him and in this he obliged.

      Byrd made sure that Perceval knew how to send a response. He told Perceval to address his answer to his factor, Mr. Perry, in Leadenhall Street.107 As Perceval was living in Charlton downriver from the city he probably sent his response via the Penny Post to Mr. Perry who then forwarded it by a ship to Virginia. If Perceval was in town he could have also left it in a coffeehouse where ships’ captains often stopped to pick up letters.108 Correspondents living in England often needed guidance in the ways of colonial correspondence. That is why both Byrd and Berkeley gave Perceval directions. An address on a letter bound for the colonies might have been simpler and less specific, but knowing what merchants or officials to turn to and when to send a letter mattered more. One London correspondent hurriedly wrote a letter to a friend in Kent, who had a daughter in the colonies, telling him that ships bound for South Carolina were leaving in less than three weeks and he should forward his letters quickly.109 Other writers gave such notices for destinations further afield. A correspondent in Dublin reminded another that January was “the time of year for writing letters to India” and that he should forward him any he wished to send.110 Just as using the postal system within the British Isles and from the Continent required a deep knowledge of its functioning, sending letters to the colonies required a complex understanding of the workings of Atlantic or Indian Ocean shipping. The forms of knowledge were different: users of the British post required an understanding of the institutional system, while those who sent letters further needed to understand a less centralized system, but both needed to use personal networks and knowledge to get their letters delivered.

      These epistolary exchanges between different locations reveal the complex nature of communication by letter. Within London the system worked relatively smoothly. Letters might be delayed and a few might miscarry, but with the employees of the Penny Post ferrying them from the office to recipients communication was usually successful and usually completed within the fold of the postal system. The central importance of the postal system decreased and creative postal solutions increased the further from London a writer lived. When in Bath, Perceval continued to have his letters sent to London to be forwarded by his cousin who watched over his London concerns. His cousin might have forwarded them by the post or he could also have used a messenger, but he had the option to do either. Still Perceval knew he could not simply expect his letters to find him without providing them with an easier path. Similarly, he sent many of his Irish letters to his estate agent to distribute.111 Since he kept up a constant correspondence with his agent Perceval knew his employee would watch for letters in a way others might not. By sending letters for others through his agent he guarded against such letters lying forgotten at the Post Office. This strategic use of the post colored his continental correspondence as well. He knew it was safer to have Taylor send his letters to Dering in London, rather than directly to him when he was traveling. Postal routes were only useful where they were well established and when postally savvy individuals lived on the other end. The expansion of the post created a reliable channel for postal exchange, but it frayed around the edges. This was true for correspondence beyond the British Isles as well, except that the channels were more informal. Letter writers with Atlantic correspondents knew merchant networks and used them as those in Britain used the post. Once, when Perceval’s correspondent in Rhode Island wished to send letters to England, he enclosed them to Perceval, who then distributed them.112 Sadly one of the correspondents had died, but Perceval forwarded the other one to Durham.113 The growth of the postal service and the expansion of shipping helped deepen these dependable channels of communication, but beyond these routes personal networks mattered more.

      Careful Hands

      When John Perceval’s Rhode Island correspondent forwarded him the letters previously mentioned he entreated him to “send [them] by a carefull hand.”114 The careful hand turned out to be that of Perceval’s only brother, Philip. Careful hands or personal bearers made the epistolary world turn: they helped the official postal system function and they increased the social meaning of a letter. To a society used to face-to-face interaction the option of a bearer was attractive. Most letter writers preferred to wait on a correspondent in person rather than to do so by letter. John Perceval’s cousin apologized for a late epistolary response, but explained that he had delayed writing for he “was in hopes to have waited on you in person.”115 Sending a letter by a bearer spoke to this preference. Before the expansion of the Post Office, Britons had usually depended on bearers to deliver their letters.116 When the Paston family sent letters in the fifteenth century they sent them by family members, trusted servants, neighbors, or hired men.117 But the use of bearers was not just a legacy from a previous age that became irrelevant as the Post Office flourished.118 John Eliot, a London merchant, continued to use bearers late into the eighteenth century.119 He and other writers turned to bearers because they were easier to send a letter by, they deepened the emotional worth of the letter, and they allowed for more immediate forms of interaction. Personal postal intermediaries were an integral component of the postal process.

      Many writers were seemingly unable to pass up a convenient bearer. As late as 1765 John Eliot could not resist taking, as he put it, “the opportunity” proffered by a traveling acquaintance to send a letter to his estate agent in Cornwall.120 But it was Peter Collinson who, according to his letters, could not let a convenient opportunity pass. In 1739 it was his friend Dr. Filenius who gave him “so convenient an opportunity,” in 1741 it was Mr. Biork, and in 1754 it was Mr. Smith.121 All these hands were convenient because they were carrying letters to correspondents off the major postal routes of the world. Filenius and Biork carried their letters to Karl Linnaeus in Sweden and Mr. Smith to a friend in Connecticut. Like sending a letter across the Atlantic, the opportunity to send a letter to Sweden, as one correspondent stated, “don’t occur often.”122 In many ways, these convenient bearers were merely that, easy means for getting a letter from one point to another where the postal system failed.

      As they surface in Collinson’s letters these bearers appear to be the product of kismet. To an extent this was probably true, but letter writers and letter bearers also created these convenient opportunities because they strengthened the web of social connection that bound them all. William Byrd II asked his friend to call on an acquaintance to see if he had a letter for him because he “is such a Philosopher that he needs a Moniter to put him in mind of his Friends.”123 By sending a prospective bearer Byrd reactivated a correspondence that had seemed to stall. Traveling friends often acted as informal postmasters and collected letters before their departures. They would come to take their leave and gather letters for brothers, sisters, and friends.124 Here the increased mobility of the British elite helped since they had more opportunities to deliver letters. Collecting letters demonstrated a polite concern for the postal needs of a friend or acquaintance. It offered their letter a safe conveyance, saved them a trip to the Post Office, and made their letters free of charge. When the writer could not depend on the postal system a bearer who came for a letter was doubly appreciated. William Byrd II waxed poetic about the bearer of his letter to Mrs. Pitt in Bermuda who was “so very kind as to call for it, which few of his Countrymen can be perswaded to do.”125 Sending a letter by a bearer was convenient, but it was also a valued service.

      Bearers fell into three categories: servants, individuals already known to the receiver, and those wishing to be known to the receiver. Servants

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