From 1755 to the end of the century there is a marked rise both in gross and net receipts and a comparative diminution in expenses. The gross average annual product from 1755 to 1759 was £228,000, from 1790 to 1794 it was £602,000. For the five years from 1755 to 1759 the average yearly net product was £81,000, from 1790 to 1794 it was £375,000, while expenses had risen for the same periods only from £147,000 to £227,000. The following table shows the average yearly increase or decrease in gross product, expenses, and net products for the six five-year periods from 1765 to 1794. The increases or decreases are given in the form of percentages, each five-year period being compared with the preceding period.[721] _Gross product_ _Expenses_ _Net product_ 1765-69 17% increase 22% decrease 76% increase 1770-74 11 " 27 increase unchanged 1775-79 12 " 30 " " 1780-84 19 " 37 " " 1785-89[722] 21 " 21 decrease 90% increase 1790-94 24 " 14 increase 30% " [721] For the gross product, net product, and expenses for each year, see Appendix, pp. 243, 244, 245, Tables I, II. [722] Rates were increased in 1784. The net product from both the Scotch and Irish Posts was remitted to England. These receipts did not amount to much as compared with those from the English Post. Earl Temple, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in writing to Grenville in 1784, said that the Irish post "had never paid £8000 a year clear of expenses."[723] In 1796, the gross product was £26,949 and the expenses of management £8718. Of the net product, £6651 were retained, being placed to the credit of Great Britain for returned and missent letters and for the £4000 which the Irish Post was entitled to receive in lieu of the receipts from the Holyhead packet boats. The remaining £11,579 were sent to the general Post Office. The Scotch Posts did considerably better. The gross product in 1796 was £69,338, the expenses of management £14,346, for returned letters £1206, and the net product sent to the General Office was £54,265. [723] Hist. MSS. Com., _Dropmore_, i, p. 179. The time had long since passed when the London-Dover road was the most important in the kingdom and when the receipts from foreign exceeded those from inland letters. As late as 1653, when contracts were called for from those wishing to farm the posts, the amount offered in one instance was almost as great for the foreign as for the inland post. The average annual gross product from the foreign post for the period 1785-89 was £61,431, the expenses £32,169 and the net product £29,262. For the period from 1790 to 1794 there was a small increase to £65,497 for gross product, £34,277 for expenses, and £31,200 for net product.[724] [724] _Parl. Papers_, 1812-13, _Rep. Com._, ii, 222, p. 93.