For many years after the conquest, postal communication with Spain was infrequent and irregular; nor was the system by which the mail service was conducted such as to secure secrecy or even safe delivery, At first all correspondence, including royal despatches, was ordered to be conveyed to its destination free of charge, and be punctually delivered; but during the last half of the sixteenth century a postal service was established by the crown, which being made salable to the highest bidder[1] was not only ill conducted, but opened a way to dishonesty and treachery. Correspondents whether political or commercial could seldom feel confident that their letters would reach their destination, or escape being tampered with by ecclesiastics or inimical secular authorities.[2] Nor did the Indian mail-carriers escape abuses, and from time to time laws were passed for the purpose of insuring to them payment for their hard services and relief from ill-treatment.[3] Even the natives trafficking on the mail routes suffered, their beasts of burden being taken from them and their cargoes cast down on the road side.[4]
During the seventeenth century the postal communication both internal and trans-oceanic was greatly increased, and in 1659 Viceroy Alburquerque
- ↑ The right to transmit mails was made 'vendible y renunciable' that is transferable by the purchaser of the contract to another. When the management of the service was assumed by the crown in 1765, the sum of $61,770 was paid to Antonio Mendez Prieto to extinguish his right. Galvez, Informe, Marqués de Sonora, 55.
- ↑ In 1592 a royal order was issued prohibiting ecclesiastics and secular persons from opening or detaining correspondence either official or private. Recop. de Ind., i. 655. From a cédula promulgated in 1662 it is known that letters were frequently opened and detained. Id., 656. Postmasters were ordered to give receipts for the correspondence intrusted to them by tribunals. Id., 659.
- ↑ Id., 660, 658.
- ↑ The contractor, called the correo mayor, failed to place post horses at the proper places, and those of the Indians were pressed into the service without their owners being remunerated: 'veianse obligados los indios á ir á pié tras el correo para volver con sus caballos, que les eran quitados por fuerza en los caminos tirándoles la carga que dejaban abandonada.' Rivera, Gob. de Mex., i. 231.
to Oajaca via Sarabia. The memorial was filed among the secret archives of Madrid, and an order was sent from the court to the memorialists forbidding them ever to refer to the subject again. Nouv. Annales, Voy., cliii. 8.
