ch Letters as pass between one Country Town and
another thro' London.

"All this was accordingly done and executed conformable to the terms of
the contract."--Ibid., pp. 25-6.

Similar extensions were made at the renewals of the lease in 1748 and
1755.

[54] 5 Geo. III, cap. 25, [S] 5.

[55] "It is certain that the alteration of the rates of Postage in the
year 1765 has not been attended with every good consequence then
expected from it and has been some loss to the Revenue."--Mr. Draper,
District Surveyor, _British Official Records_, 1783.

[56] "At a time when the mail leaving London on Monday night did not
arrive at Bath until Wednesday afternoon, he (Palmer) had been in the
habit of accomplishing the distance between the two cities in a single
day. He had made journeys equally long and equally rapid in other
directions; and, as the result of observation, he had come to the
conclusion that of the horses kept at the post houses it was always the
worst that were set aside to carry the mail, and that the post was the
slowest mode of conveyance in the kingdom. He had also observed that,
where security or despatch was required, his neighbours at Bath who
might desire to correspond with London would make a letter up into a
parcel and send it by stage-coach, although the cost by stage-coach was,
porterage included, 2s. and by post 4d."--H. Joyce, _History of the Post
Office_, pp. 208-9. Cf. D. Macpherson, op. cit., vol. iv. p. 54.

[57] "If the present hours fixed at all the offices of the Kingdom with
the greatest care and attention to that regular plan of correspondence
which has been established after long experience were to be altered it
would throw into the greatest confusion for the present and would be
many years before it could be restored to the degree of perfection it
now has."--Observations on Mr. Palmer's Plan by Mr. Draper, District
Surveyor (_British Official Records_, 1783).

"Indeed, it is a pity that the Author of the Plan should not first have
been informed of the nature of the Business in question, to make him
understand how very differently the Posts and Post Offices are conducted
to what he apprehends, and that the constant Eye that has been long kept
towards their improvement in all Situations and under all Circumstances
has made them now almost as perfect as can be without exhausting the
Revenue arising therefrom."--Observations on Mr. Palmer's Plan by Mr.
Hodgson, District Surveyor. Ibid.