Page 35 - Fenning_Scoland
P. 35
Rates set during the Commonwealth Period
1657 - Edinburgh to London 1s 4d Multiple Rate
Oliver Cromwell's rt September 1654 Ordinance laid down the rates for single,
double and larger letters and packets of letters to Scotland in multiples of 4d .
.
21st May 1657. This letter, from Edinburgh to London, amving
six days later, was charged at the quadruple rate of 1 s 4d for a
four sheet letter, as laid down in the 1654 Ordinance:
"To and from Scotland, if a single letter, four pence, if a double
letter, eight pence and so proportionably'.
The letter is endorsed 1 N 4'
1
The letter contained an enclosure and the writer states "I doe
heer returne the enclosed". The quadruple rate may have been
due to several enclosures or this letter being the topmost letter
in a packet of letter addressed to Francis Kinloch from
Edinburgh.
Provenance: Michael Jackson's 'Early Letters' exhibit
