Reference has been made to the packet boats conveying passengers as well as mails. These, it seems, were not always kept in a tidy condition, and the Deputy Postmaster-General had to speak his mind on the subject, drawing an unpleasant contrast between his own countrymen and foreigners. "Your boats," says Whitley to the agent at Harwich, "are also rendered so contemptible, so nasty, ill provided, and out of order, that we do not only lose many passengers, that will not venture with them, but it is a reproach to our nation to have such bad accommodation, when our neighbours are so neat and exact in theirs." In some respects the reproachful contrast is one not confined to Whitley's days. Not only was it the case that separate rooms were not always provided at the country post offices for the treatment and safe custody of letters, but the following complaints from the Deputy Postmaster-General prove that at certain places the letters were very carelessly dealt with. To the postmaster of Rochester, Whitley writes:--"I hear there is great neglect in your sending out of letters, and that there is a great abundance of them scattered about your house, especially in your chamber and upon the tester of your bed. This shows want of order in your business. You should get some room apart to be your office, in which only you should bring your mails, open and close them, and where you should sort letters, and let nobody come into it but yourself." The position of affairs at Hereford was perhaps worse. In June 1675, the postmaster, Mr Philpotts, is thus written to:--"I have complaints from persons of very good credit, that their letters are not safe in your hands; they do not directly accuse you, but allege that your office being kept in the prison, it gives opportunity to prisoners, by countenance with some of your servants, to intercept letters of business with writings, and whereby the parties concerned are much damnified and the office abundantly scandalized."