- began sharing a common postal system
As part of its efforts to bind its American colonies to the commercial empire, the British government also took modest steps to build a communications infrastructure. In the 17th century, letters had been carried by individuals or collected and distributed informally by ship captains. In 1711, Parliament brought together the mail systems of England, Ireland, Scotland, and North America (both to the mainland and the island colonies) into a single bureaucracy that could raise revenue for the empire.
In principle, the postal system now connected residents of the different societies in British America, but only insofar as those residents were part of a bigger networks centered in London. Most colonist did not use the service regularly to correspond with England or the other residents of the empire, but the existence of a single channel of communication linking port cities on both sides of the Atlantic reinforce the claim that the colonies were part of the unified imperial realm.