Forwarding agents were commonly used in the 19th Century especially in the period from 1820 to 1860. They served as the collecting and routing mechanism for international mails and many added their personal hand stamps to the mails they handled.
This newspaper wrapper was addressed to Amsterdam
and forwarded by Julian Archer and Co. in Port of Spain, (they applied their
hand stamp to the wrapper). Their hand stamp is most often seen on newspaper
wrappers, perhaps because they specialised in forwarding newspapers to clients
abroad.