[114] In the last month of high charges, of two and a half million letters passing through the London Office, nearly two millions were unpaid, and few more than half a million paid. Twelve months afterwards, the proportion of paid to unpaid letters was entirely changed, the latter had run up to the enormous number of five and a half millions; the former had shrunk to about half a million. [115] Select Committee on Postage, 1843, p. 93. CHAPTER IX. THE POST-OFFICE AND LETTER-OPENING. It will be fresh in the memory of many readers, that the year 1844 revealed to the public certain usages of the Government, and a branch of post-office business--previously kept carefully in the dark--which went far to destroy the confidence of the nation in the sanctity of its correspondence. In the session of 1844, Mr. Thomas S. Duncombe presented a petition from Mr. W. J. Linton, M. Mazzini, and two other persons residing at 47, Devonshire Street, Queen's Square, complaining that their letters were regularly detained and opened at the Post-Office. The petitioners declared that they "considered such a practice, introducing the spy-system of foreign states, as repugnant to every principle of the British constitution, and subversive of that public confidence which was so essential to a commercial country." The petitioners prayed for an inquiry, and Mr. Duncombe supported their prayer. Sir James Graham, then Home Secretary, got up in the House and stated that, as regarded three of the petitioners, their letters had not been detained; as for the case of M. Mazzini, a warrant had been obtained from the Home-Office to stop and open the correspondence of that person. He had the power by law and he had exercised it. "The authority," said Sir James, "was vested in the responsible Ministers of the Crown, and was intrusted to them for the public safety; and while Parliament placed its confidence in the individual exercising such a power, it was not for the public good to pry or inquire into the particular causes which called for the exercise thereof."[116] He hoped that the House would confide in his motives, and that they would not call upon him to answer any further inquiries. The speech of the Home Secretary added fuel to the flame. Had Sir James Graham entered more fully into the subject, and gone into the real state of the law, it is probable that the subject might have been allowed to drop. Not only was the slightest explanation of the principle adopted refused by the Home Secretary, but that refusal was given somewhat cavalierly. Public attention was thus roused; the most exaggerated rumours got abroad; it was openly stated by the press that a gigantic system of espionage had been established at St. Martin's-le-Grand, and now no mere general assurances of its unreality could dispel the talk or stop newspaper extravagances. Sir James Graham was abused most unreasonably. There was hardly a public print or public speaker in the