In 1837 the average general postage was estimated at 9-1/2_d._ per letter; exclusive of foreign letters, it was still as high as 8-3/4_d._ It is a curious but significant fact that in the reign of Queen Anne the postage of a letter between London and Edinburgh was less than half as much as the amount charged at the accession of Queen Victoria. The fact that the revenue derived from so well-protected a monopoly remained stationary for nearly twenty years may be fairly attributable to these high postage-rates.[17] Mr. Lewins states that the revenue derived in 1815 from the post-office amounted to a million and a half; while twenty-one years afterwards,—in 1836,—notwithstanding the increase of trade and the diffusion of knowledge, the increase of this sum had only been between three and four thousand pounds. The evil of high rates led not merely to small returns, but to the evasion of postage by illicit means of conveyance, so that some carriers of letters were doing as large a business as the post-office itself. This will appear evident from the statement that a post-office official seized a parcel containing eleven hundred letters in a single bag in the warehouse of a London carrier. The head of this firm proffered instant payment of £500 if the penalties were not sued for. The postmaster-general accepted the offer, and the letters passed through the post-office on the same night. So early as 1833, the late Mr. Wallace, M. P. for Greenock, drew the attention of the House of Commons to the numerous abuses in the post-office. There can be no question that his frequent motions and speeches directed public attention specifically to the subject and incalculably advanced the cause of reform. Mr. Wallace was not aided by the government or by the aristocracy or higher professional classes; but he derived much active support from the mercantile and manufacturing community, and from the shopkeepers in all the great towns of the empire.