Packet Service, Post-Office, its chronicles neglected, 2, 239, 303, 304; established at Falmouth, 3, 4; as the vehicle of foreign news, 6, 36, 37; number of seamen employed by, 8; minor Packet stations, 13, 14; reasons for the choice of Falmouth, 14–16; the contractors, 15, 16, 18; the Corunna Packets, 18; West India and other Packets established, 19; pensions and bounties awarded in, 20, 21; a fighting service, 21; lax administration in, 22 _et seq._; piracy as practised by the ships of, 22–28; malpractices of the controlling agents, 29–32; corruption at headquarters, 32; the beginning of the reforms, 35; armament and type of ships altered, 36–39; instructions to captains in time of war, 38, 51; superior officers and the absentee system, 57–60, 84, 121; the working of the new system, 60–62; the demands of the merchants for increased security of mails, 70, 71, 75; amount of annual deficit, 71; suspicious captures of Packets, 88–93; the private trading system, 93–95; scandals rumoured in connection with this, 96–98; result of inquiry into these, 99–104; partial prohibition of private trading, 104; the North Sea service during the great frost, 110–119; success of the firmer administration, 120, 121, 222, 223; seizure of its employés at Helvoetsluis, 149; how the Continental System was evaded, 155, 156, 160–163, 172, 264–266; the Berlin decrees as affecting, 157–159; reduced to impotence by Napoleon’s policy, 176, 177; mutiny at Falmouth, and its causes, 197 _et seq._; removed to Plymouth, 216; return to Falmouth, 220; taken over by the Admiralty, 303. Packets, Falmouth, their routes, 8, 19, 178; tonnage and type of, 15; reforms in the armament and type of, 36–39; captures of, by French ships, 52 _passim_; scheme for increasing their armaments, 71, 72; time spent in building, 84, 85; suspicious captures of, 88 et seq.; captures of, by American ships, 226, 232, 241, 251, 270, 300. Packets, North Sea, 13, 14; the arming of, 40; type and armament of, 108; ports of Holland closed against, 109; their stations at the outbreak of war, _ib._, 109; during the great frost of 1798, 110 _et seq._ Packets, West India, armaments reduced and type altered, 37, 38; number employed, 83; private trading on, 93–95; abuses in connection with this, 96–104; private trading prohibited on, 104. _See_ Packet Service _and_ Packets, Falmouth. Parker, John, 210, 213, 218, 219; letter to the attorney, 220, 221. Pasco, Boatswain, 47, 48, 49, 305. Pascoe, Richard, 210, 213, 218, 219; letter to the attorney, 220,221. Passengers, number of, carried by the Packets, 9; fares paid by, 10. Patterson, Captain, 132. Pender, Mr., 58. Pension fund established, 121. Petre, Captain James, 193, 194, 195. Phillimore, Captain, 271, 273.