Mr. Bernalwished to call the attention of the Government to the very imperfect transmission of letters from the West Indies, and especially from Jamaica, under the 420 present system of mail packets. The more distant parts of the island of Jamaica had no means of communicating with the post-offices from which the packets took their departure, and very great inconvenience had consequently arisen.
§ Mr. Sidney Herbertsaid, he was quite ready to admit that there had been great irregularity in the transmission of the mails through the West India packets. The present scheme of routes carried into execution by the company was, however, a provisional scheme. In the mean time, the Admiralty and the Post-office were collecting as much information as they could on the subject, and he hoped they would speedily be able to introduce some improvement.