The country was happily spared any new device on their part, for in 1721 a man came forward with a proposal to take all the losses upon himself or rather to prevent them entirely. This was Ralph Allen, whose name is worth remembering, not as a reformer but as a good business man who came to the rescue of the postal revenue at a rather critical time. He was the son of an innkeeper at St. Blazey. At an early age we find him living with his grandmother, the postmistress of St. Columb. He came under the notice of one of the surveyors there on account of the neatness with which he kept the accounts for his grandmother. When he was old enough, he was appointed to a position in the Post Office at Bath and in time was made postmaster there. Tradition has it that during the insurrection of 1715 he informed the authorities that a wagon load of arms was on its way from the West for the use of the rebels and that this led to his preferment.[159] He offered to farm the cross and bye posts throughout the kingdom. The net product from these posts amounted to £4000 in 1719. Allen offered to pay half as much again and meet all expenses. The offer was accepted, and in 1721 he was given the lease of the cross and bye posts for a period of seven years. The rent was fixed at £6000 a year in accordance with the agreement. For the first quarter, the receipts exceeded expectations, but later the postmasters began to relapse into their old ways. In addition, the contract was rather hard on Allen, as £300 of the £4000 nominally received by the Post Office was for letters not delivered and hence not paid for. After the third year, matters began to improve and the receipts increased greatly. The contract was renewed for terms of seven years, until Allen's death in 1769, and the rent was increased at each renewal.[160] [159] Joyce, p. 146. [160] _Cal. T. B. & P._, 1731-34, p. 539; W. Thornbury, _Old and New London_, ii, p. 209; W. Lewins, _Her Majesty's Mails_, ed. 1865, pp. 104-12. How did he succeed when so many others had failed? In the first place he introduced the use of post bills and every postmaster had to distinguish on these bills the bye letters from all others. The voucher, which he also introduced, seems to have been only an acknowledgment of the amount to be collected by each postmaster. Besides this, Allen had a most intimate knowledge of the various post towns in the kingdom, of their importance and of the number of letters which might naturally be expected to pass between them. He based his conclusions upon quite obvious considerations. Between any two towns of much the same importance he expected about the same correspondence, that it would not vary much, and that the letters received and despatched would pretty well equal each other.[161] [161] Joyce, pp. 155, 162.