The changes in colonial rates were generally in the shape of substituting general for special rules. The rate from any part of the British American Dominions to any other part was fixed at 4_d._ for a single letter when conveyed by sea. The act of 1711 had given the postage from and to specially named places. This method had become inapplicable with the growth in population among the old and the increase in new possessions. The rate for a single letter from any chief post office in the British American Dominions to a distance not exceeding sixty miles, or for any distance not exceeding sixty miles from any post office from which letters did not pass through a chief post office, was placed at 4_d._, from sixty to 100 miles 6_d._, from 100 to 200 miles 8_d._, for each additional hundred miles 2_d._ The effect of this act was to continue the same rates for inland postage in British America, while rates were provided for distances over 100 miles. The postage between England and the American colonies remained at 12_d._ for a single letter. In the case of the West Indies, there was a decrease of 6_d._ A clause of the act provided that the postage on letters sent out of England might be demanded in advance.[588] [588] 5 Geo. III, c. 25. The principle of payment in advance was not popular. A man in England writing to his brother in Virginia in 1764 says, "Very often of late I have been so foolish, I should say unfortunate previously to pay for the letters coming to you.... To my great concern I have been since assured that such letters never go forward but are immediately thrown aside and neglected. I believe I wrote to you three or four times this last winter by this method and am since informed of this their fate. You may form a great guess of the truth of it by or by not receiving them" (_Notes and Queries_, 4th ser., xii, p. 125). Postage rates were increased steadily from 1784 for twenty-eight years, culminating in the year 1812 with the highest rates that England has ever seen. Every available means to raise the revenue necessary to maintain her supremacy was resorted to, and the Post Office was compelled to bear its share of the burden. In 1784 another penny was added to the rates for single letters and additional rates for double and triple letters in proportion.[589] Three years later an act was passed, fixing the postage for the conveyance of a single letter by sailing packet from Milford Haven to Waterford at 6_d._ over and above all other rates. It was provided by the same act that the rates between London and Ireland via Milford should not exceed the rates via Holyhead.[590] [589] 24 Geo. III, sess. 2, c. 37. [590] 27 Geo. III, c. 9. In 1767 a rate of 2_d._ for a single letter was established between Whitehaven (Cumberland) and the Port of Douglas (Isle of Man) (7 Geo. III, c. 50).