The warrants were returned to the Treasury unsigned. And now that silence had once been broken, the postmasters-general offered suggestion after suggestion, each having for its object to remove the difficulty. Might not a clause be inserted in some bill now before Parliament, a clause under which they should be constituted postmasters-general of Great Britain, and be given jurisdiction over the Scotch as over the English Post Office? Would not the Scotch bill for drawbacks answer the purpose, or if that were likely to be displeasing to the North British members, some one of the many money-bills that were then pending? Would not the requirements of the law be satisfied if for the management of the Scotch Post Office some one were appointed by letters patent under the Privy Seal of Scotland, and placed under the orders of the postmasters-general of England? Or in view of a recent Act passed by the united Parliament, might not the English postmasters-general themselves be so appointed? To these suggestions, of which the first was made in December 1708, and the last in April 1710, the Lord Treasurer returned no reply. It was clear that Godolphin had other intentions. Meanwhile events had taken place in London which must have gone far to convince the postmasters-general that, impolitic as an increase in the rates of postage might be, the need for fresh legislation was urgent. Charles Povey had set up a halfpenny post or, as he called it himself, a "half-penny carriage." For the sum of one halfpenny he undertook to do what Dockwra had done, and what the postmasters-general were now doing, for the sum of one penny. There were indeed points of difference. The penny post extended not only over the whole of London proper, but to the remote suburbs; the halfpenny post was confined to the busy parts of the metropolis, to the cities of London and Westminster and to the borough of Southwark. For the halfpenny post, again, letters were collected by the sound of bell. That is to say, Povey's men carried bells, which they rang as they passed along the streets, and so gave notice of their approach. This, though no doubt intended merely as an advertisement, possessed the merit of convenience. People had only to await the coming of one of these bell-ringers, and letters and parcels which they must otherwise have carried to the post themselves were carried for them.