Decision of the P. M. Gen^l upon the claim of Shaw & Corser under the Joint Resolution of Congress approved June 26^th 1848.

The Resolution of Congress approved the 26th of June, 1848, directs the Postmaster General “to examine the claim of David Shaw and Solomon T. Corser, contractors for carrying the mail on route number four from Portland to Augusta in Maine and ascertain whether any sum of money is justly and equitably due them for any more expensive service performed by them on said route than was required or contemplated by their contract” and directs the payment of the sum that may be found due them not exceeding $3,000.

The contract to which the resolution refers was made on the nineteenth day of April, 1841, for transporting the mail daily in four horse post coaches between Augusta and Portland at the rate of $4,000. per annum, leaving Portland at 4 a.m. (or earlier, should western mail be in and distributed) and reaching Augusta at 2 p.m. (or earlier, as the case might be), ten hours, and leaving August at 11 a.m.

(or earlier; should mails be in) and arriving at Portland at 10 p.m. (or earlier, as the case might be), eleven hours, but expressly reserving the right of the Department to change the hours of running as the public interest or convenience might require, and securing to the contractors additional pay, if more speed or additional service should be required, pro rata for such increase of service.

^ Kirby ^ The service was performed under the above contract until the commencement of the year 1843, when the Rail Road to Portland was completed, which enabled the Department to have the mails from Boston delivered at Portland at about 8 o’clock p.m. instead of 1 a.m. as had been the case before the completion of the Rail Road. This rendered an earlier departure from Portland as well as Augusta necessary, or the mails would have been unnecessarily delayed. An agent of the Department, Mr. Bridge, was in that section of the State, and directed the departure from Portland at 9 o’clock p.m. instead of 4 a.m., and from Augusta at 6 p.m. instead of 11 a.m., so as to make close connections both ways. This took place on the 16th Jany, 1843. The contractors urged the departure from Portland at 11 p.m. instead of 9 p.m., as suggested by Mr. Bridge, and from August at 5 p.m. instead of 6 p.m. There was no change in the number of hours allowed for the service. After much correspondence between the Department,

the Contractors, and Postmasters, in relation to the proper hours of arrival and departure, it was concluded on the 8th of April, 1843, that the schedule as suggested by the Contractors was the proper one and it was accordingly ordered on that day. In the course of the correspondence, Shaw and Corser alledged that the service in the night would be more expensive to them, and urged that as a reason why an additional hour should be given them for the performance of it, which was declined, but do not seem to have claimed any additional compensation; whilst another of the contractors, Childs, in his letter of the 29th of March to the Hon. Ruel Williams, one of the Senators from Maine, soliciting him to interfere and get the schedule suggested by the contractors adopted, urges that he did not consider the night service “prejudicial to the Company”, assigns various reasons therefor, and concludes by saying “that experience is better than prophecy, the actual fact has been that the Augusta and Portland stages have not done so well as under the arrangement of a few months past to run out from here at night.” Under such representations from the contractors, the Department was induced to yield to the schedule suggested by them, which was evidently for their benefit, as an opposition line of stages, as shown in the correspondence, was about being established to run in connection with the Rail Road, and would have driven them

to the necessity of running an accommodation line of stages in connection with the Rail Road, or to have surrendered most of the travel that came to Portland by it. The service does not seem to have been in any other respect changed. The contract expressly provided for this change of service at the pleasure of the Department, and without any increase of compensation, and was such a change as is constantly made by the Department in some branch of the service, and could not but have been well known to contractors who ^had^ had so much experience in the service. The amount paid them for the service, at the rate of $4,000. annually, seems to have been a reasonable and a fair price for it.

^ Duffy^ The service on that route was again to be let to contract in the spring of 1845, was advertized to leave Portland at 2 p.m. and Augusta at 3 a.m. each day and the same time allowed as in the former contract. The same company bid for the service at the rate of $3,000. per annum and the contract was assigned to them and the service performed under it until the spring of 1846, when it became necessary again to change the schedule to the former time of running to wit: to leave Portland at 11 p.m. and Augusta at 5 p.m. without a change of the number of hours. When this change was made, the contractors complained of the extra expense and insisted upon extra

pay, which was refused by the Department, as the law did not authorize it; but in consequence of the strong and repeated representations of the contractors, accompanied by threats to discontinue the service, the Department yielded so far as to consent to set aside the contract and advertize the service anew and for night service as required in the last schedule.

The same parties, Corser and Shaw, were again bidders for the service at the sum of $4,500. annually, and Henry Pennell also bid for it at the rate of $3,600. per annum and obtained the contract for the night service. The contract was very soon after purchased by Corser and Shaw. The amount paid does not appear on the files of the Department, but the transfer was made to them on the 11th of Sept. 1846, to take effect from the 1st July, 1846, when it went into operation under the advertizement, and still stands in their name, and the service is now performed for the Department at the rate of $3.600 per annum, being four hundred dollars less ^per annum^ than they received from 1843 to 1845 for the performance of the same service at the same hours. In other sections of the country, as much service is performed for a much less price than is paid them, and it is not doubted, if the night service had been required by the advertizement at the regular annual letting

in the spring, the service would have been undertaken for a less sum than $3,600. which was bid at the special lettings in 1846.

There has been, in the opinion of the undersigned, no “more expensive service” performed by them than was required or contemplated by their contract made in 1841, and that the said parties have not in equity and justice any thing due them beyond the sums which have been paid.