These amounts were obtained by weighing the newspapers and, as this was the manner in which they would have been rated, the results may be considered as fairly correct. The idea being to estimate the loss from members' and states' franks only, the franking by Post Office clerks does not enter into the following calculation. It was judged from the figures given above that the Post Office carried free every year enough newspapers franked by members and state officials to produce £40,000 if they had been taxed at the ordinary rates.[646] An attempt to arrive at the same result in another way was also made. The sum total which would have been paid on all members' and ministers' letters, newspapers, and parcels arriving at or departing from London in 1763 was £140,000. Of this amount £85,000 would have been paid on all mail leaving London, and £55,000 on all mail arriving in London. The difference in favour of the outgoing mail was judged to be due to the newspapers, all of which were printed in London and sent to the country. This would give a loss of £30,000 on newspapers, and £110,000 on letters.[647] [646] _Jo. H. C._, 1761-64, pp. 1000-1001. [647] _Ibid._, p. 999. Returns were also submitted, showing the gross amount of the inland postage for Great Britain and Ireland, including the amount which the franked letters and papers would have paid if they had all been charged, the actual gross product and the difference between the two. This difference would, of course, be the estimated charge on all the free matter. These figures are given from 1715 to 1763. Roughly speaking, in fifty years franked letters and papers increased 700 per cent while pay letters increased only 50 per cent. In 1715 one fifth as many free letters and newspapers as those which paid went through the mail. In 1763 there were eleven twelfths as many free letters and papers.[648] It will be seen that the assumption is that the postage which this free matter might have paid represented the loss suffered by the Post Office. Now this is not so, because it did not cost the Post Office so much to convey letters and papers as the ordinary rates would have paid them. In the second place the Postal authorities considered the £140,000 as so much actually lost, whereas if charges had been enforced on the free matter, a much smaller amount would have been sent. This is entirely apart from the rough and ready manner in which the figures were obtained. Enough was shown, however, to prove that the franking system was a burden to the country and an imposition upon the Post Office. [648] _Jo. H. C._, p. 999.