It might be supposed that the farming of the posts was a most unbusinesslike way of carrying on the work of the public conveyance of letters. But there is another side to the question; and arguments are not wanting that, for the development of the service, the farming was, in some respects at anyrate, a very satisfactory arrangement. The work was committed to the hands and control of a single individual, who was unfettered by Treasury or other restrictions, and who was bound to find a sum sufficient for the payment of his rent. He was further under the influence of a personal interest in the way of securing a profit to himself, and as a consequence, while his tenure lasted, he put forth his utmost endeavour to make his office useful to the public, and to extend its scope. Further, upon each increase of rent came a new incentive to fresh exertions in the way indicated, and the growth of the Post Office was steady and rapid. Whitley was a man of a very conciliatory nature: his letters attest it. He was always anxious to please the public. In disputes over irregularities, and matters relating to alleged overcharges, he was most indulgent. In a letter of apology to Dr. Bathurst, President of Trinity College, Oxford, he writes:--"I will not permit him (the postmaster) to dispute, but submit my interest to your pleasure, being assuredly safe therein. I have ordered him to wait on you, and not only to do you right in this matter, but conform with your demands in all things; and I humbly beseech you to have that goodness and charity for me as to believe me of another composition than to be guilty of such low unworthy practices, but own me as one that is ambitious of the honour of being esteemed, your," etc. To the postmaster of York he writes in a strain advising like conciliatory dealings with the public. "I cannot imagine," says he, "why you should not think yourself sufficiently empowered by my last and former letters to do right to the merchants in all their just demands; nay further, to gratify them sometimes in little disputes (though they be in the mistake) rather than exasperate and disoblige gentlemen that support the office by their correspondence. If you reflect on my last letter, you will find that I refer it to you and them to do with me (almost) what you please.... I hope when you acquaint these gentlemen with what I write, it will give them satisfaction, especially seeing I make them chancellors in their own case." In a like matter of dispute at Norwich, Whitley writes to the postmaster:--"I know their own ingenuity will prompt them to consider the usefulness of this office to their commerce, and how we work and travail night and day for them.... I never found, in all my experience, that I lost anything by submitting to the justice and civility of conscientious men." A similar strain of patient forbearance towards the public runs through the whole of Whitley's correspondence.