Until 1639 there is no trace of a postal system, but under the _Massachusetts General Court Records_, of that year[4] (Nov. 5th), is the following entry: “For preventing the miscarriage of letters, ... It is ordered that notice bee given, that Richard Fairbanks, his house in Boston, is the place appointed for all letters, which are brought from beyond the Seas, or are to be sent thither; ... are to be brought unto him and he is to take care, that they bee delivered, or sent according to their directions and hee is alowed for every such letter 1d. and must answer all miscarriages through his owne neglect in this kind; provided that no man shall bee compelled to bring his letters thither except hee please.” [4] _Mass. Colonial Records_, I., p. 281. _Mass. Historical Collections_, 3d Series, Vol. VII., p. 48. This action on the part of the Massachusetts General Court was, as far as can be discovered, the first effort by the colonies to provide a post office. Eighteen years later, June 12, 1657, an ordinance was passed[5] by the director general and council of the New Netherlands, forbidding the boarding of incoming vessels until visited by the governing officer and the letters delivered, the penalty for evading the law being fixed at thirty guilders.[6] [5] Laws and Ordinances of New Netherlands. [6] Laws and Ordinances of New Netherlands, pp. 379, 380. Since private shippers were in the habit of taking letters from the New Netherlands and Curaçoa, without placing them in a sealed bag, the directors of the West India Company, at the chamber in Amsterdam, in 1659 (October 30) adopted a resolution requiring captains of vessels to enter into bond not to carry letters to Holland from New Netherlands or Curaçoa, unless received from persons authorized to collect them, under penalty of one hundred Carolus guilders; and on the second of the following June (1660) the director general and council of the colony passed an ordinance warning citizens to observe this resolution. A box was placed in New Amsterdam, in the office of the secretary of the province, for the receipt of letters, and for all those capable of registry, three stivers in wampum were to be paid. These movements on the part of Massachusetts and New Netherlands concerned foreign letters simply; until 1672 there were apparently no arrangements for the transmission and delivery of domestic letters. In December of that year, there was an effort to start a monthly post between New York and Boston, a project originating with Francis Lovelace, governor of New York. In a letter to John Winthrop, governor of Connecticut, dated December 27, 1672, he says:[7] “I herewith present you with 2 rarities, a pacquett of the latest intelligence I could meet withal, and a post ... by the latter you will meet with a monthly fresh supply; so that if it receive but the same ardent inclinations as first it hath from myself, by our monthly advisers all publique occurences may be transmitted between us,