If the comparison be carried forward instead of backward, and the rates of 1660 be contrasted with those of later years, there is an important consideration which cannot be too carefully borne in mind. It is this, that in 1660 cross posts did not exist. Between two towns not being on the same post road, however near the towns might be, letters could circulate only through London; and the moment London was reached an additional rate was imposed. Hence the apparent charges, the charges as deduced from the table of rates, might be very different from the actual charges. Bristol and Exeter, for instance, are less than eighty miles apart; but in 1660 and for nearly forty years afterwards letters from one to the other passed through London, and would be charged, if single, not 2d. but 6d., and if double, not 4d. but 1s. That is to say, the postage[7] or portage, as it was then called, would consist of two rates, and each of these rates would be for a distance in excess of eighty miles. David Hume, writing more than a hundred years later, observes that before 1657 letters paid only about half as much postage as they did in his own time. This, no doubt, is true if rate be compared with rate according to the distance; but the fact we have mentioned very materially qualifies the force of the remark. [7] The term "postage," in the sense of a charge upon a letter, is comparatively modern. The Act of 1764 is the first so to use it. The term is indeed used in the Act of 1660, but there it signifies the hire of a horse for travelling. "Each horse's hire or postage." On foreign letters the rates ranged from 4d., the lowest rate for a single letter, to 2s., the highest rate for a double letter, and from 1s. 6d. to 4s. an ounce for letters of greater bulk. No provision was made for any charge except on letters from Europe. Letters came indeed from other parts; but as the Post Office did not bring them and paid nothing for their carriage, no postage was demanded. From India, for instance, a letter brought to England and posted there would pay only the home postage. For post-horses the charge was fixed at 3d. a mile for each horse, besides 4d. to the guide of every stage. Two concessions were made to the public. Horses were no longer to be seized without the consent of the owners; and a traveller if kept waiting half an hour without being supplied might hire a horse wherever he could. That the seizure of horses had been a source of intense annoyance seems beyond question. In a Proclamation of 1603, as a reason for helping the postmasters to keep horses in sufficient number for the service of the posts, the townships are reminded of "the ease and quiet they reape thereby"; and long after the immunity from seizure had been granted, the allusions to the former practice leave no room for doubt that, though the sore was healed, the recollection of it still rankled.