[43] A strongly-worded petition on the subject was presented to Parliament only a year or two after the Restoration. This petition, after calling the charge an "abuse and extortion," goes on to say that "it cannot be imagined the Parliament should either so far forget themselves, or the countrey for which they served, or the necessary and convenient correspondence, as well as the trade of His Majesties dominions, as to put them upon worse and harder tearms than foreigners, or foreign trade, to the prejudice of the kingdom...." Much the same sort of thing occurred a few years later in connection with the penny post. From the first establishment of this undertaking 1d. had carried only within the bills of mortality; for delivery beyond those limits had been charged 1d. more. Some persons now refused to pay the additional penny, on the ground that it was not prescribed by law. This was perfectly true. The penny post owed its legal sanction to the Act of 1711; and this Act merely provided that "for the post of all and every the letters and packets passing or repassing by the carriage called the penny post, established and settled within the cities of London and Westminster and borough of Southwark and parts adjacent, and to be received and delivered within ten English miles distant from the General Letter Office in London [shall be demanded and received the sum of] 1d." Again an Act of Parliament had to be passed in order to assimilate law and practice. This Act, which was not obtained until 1730, made legal the twopenny post, just as the penny post was made legal by the Act of 1711; although, as a matter of fact, both posts had been in existence since April 1680. In 1721 Lowndes, who was still at the Treasury, called for a return of the Post Office income and expenditure. Ten years had now elapsed since the imposition of the new rates. Of these ten years eight, as compared with the eight which preceded them, had been years of prosperity and peace; the population had increased, and the reductions in the packet service had effected a saving of many thousand pounds a year. Certainly the circumstances had not on the whole been unfavourable for testing the results of the new policy. The return was rendered. During the year ending the 29th of September the gross Post Office revenue was, in 1721, £168,968, and in 1710, £111,461, being an increase of £57,507; in 1721 the cost of management was £69,184, as against £44,639 in 1710; and the net revenue, which in 1710 had been £66,822, was in 1721 £99,784, an increase of £32,962. But the case does not end here. Under the terms of the Act the sum of £700 a week, or £36,400 a year, was to be allocated to a specific object. This sum had been regularly paid into the Exchequer, and, after deducting it from the net revenue, there remained for the use of the Sovereign a balance of £63,384, or less than in 1710 by £3438.