[The preceding pages were reprinted from the Publications of the Rhode Island Historical Society, January, 1894. Subsequently there was received from the Public Record Office in London, by the kindness of Hubert Hall, Esq., F.S.A., a copy of the patent to Thomas Neale, mentioned on page 8, preceding. The document is of fundamental importance to the history of the colonial post office. It instituted, for the first time, a royal intercolonial post, an American post office; and the American post office was the first of American executive departments, the first continental institution, and contributed, in its way, toward the unification of America. The patent is therefore given in full below. It is believed that it has never before been printed. It is designated, “Patent Roll (Chancery) 4 William and Mary, Part I, No. 3.” Its date proves to be February 17, 1691/2, not February 7. The patent to Thomas Neale was a piece of court favor. A few facts respecting the man himself may be of interest. Thomas Neale was an amusing person. All that the editor has been able to discover respecting him shows, with the utmost consistency, the confirmed office-holder, the determined and adventurous speculator, quick to seize any opportunity for personal profit. In the first place, as to his marriage. Pepys, January 1, 1663/4, mentions that there was much talk at the coffee-house about a very rich widow, said to be worth £80,000, and young and handsome. Her husband, Sir Nicholas Gold, a merchant, had not been dead a week yet, and already great courtiers were looking after her. She was the daughter of Sir John Garrard (Burke, Extinct and Dormant Baronetage, 214). June 20, 1664, Pepys tells a remarkable story of the bold manner in which Neale had won this prize, Lady Gold and he having been married in spite of her brother’s opposition. By 1684 Neale had become installed in the palace, in the doubtless lucrative office of groom porter (_London Gazette_, July 28, 1684; Malcolm, “Anecdotes of London down to 1700,” i. 378, iii. 50). The duties of this office are described by Pepys under date of January 1, 1667/8. “They were,” says Macaulay (iv. 391), “to call the odds when the Court played at hazard, to provide cards and dice, and to decide any dispute which might arise on the bowling-green or at the gaming table.” Neale organized lotteries after the Venetian manner, and in 1694 built extensively, for speculative purposes, about the Seven Dials (Evelyn’s Diary, Nov. 14, 1693; Oct. 5, Nov. 22, 1694). In that same year he was employed by the government to conduct the lottery loan for the State, though some, says Macaulay, thought the treasury lowered itself thereby. But, after all, he was more of a personage than would, perhaps, be gathered from Macaulay’s description. If he was not identical with the Thomas Neale who represented Petersfield in the Parliament of 1661-78 (Parl. Hist., iv. 198), he was certainly member for Ludgershall in all the subsequent