The period immediately following Palmer's retirement was one rather of honest endeavour than of solid achievement. The first and most pressing question to arise was that of insufficiency of accommodation at headquarters. The inland office, this being the office in which the mails were made up for despatch, was not only close and ill-ventilated, but altogether too small for its purpose. More post-towns were required in various parts of the kingdom; but it was impossible to add to the number of towns for which bags would have to be made up until more space should be provided. Some persons thought it would be best at once to take a step which in any case would probably have to be taken in the not remote future, and to build a new Post Office on other and more extensive premises. Such, however, was not the opinion of the postmasters-general. They were naturally unwilling to advocate the heavy expenditure which such a measure would involve except upon proof of its absolute necessity. Mainly on this ground, but also partly because premises in so central and convenient a position as those which the present Post Office occupied were not to be had, authority was sought and obtained for nothing more than the erection of a new inland office. But, as the postmasters-general found to their cost, it is one thing to obtain an authority and another thing to carry it into effect. On part of the ground on which the office was to be erected stood two houses, the lease of which had not long to run; and the Drapers' Company, to whom the property belonged, declined to extend the term. This difficulty was at length overcome, and the houses were in course of demolition, when projecting into the very centre of the space designed for the new office was found the wall of an old house belonging to Sir Charles Watson, and this house he refused to let the Post Office have unless it would also take seven other houses which he possessed in the immediate neighbourhood. At the present time houses in and about Abchurch Lane would probably fetch twenty-five years' purchase. Fifteen years' purchase was the sum then demanded, and it was considered a hard bargain. Eventually Watson consented to grant a ninety-nine years' lease; but it was a lease not only of the single house that the Post Office wanted, but of all eight houses, seven of which it did not want. What they called their mortifications and disappointments at an end, the postmasters-general proceeded to build. Still more unsatisfactory was the result of an attempt that was made or intended to be made about this time to improve the post with the Continent. Communication with France was only twice a week, and Walsingham desired to treble it. In France, as in England, the post went to the water's edge on six days of the week, and he could see no reason why, except on two days, it should stop there. He entertained a strong opinion that between the two countries communication should be daily.