General Post Office, March 4th 1772.
To the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations.
We have received Mr Pownall's letter of the 19th instant with the Copy of an Act passed in North Carolina in February 1771, to encourage and support the Establishment of a Post Office in that Province and beg leave to observe to your Lordships thereupon that by a Clause in the Post Office Act of the 9th of Queen Anne the Riders with His Majesty's Mailes are to pass the Ferries in North America without any expence to this Revenue and the Ferrymen are liable to a Penalty of £5. if they do not within one half hour after Demand convey them over. We nevertheless think ourselves obliged to the Assembly for their Attention to the support and encouragement of Correspondence in that Province and have no doubt the Reward they propose to be given to the Ferrymen by the first and second Clauses in the Act may have a very good effect in
expediting the Mails but we apprehend the third enacting Clause requiring the Deputy Postmasters to pay a shilling per mile in certain cases cannot be approved; if the Assembly had indeed thought proper to make any allowance for forwarding the Mails on extraordinary Occasions to be paid by their own Treasurer we could have had no objection.We therefore submit to your Lordships whether it would be proper in a case so circumstanced to advise his Majesty to give his consent to that Act though we hope the Assembly will agree to another without introducing the third Clause as it now stands.
Additional Notes for Electronic Version: Henry Frederick Thynne later changed his last name to Carteret when he succeeded his uncle as Earl Granville.