[537] _Ibid._, 1787, pp. 815-16. Anthony Todd, Secretary of the Post Office, writing to Charles Cox in Harwich said that "several persons going from Helvoetsluys to Harwich, who are well able to pay full fare, have given money for half, free and poor passes, and larger sums have been taken for passes than are allowed by the Postmaster-General" (_Jo. H. C._, 1787, p. 805). [538] _Ibid._, 1787, p. 205. The result of these exposures was a series of reforms started in 1793. By 1797 the Post Office was able to report that orders had been issued forbidding any official to own a sailing packet or have a share in any of them. Orders were given to pay the sailors regularly throughout the whole year. The 2-1/2 per cent on all expenditure, formerly paid to the Secretary, was abolished. Finally all salaries were henceforth to be in lieu of every emolument.[539] [539] _Fin. Rep._, 1797, no. 7, pp. 52-65. In 1793, the expenses for packet boats amounted to £45,666 a year. This was reduced in the following year to £36,940, but from 1795 expenses began to increase, owing to losses during the war and the necessity for placing the boats on a war footing.[540] In time of peace, a Falmouth packet of 179 tons carried twenty-one men, including officers, at a total expenditure for men, interest, insurance, and wear and tear, of £1681.[541] In time of war, she carried twenty-eight men, all of whom were paid higher wages, and other expenses were also higher, bringing the total expenses for each packet to £2112 a year.[542] For a packet of seventy tons the expenses during peace and war were respectively £536 and £862.[543] It is not surprising then that the cost for all the packet boats had risen in 1796 to £77,599. The Falmouth boats were responsible for £60,444 of this, the rest being divided amongst the Dover, Harwich, Donaghadee, Milford, Weymouth, and Holyhead packets and the West India schooners.[544] The salaries paid to the agents in 1796 amounted to £3412. They were stationed at Lisbon, Falmouth, Yarmouth (instead of Harwich and Dover), Weymouth, Jamaica, Halifax, N. S., and Quebec. In Lisbon and the colonial towns, the agents acted also as postmasters.[545] [540] _Ibid._, no. 7, p. 131. [541] _Fin. Rep._, no. 7, p. 119. [542] _Ibid._, no. 7, p. 118. [543] _Ibid._, no. 7, pp. 122-23. [544] _Ibid._, no. 7, p. 117. [545] _Ibid._, no. 7, p. 116. In 1827, all the packets sailing out of Falmouth were transferred to the Admiralty, in spite of Freeling's protest. The question had been discussed again and again during the war with France but why it was decided upon at this particular time is not clear. At the time of transfer, thirty packets were employed at Falmouth, carrying mails to and from Lisbon, Brazil, Buenos Ayres, the Mediterranean, America, the Leeward Isles, Jamaica, Colombia, and Mexico. In 1828, the number of packets at Falmouth had increased to thirty-eight brigs of war and sailing vessels and in 1833 to forty-one.[546]