This was the introduction of postage. The object of the exceptional rate in the case of Ireland was to avoid interference with a Proclamation which had been recently issued by the Lord Deputy and Council there. Henceforth the posts were to be equally open to all; all would be at liberty to use them; all would be welcome. Important as this provision was, it followed as a natural consequence from the imposition of postage. The carriage of the subjects' letters was now to be a matter of purchase, and, unless the purchasers were sufficiently numerous, the posts would not be self-supporting. The custom of the public, therefore, was a necessity of their very existence. In other respects the regulations remained much as they had been, except that now there would be the means of enforcing them. Every postmaster was to have ready in his stable one or two horses, according as Witherings might direct, the charge to be for one horse 2-1/2d. a mile and for two horses 5d. This 5d., however, was to include the cost of a guide who was always to accompany the horses when two were taken. On the day the post was expected, the horses were not to be let out on any pretext whatever, this being the first indication on record of letters enjoying precedence over travellers. And finally, with certain specified exceptions, no letters were to be carried or delivered in any part where posts should be established except by such persons as Witherings might appoint. The letters excepted were those sent by a friend, by a particular messenger employed for the particular occasion, and by common known carrier. On the common carrier, however, restrictions were imposed. He was to confine himself to his ordinary known journey, and was not, for the sake of collecting or delivering letters, to lag behind or outstrip his cart or horse by more than eight hours. The reason for this last exception is not far to seek. The established posts were few in number, and even where they existed in name they had fallen into disuse. The common carriers had thus become the chief carriers of letters, and Witherings, in the furtherance of his project, was anxious to disarm their opposition. This he had already attempted to effect by argument; and now, as a practical step in the same direction, he procured their exemption from the State monopoly. But what may have appeared and was probably intended to appear as a valuable concession was really no concession at all. The carrier took eight days to go 120 miles. By the posts the same distance was to be accomplished in a day and a night. The carrier's charge for a letter from Cambridge to London, a distance of about sixty miles, was 2d. A postage of 2d., according to Witherings's plan, was to a carry a letter for eighty miles. If the posts were to be both faster and cheaper than the common known carrier, it might safely be predicted that as a carrier of letters he could not long survive.