"The posts generally travel along the sea coasts, and only in a few cases do they go back into the country. Between Quebec and Montreal there is only one post per month. The inhabitants live so scattered and remote from each other in that vast country that the posts cannot be supported amongst them. The English colonies, too, along the frontier are very thinly settled." Franklin was removed in 1774. War broke out a few months afterwards between the North American Provinces and the Mother Country; and the charge of the post office in Canada was assumed by Mr. Hugh Finlay, who, it appears, had under Franklin performed the duties of postmaster at Quebec. Mr. Finlay is designated in his commission as Deputy Postmaster General of His Majesty's "Province of Canada," from which it would seem that the Lower Provinces were not included in his charge. An Almanac published in Quebec in the year 1791 thus describes the condition of the Department:-- Hugh Finlay, Esq., Deputy Postmaster General Quebec, L. C. Wm. E. Edwards, Postmaster Montreal, " Samuel Sills, " Three Rivers, " Louis Aime, " Berthier, " Hugh Munroe, " Bai edes Chaleurs, " Samuel Anderson, " Cornwall, U. C. John Munroe, " Matilda, " John Jones, " Augusta, " Peter Clarke, " Kingston, " Joseph Edwards, " Niagara, " George Leitch, " Detroit, " ---- Mitchell " Mickelmackinac, " There were thus five post offices in Lower Canada, and seven post offices in Upper Canada. Between Quebec and England mails were despatched once per month; between Quebec and Halifax, twice per week in summer, and once per week in winter; between Quebec and Montreal, twice per week; and between Montreal and the offices above Montreal, once per month; between Quebec and Baie des Chaleurs mails were despatched "as occasion offered." In the year 1792, 1793, and 1794, the mail was carried once per month between Montreal and Kingston by a French Canadian named Morisette; between Kingston and York it was carried by Alex. Anderson; and between York and Niagara by a Mohawk Indian. The rate of travel was probably about 20 miles per day; the route being either by a path through the woods or along the shores of the River St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario: no regular road having been at that time in existence. In the summer season the mail was carried between Kingston and Niagara by the Government vessels,-- Caldwell, Mohawk, Oneida, and Speedy.