III. DIFFICULTIES OF COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION
Communications
One of the serious difficulties of colonial administration was the lack of communication between England and the plantations. There was no regular mail service of any kind until 1755, 280 and all letters and other communications were entrusted to the ordinary merchant vessels. This method furnished reasonably prompt service between Boston, New York, Virginia 287 (and later Charleston), and the home country; but other colonies were not so fortunate, for they had to depend upon more precarious means for sending letters. Connecticut and North Carolina were probably the worst situated in this respect, for very few ocean-going vessels touched at the coast of either, and what ships did enter their ports were usually small coasting vessels, which were worthless for purposes of communication. The records show that the governor of Connecticut received his letters by way of Boston and sent them by the same route. 288 In North Carolina some of the governor's letters could
286 See the letter of the Board of Trade to Secretary Robinson, September 18, 1755, in New Jersey Archives, vol. viii, part ii, 138.
287 Letters from Virginia and Maryland reached the Board in from two to three months in 1700. See: Board of Trade Journal, 13.
2SS Talcott Papers, in Connecticut Historical Society Collections, vols, iv, v, passim.