Mailrunning

Transatlantic mail from England during the eighteenth century was carried by way of a small seaport in Cornwall. The Post Office contracted with packet boat captains, who provided ship and crew, and along with the mail they carried news and military dispatches. The packets sailed armed, under orders to fight to the last to defend the mail. This book focuses on three packet captains across three generations, who spent most of their working lives on the Falmouth packet service. They lived and raised their families in a small coastal town, but between them they knew the harbours, streets and coffee houses of cities on several continents, and they navigated oceans. Among their passengers were plantation owners, government officials, sometimes spies. They sailed through the wars with the French and colonial downfall in America. All three captains served time in foreign prisons after capture by enemy vessels. In government papers, in letters and in newspapers, on both sides of the Atlantic, their part in larger events was recorded. That trail is followed here.