[30] The provision is as follows: "And for the better management of the Post Office, be it enacted that the postmaster-general shall observe such orders and instructions concerning the settlement of Posts and stages upon the several roads, Cross roads, and Byeways within the United Kingdom and other Her Majesty's Dominions, as Her Majesty shall from time to time give in that behalf."--1 Vic. cap. xxxiii. sec. 8. After the battle of Ramillies, which put the Confederates in possession of Ostend, the packet service between England and Flanders, which had been suspended four years before, was re-established. The result disappointed expectations. The Government appear to have thought that it was only necessary to revive the service and the correspondence would at once resume its old proportions. But meanwhile the letters from Flanders to England had found a new channel. No sooner had Ostend been closed than they were diverted through Holland. To reverse this arrangement, involving as it would a readjustment of the internal posts, must, in any case, have been a work of time; and it was a work on which the Flemish authorities were little likely to embark so long as the neighbourhood of Ostend or any considerable portion of it remained in the enemy's hands. Of all this the postmasters-general were perfectly well aware, and they can have felt no disappointment that, on the first reopening of the Ostend route, the letters passing that way were extremely few; but the ministers, who had not the postmaster-generals' experience to guide them, grew impatient with a service which was maintained at heavy cost, and produced little or no return. Accordingly, having restored the service in June, they discontinued it in August; and no sooner were the boats dispersed than orders were given to restore it again. This sudden change of purpose, we think there can be little doubt, was due to the influence of the Duke of Marlborough, who began about this time to take a lively interest in the postal communication with Flanders. Though not surprised at the meagreness of the correspondence, the postmasters-general were little prepared to find that, after the Confederates became masters of Ostend, the passage between that port and Dover would be even less safe than it had been before. Yet such was the case. The Flemish seamen, no longer able to obtain employment at home, flocked across the French border and joined with their foes of yesterday in preying upon the English shipping. As a consequence the Channel now swarmed with privateers. On the 25th of January a Dover packet, named _Ostend_ after the port to which she ran, was taken by a Nieuport privateer of ten guns and eighty men. The captain who brought this intelligence had himself had a narrow escape. Five privateers had extended themselves from Nieuport to Ostend in order to intercept him, and, after a sharp engagement, in which he was nearly captured, had forced him to make Harwich.