In a well-written article in the Washington, D. C., _Evening Star_, of July 26, 1913, upon the occasion of the celebration of the one hundred and thirty-eighth year of the American postal service, the activities or self-assumed powers of the English or crown postmasters and its effect in encouraging the independent sentiment of the time was stated as follows: “These crown postmasters had, or at least they exercised, the right of ‘spying’ upon the mails intrusted to their care. This made it difficult and dangerous for the liberty-loving colonists to communicate with each other. The zealous representatives of England also professed to exercise a supervising care over the newspapers which were printed in the colonies, and made arbitrary rules and regulations against those who were too liberal or outspoken in their expressions of condemnation of things as they then were and who dared to urge the liberty and independence of the colonists. Some papers were shut out of the mails and some were forced to tone down their utterances. A pound sterling was demanded to carry 250 papers, 130 miles. “The post office led in the unification of the colonists. Paul Revere was the confidential post rider of Massachusetts. The tea party in Boston Harbor would have been but a neighborhood affair but for the agency of the post office and the patriotic publishers who spread the news up and down the Atlantic coast. “The postal service did more than any one other agency to unify and unite the colonists. It brought their interests and endeavors to a common meeting point. It brought the leading men and women to know and exchange ideas one with another. Printing presses were established about the same time that the postal service was begun in America. Postmasters enjoyed the privilege of sending their mail free of postage, so most postmasters became publishers. In this way the news of the doings of the various jealous colonists was disseminated and the opinions of these early postmaster-publishers were given wide circulation. It added an incentive to trade and intercourse. By making the colonists acquainted it dissipated jealousies. The growth of the post office from the humble beginning of a sturdy carrier from New York to Boston loaded with ‘divers letters and small portable packages’ (you see they had parcel post even in those days), solidified the colonists and made their independence possible.” Post Offices and Post Roads Established