Internal Post Office regulations. Vouchers. Dead, missent or overcharged letters. Oath

Instructions Relating to the Bye-Letters.

WHEN the Mails are to be dispatched from your Offices, you are always to stamp, carefully tax, and tell over the Letters; then enter, in your Post-bills to the several Offices you correspond with, the exact Number and Value both of the paid and unpaid Letter sent, tie them up together with the Bill, put them closely in the Bag, and seal it with a fair Impression of your Office-seal.

You are constantly to send Post-bills to the several Offices, if even you have no Letters to accompany them.

For the Bye-letters you are to keep Accounts, called Vouchers, according to the Form herewith given you - Enter from your Post-bills, in the proper Columns on the sent Side of the Voucher, the Number and Value of the unpaid Letters which you send to the respective Offices, and the Number only of the paid Letters; reckoning both the unpaid and the paid Letters, at 1d. 2d. or 4d. according to the Distance of the Stage to which you send them.

On the arrival of the Mails, you are carefully to tell over the Letters received, to see whether they agree in Number and Value with the Entries in the Post bills sent with them; which Bills you are to preserve, that recourse may be had to them in case of a Difference between your Accounts and those of the Deputies you correspond with.

If any Deputy should neglect to send you a Post-bill, whether there be Letters from his Stage or not write to him by the next Post to send you the Bill wanting.

You are to enter in the proper Columns, on the Received Side of the Voucher, the Number and Value of the unpaid Letters which you receive from the several Offices, according as the Deputies have entered them in their Post-bills, though the Deputies should have omitted to enter them in their Bills. The short Letters (that is, such as come from, or are directed to Places short of the next Office to yours) you are to Account for entering the Value of them in the Column for that Purpose on the Received Side of the Voucher.

If any of the Deputies should neglect to charge you with Letters which ought to have been charged upon your Office, you are to account for the Postage of such Letters, entering the Sum of them every Post, as an undercharge on yourself, in the Column for that Purpose, on the Received Side of the Voucher. - If the Deputies should charge you with more Letters than ought to have been charged upon your Office, claim Credit for them of William Fortescue, Esq; Surveyor and Comptroller of the Bye and Cross Road Letter-office at Dublin, in the Account of missent and overcharged Letters hereunto annexed.

A Voucher is to contain the Account of Bye-letters for a full Calendar Month, excepting that at Lady-day, Midsummer, Michaelmas, and Christmas, it must end with the old Quarter-days, viz. 5th April, 5th July, 10th October, and 5th January, all inclusive; and the remaining Post-days of the Month are to be carried to the next Voucher.

At the End of the Month, sum up all the Articles for unpaid, undercharged, and short Letters on the Received Side of the Voucher; transfer the Totals to a Column for that Purpose on the same Side; then add, in. one Article, all the paid Letters entered on the sent Side; and lastly, sum up the whole. -The Voucher thus finished must be sent to Mr. Fortescue, at the General Post-Office, Dublin, by the very first Post after the Expiration of every month.

The Bye-dead-letters together with this Abstract must be inclosed to Mr. Fortescue, and no one else, at the End of every 10 October, 5 January, 5 April, and 5 July, and you will have Allowance for the whole, otherwise not. On each Letter you are to write the Reason why it was not delivered, and none of them must be opened.

With the Dead-letters, you are likewise to send the Covers of the Bye-letters which have been charged to Members of Parliament, and of those which have been overcharged to other Persons, always marking upon each of them how much the Overcharge was. - If the Covers cannot be had, a Receipt under the Hand of the Person overcharged will be allowed; but in these Receipts, besides the Date and the Sum overcharged, the Place from whence the Letters came must be mentioned; otherwise it cannot be known whether the Overcharge belongs to the Dublin, or the Bye-letters.

The missent Bye-letters that have been charged to you, you are constantly to forward as directed, by the very first Post after you receive them, always charging them upon the Deputies to whom you send them, among the Letters from your own Stage.

For missent and overcharged Bye-letters, for Overcharges on Bye-post-bills, and all other Allowance whatsoever on the Bye-letters, you are to enter in the annexed Account, in the following Manner: Enter the Amount, Overcharges, Missents, &c. according as they happen, always putting the Date in the Margin, and mentioning to whom the Allowances entered were made, what Post-bills were overcharged, from what Offices the missent Letters came, and to what Offices they were forwarded. Carry on the Account from the Beginning to the End of every Quarter; add to it in one Article the Sum of the Dead-letters, overcharged Covers and Receipts; and take an Oath to the Truth of the whole before a Magistrate or Justice of the Peace, according to the Form hereunto annexed.

As all Deputies have the same fixed Method of claiming Credit for Overcharges, you are upon no Account to give them Allowance for Bye-letters missent to their Offices, nor for any Overcharges whatsoever on such Letters. - Neither are you to demand Allowance of them for Bye-letters missent or overcharged to you.

You are never to employ any Post-Boy, or Rider, but such as have taken the Oath of Office.

JOHN ARMIT, Secretary.

Form of the Oath to be sworn Quarterly, and annexed to the Account of missent
Bye-letters, Overcharges, and other Allowances on such Letters.

I deputy Post-master ofand Isworn Assistant to the said Deputy, do respectively swear, that neither We, nor any other Person for Us, or either of Us, have received any Money, or any other Consideration whatsoever for any Part of the Demand above-written; that We have given no allowances for Overcharges, but what to the best of our Knowledge and Belief ought to have been given; that in the monthly Vouchers sent to Mr. Fortescue, we have charged this Office with all the Letters that ought to have been charged upon it, though the other Deputies should have omitted to enter them in their Post-bills, and that the above Account is just and true in every Particular.

Sworn before me thisday of17