[Sidenote: Complaints of the public.] In process of time, and notably after the necessity of greater economy in the public finances had been admitted, great discontent was expressed through the press with regard to these very liberal concessions,[273] which was materially aggravated by a statement, the accuracy of which I have no means of testing, that the amount paid for the West India mail service exceeded the sum received for postage by 183,938_l._, and that, though the Brazil branch left a margin of 3478_l._ in favour of the Post-office, the direct loss to the public amounted to no less than 180,460_l._ per annum.[274] To most of these complaints the company was altogether indifferent, believing them to have their origin in disappointment and jealousy; but there was no answer to the well-founded remonstrances of the colonists that the service was, after all, performed with great irregularity. Indeed, it is beyond cavil that during their earlier operations, the vessels did not arrive at the time named in the tables of routes attached to the contract, that, for instance, the duplicate correspondence from Chagres, sent round by way of New York in American vessels, and thence by the Cunard or American steamers to Liverpool, often arrived in England sooner than the original letters brought directly by the Royal Mail vessels; and, further, that much confusion was constantly caused by the non-arrival of the outward mails till days after the dispatch of the homeward ones. Unnecessary delays also took place in coaling at St. Thomas and in the receiving and transferring freight there and elsewhere. There was also, it was alleged, a want of sufficient steamers for the intercolonial service, while the occasional negligence and incompetency of the commanders of the vessels led to a needless loss of time between port and port; complaints were likewise made of insufficiency of accommodation for passengers on some of the intercolonial steamers, and, also, that a pernicious system of gambling was permitted in the vessels of the main line. Some of these complaints, as frequently happens under similar circumstances, were frivolous and unwarrantable, but too many of them were unanswerable; indeed the bitter attacks on the company might naturally have been expected considering the numerous favours supposed to have been conferred on it, and, above all, the notorious fact, that the contract for the conveyance of the mails was never exposed to public competition. [Sidenote: Improved prospects of the Company]