Government posts, as the convenience and interest of the people at large began to receive some attention from their rulers, were at times allowed to carry private letters, and private posts for the transmission of general correspondence were sometimes established. This was at first but an irregular and uncertain service, without fixed compensation; but considerable regularity, order and system were the results of the public appreciation of their convenience, and of the gradual improvements which followed their more general employment. In 1524 the French posts--which had previously carried only the letters of the King and nobles--were first permitted to carry other letters; and in 1543 Charles V., Emperor of Germany, established a riding post throughout his dominions. It was not until the reign of James I. that a system of postal communication was established in England, although Edward IV., in 1481, had established posts twenty miles apart, with riders, to bring the earliest intelligence of the events of the war with the Scots. It was not until about 1644 that a weekly conveyance of letters, by post, was established throughout that kingdom. Mail coaches were first used at Bristol, in England, in 1784. They were placed on the post routes in 1785, and their use became general throughout England. The mail service of North America, which in its magnitude and regularity, and in the extension of its benefits to every settlement and fireside, has, it is believed, no superior, probably had its beginning in private enterprise; although perhaps sanctioned at the very outset, by local authority. As early as 1677 Mr. John Hayward, scrivener, of Boston, Mass., was appointed by the General Court to take in and convey letters according to their direction. This was probably the first post-office and mail service authorized in America. Other local arrangements, necessarily very imperfect in their character, were made in different colonies soon after; some of them having the sanction of Colonial Governors or Legislatures. Thomas Dongan, the Governor of New York under the Duke of York, in a letter to the Duke's secretary, dated February 18, 1684, says: You are pleased to say I may set up a post-house, but send me noe power to do it. I never intended it should be expensive to His Royal Highness. It was desired by the neighboring colonies, and is at present practiced in some places by foot messengers. In the same letter Gov. Dongan says he will endeavor to establish a post-office in Connecticut and at Boston. Under date of August 27, 1684, Sir John Werden, the Duke's secretary, wrote to Gov. Dongan: As for setting up post-houses along the coast from Carolina to Nova Scotia it seems a very reasonable thing, and you may offer the privilege thereof to any undertakers for ye space of 3 or 5 years, by way of farm; reserving wt part of ye profit you think fit to the Duke.