History
Many states, civilisations and organisations set up mail systems for high value goods, especially confidential correspondence and bullion. In times of war, regular shipments ran the gauntlet of warships and privateers, and even in peacetime, pirates could be a threat on some routes. In 1829, the pirate Mansel Alcantra captured the packet Topaz and murdered her crew after looting her.
In Britain, the Post Office Packet Service used small, fast, lightly armed ships to carry state papers to overseas destinations on a regular schedule. This service operated from Tudor times until 1823, when the Admiralty assumed the responsibility for running the service. In the 1850s the Post Office moved to using contract carriers.
During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars the packet ships were targets for privateers and warships seeking prize money. Although some were captured, others managed to fight back.(See: Post Office Packet Service)
The European states with empires too developed mail systems for overseas transport of packets. Eventually, however, commercial steam liners began to work regular international schedules and received contracts from governments to carry mail as well as passengers and high-value cargo. Their services retained the name "Packet".
Read more about this topic: Packet (sea Transport)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every library should try to be complete on something, if it were only the history of pinheads.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)