TIIE NEW POSTAGE PLAN.
THE best service which the friends of Post-office Reform can now render, is to aid in making the new plan complete, convenient, and economical in its actual operation. The grand principles of cheap- ness and uniformity being established, it is only for matters of
executive detail that we have now to care ; and an earnest desire De Queroël, is probably the most distinguished man of his race. Be j to obtain the full benefit at the earliest possible period, and to re- an active country Magistrate—supposed to be well acquainted with move defects—not a carping or unthankful spirit—suggests our
present remarks. The public have a right to complain of the delay in furnishing both Whigs and Tories are disposed to bid high for him. The Aubigny stamped envelopes. According to the Standard, it is attributable the subject ofthis article, is one of the Whig bids.
Aubigny was originally a simple fief of the Crown of France; but in to a blunder of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who ordered the 1684, eleven years after the grant to the Dutchess of Portsmouth, it stamps to be prepared by a department whose machinery was unfit was erected by Louis the Fourteenth into a Achille/irk, conferring for the work ; but the Globe declares that " there is not one word upon its owner the title of a French Duke ; and hence the old title of of truth in the story from beginning to end." 'Whatever the real the Lennox family of Dukes of Aubigny in France. It is remarkable, cause of the delay, it is certain that no sufficient reason has been however, that the peerage was not in reality enjoyed until seventy. assigned for the inability of the Post-office to bring the entire three years later ; the Parliament of Paris having, down to the year scheme into operation. The change to be effected is not from a 1777, refused to register the letters-patent on account of the Duke's religion : ultimately the registration was effected through a sort of simple to a complicated plan, but the reverse—a saving of trouble, pretended naturalization of the then Duke of Richmond in France. and the removal of a multiplicity of petty annoyances to the Post-
Aubigny is situated in the province of Berri, and in the department of office people and the public. As nobody can imagioe any great
Cher. The land is poor, but well-wooded, and the annual rental is difficulty in procuring the dies and stamped envelors, a general about 2,000/. a year ; the whole value of the property being about thirty impression prevails that there must be some secret hitch, or some years' purchase of this : but the Duke of Richmond, in virtue of a official neglect. clause in the treaty of 1814, providing mutual indemnity to private The promulgation of four different schemes of stamping is un- parties on both sides for losses sustained by public acts during the war, fortunate, as suggesting the idea that the parties to whom the has received from the French Government a stun of 400,000 francs, or introduction of the new scheme has been confided have little re- about 16,000/. ; so that the whole property at present under litigation Dance on their own judgment. Now we have not the least doubt in the French Courts amounts to about 76,000/., not reckoning nearly that the public generally would be satisfied with any plan which twenty-five years' rental of the estate appropriated by the Duke. Colonel MABERLY and Mr. RowiAen Him., acting now in concert, The following are the incidents of a political or civil character to pronounced the best. It is reasonable to suppose them qualified which the estate has been liable, since it was first granted to the to select the best ; and the Lords of the T must ust have and even when in the hands of the first Duke of Richmond, it was se. acted on their report. That the four plans possess equal merits, questered by the very granter, Louis the Fourteenth. During the and that the choice of any one or the use of' all are matters of in- Seven Years and the American War no sequestration of the Aubigny di-ffirence— that Mr. lime, far instance, has not a pretimence for estate appears to have taken place ; but in the war which preceded the one over the other—is incredible. Then, why not fix upon one ? peace of Amiens it was sequestered ; and once more in 1806, by Na- b is not yet too late to make the decision. Depend upon it, the poleon, through his Berlin Decrees. At each return of peace it was working of the scheme will be greatly theilitated by the adoption restored to the Lennox family; which is named, however, only in the of one description of envelopes or stamps. treaties of Utrecht and of Paris in 1814 Enid 181,--in the first of these, To make the plan palatable in the Metropolis, the single rate in conjunction with the families of Hamilton, Douglas, " and others," should carry more than the half-ounce weight within the limits of and in the last alone, the other families having alienated their French what was the twopenny and threepenny delivery. Out of London properties. it is of less consequence, but in the Metropolis, and especially to n literary, men, who have been used to fOr ma m
ward manuscripts, paphlets, dify, restrain, or even revoke a grant of the Crown." This is a trans. arid proof-sheets under cover, the new mode of charging is a per-
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