Carteret Hill to The Right Honorable E. Hammond, June 22, 1866

Mr. Hill to Mr. Hammond

Sir: I am directed by the postmaster general to request that you will state to the Earl of Clarendon that the contract concluded on the 24th June, 1858, with Messrs. Cunard, Burns, and MacIver, for the North America and Bahamas mail packet service, can be terminated on the 1st January, 1868, provided twelve months’ notice be previously given to the contractors, and that it is the intention of her Majesty’s government to give such notice and to terminate the contract accordingly.

The postmaster general does not propose to enter into a new contract for the continuance of a mail service like that now existing between this country and North America, as he is of opinion that without any such contract the numerous steamships now plying afford the means of maintaining a rapid and frequent postal communication with the United States. In his lordship’s opinion, arrangements may advantageously be made with the owners of well-appointed ships, leaving this country on stated days weekly, for the conveyance of mails to New York, in consideration of a payment equal to the whole sea-postage if the voyage, be performed within a certain time, and equal to a smaller sum; according to a fixed scale, where that time is exceeded.

A similar course might be pursued by the United States post office with regard to the despatch of mails to this country, and it seems probable, looking at the great commercial intercourse between the two countries, that after a time under such a plan a daily mail might be established in each direction.

Under this arrangement all necessity for the post office of one country to send to that of the other instructions respecting the transmission of its mails, a necessity giving rise to much trouble, would be avoided. As respects the outward mails, each office would have the sole direction. Each office thus undertaking to provide the means for the despatch of the outward mails, the postmaster general would propose that the despatching office should retain all the postage charged on the international correspondence, and that the office to which the mails are sent should make no charge on the delivery of such correspondence.

To accomplish this object, however, and to effect other improvements in the postal intercourse of the two countries, it will be necessary to terminate the existing postal convention between the United Kingdom and the United States signed at London on the 15th December, 1848, and to conclude a new convention, and the lords commissioners of the treasury have authorized the postmaster general to adopt that course.

The 22d article of the existing convention provides that it may be annulled after the expiration of a year’s notice given by one government to the other, and I am directed by the postmaster general to request that the Earl of Clarendon will be good enough to intimate to the government of the United States that it is the desire of her Majesty’s government that the convention should cease to have effect on the 1st January, 1868, simultaneously with the termination of the Cunard contract.

If Lord Clarendon sees no objection, Lord Stanley of Alder by would propose, in accordance with what is now the general rule, that the negotiations for a new convention should be carried on directly between the post offices of the two countries, and that the convention should be concluded and signed by the heads of the respective offices.

By such a proceeding much trouble is saved, and facilities are given for modifications from time to time in the convention.

In a letter addressed to the Postmaster General of the United States, on the 29th May, 1862, Lord Stanley of Alder by pointed out that although prevented at that time by the great loss sustained by this department in the maintenance of the North America mail line of packets from acquiescing in the proposal to reduce the total charge on a single international letter conveyed between the two countries from one shilling, or twenty-four cents, to sixpence, or twelve cents, he trusted that when that service terminated it would be found practicable to achieve so desirable an object.

Relieved from the burden caused by the contract now about to expire, his lordship will readily agree, in entering into a new convention, to the proposed reduction of postage on international letters, and he will also readily agree to the establishment of low transit rates for letters passing through either country, whether the ordinary or enclosed mails.

I am, &c.,