It is in connection with the monopolistic restriction of 1603 that Macaulay says that the state must have reaped a large reward from the prior right of the postmasters to hire horses to travellers.[342] Mr. Joyce has pointed out that the proceeds went to the postmasters and not to the state, but he has given no good reason for dissenting from Macaulay's opinion. Without doubt Joyce is correct, as is shown by a complaint from the postmasters on the Western Road that they had been injured by an interloper who supplied travellers with horses.[343] In 1779, the state made an attempt to obtain something from the postmasters by requiring them to take out a licence for the hiring of horses and to pay a percentage for their receipts to the government.[344] Indirectly, however, the state did reap some benefit from the revenue from post horses, for if the postmasters had received nothing from their horses or from the conveyance of private letters, it would have been necessary to pay their salaries much more promptly than was the custom. As early as the latter part of the sixteenth century, we find complaints from the London-Dover posts that they had received nothing on their salaries for a whole year.[345] This was nothing to later complaints and proves that an impecunious government was enabled to act the bad debtor by the fact that other forms of revenue were available for the postmasters. [342] Macaulay, _Hist. of England_, 1849, i, p. 387. [343] _Cal. S. P. D._, 1629-31, p. 193. [344] 19 Geo. III, c. 51. [345] _Cal. S. P. D._, 1581-90, p. 131. In 1609 the rate for each horse was raised from 2-1/2_d._ to 3_d._ a mile, and an attempt was made to enforce the postmasters' monopoly more strictly.[346] No horse was to be ridden beyond the initial stage unless with the consent of the postmaster concerned. The postmasters complained that they were held responsible for supplying horses, and yet, when it was necessary to obtain them from the surrounding country, they were resisted by the owners or were supplied with inefficient animals.[347] The complaints of the public were more to the purpose. According to them there were some who were being called upon constantly for horses while others escaped all demands. The postmasters often accepted bribes from owners of horses on condition that they should not be troubled.[348] At times the horses, after being seized, were not used but were kept in the stables of the postmasters, and their owners charged the expense of maintaining them. [346] _Rep. Com._, 1844, xiv, app., p. 42 (20). [347] _Cal. S. P. D._, 1619-23, p. 517. [348] _Ibid._, 1619-23, p. 86; 1635, p. 18; 1631-33, p. 257.