Page 38 - LP1478

The London Philatelist

Small Queen stamps on covers to other countries
Figure 7 illustrates a cover to Fort de France, on the French Caribbean island colony of Martinique,
sent in November 1874 (Aitken, Rumsey) and prepaid at 24 cents. Four 6c yellow-brown stamps,
(a pair of the perf. 11.5 x 12 variety and two singles), tied by oval grid cancels, make up the postage
charged. The St. Pierre origin datestamp to the left of the adhesives is indistinct. The black, broken,
Halifax cds (30 November 1874) was applied on the flap. Additionally the cover shows a circular
New York red exchange marking of 24 December, with 8c credit to Great Britain for carriage by the
St. Thomas to Martinique RMSPC steamship. The “18” (cents) in red crayon, indicated the credit
rating accrued to the United States.
The cover is addressed to a First Lieutenant on board the Admiral-class frigate Magicienne. The
letter perhaps contained an important military message. The Canadian rate via New York to Martinique
was 24c, with 6c to Canada (the 3c rate to the United States did not come into force until 1 February
1875) and 18c credit to the United States. In turn, the United States retained 10c, with 8c paid to Great
Britain for carriage from St. Thomas to Martinique.
Figure 8 shows an 1877 cover from St. Pierre addressed to Yokohama, Japan (Mueller). The St.
Pierre postmark is dated 19 November 1876. A pair of Canada 6c brown and a single 1c yellow,
making up a total of 13c, are tied by three strikes in black of a segmented cork cancel. In addition,
the red 2c mark represents an additional internal rate charged in Nova Scotia. The postmarks show
that the cover was carried from St. Pierre to Sydney by boat and through Nova Scotia to Halifax,
then by rail to Montreal.
Datestamps for Halifax (22 November 1876) as well as a Montreal (25 November 1876) transit
marking, are on the back of the cover. Additionally, ‘Paid All’ postmarks for Detroit (29 November
1876), San Francisco (January 1877), Yokohama (24 January 1877) and Tokyo N2B2, for the same
date, were applied on the back. The Yokohama KB2 arrival datestamp for 27 January 1877 was struck
on the flap, with the later strike of ‘YOKOHAMA ADVERTISED,’ dated ‘2. 4.1877’ (2 April or 4
Feb?). This was applied on letters advertised in newspapers (Mueller).
The sender of the Yokohama letter was Emile Flouest, a St. Pierre lawyer. The addressee, George
Bousquet, a scholar from France, was a legal adviser to the Japanese and helped translate the
Napoleonic civil code into Japanese to aid in the reform of the legal system. He authored a book
about his travels titled Japon de nous jours.

The advent of St. Pierre and Miquelon joining the UPU.
The General Postal Union, later called the Universal Postal Union (UPU), was established by
the 1874 Treaty of Berne, as the first collective convention governing international postal services.
The treaty standardised charges and guaranteed the free transit of mail among member countries.
France and the United States joined the Union on 1 July 1875, Japan joined on 1 June 1877, while
Canada was accepted as a member on 1 July 1878, with the provisions of the treaty and lower
international rates coming into force on 1 October 1878.
James Bendon (p169) states, ‘UPU member additional to France as ‘French Colonies’ from 1
July 1876. Officially, this date applies to all colonial territories then existing or formed subsequently.’
For practical purposes, however, St. Pierre mail sent via Canada between 1 July 1876 and 1 October
1878, still required the use of Canadian postage stamps. From my research, St. Pierre outward-
bound mail (Bendon, p169) appears to have been treated as an exception to the rules applying to
St. Pierre’s UPU membership on 1 July 1876. As almost all of the mail from St. Pierre transited
Canada, the ‘practical UPU membership’ date for the application of the convention’s terms to St.
Pierre, is closer to 1 October 1878

Filling the 25-month gap in full UPU membership.
The gap between 1 July 1876 and 1 October 1878, presents a problem for the status of mail sent
from St. Pierre and Miquelon to other countries. I have been diligently trying to trace any St. Pierre

129 – 350 September 2020