But more than this. There were certain towns through which, though lying off the direct road, the mail-coaches passed for a consideration. Such towns were Hinckley in Leicestershire, Atherstone in Warwickshire, and Tamworth in Staffordshire. Here, in consideration of the accommodation afforded by the mail-coach passing through, the inhabitants undertook to pay in addition to all other postage 1d. on each letter. A day came when they sought to be relieved from this impost. Vain aspiration! Had they not agreed for a penny a letter? And, for any relief that the Post Office would give, a penny a letter they should pay to the end of time. It may safely be affirmed that at the present day no increase of postage would produce a corresponding increase of revenue. Such, unhappily, was not the case at the beginning of the century. People did not then write unless they had something to say which could not be left unsaid without loss or inconvenience. Trade, moreover, was rapidly expanding, and, as a consequence of the war, the ports were closed. Thus, correspondence was driven inland; and upon inland correspondence, unlike correspondence with foreign parts, the Government received the whole of the postage. But be the cause what it might, it must be owned that, in respect to the returns which they brought to the Exchequer, the three increases of postage made in 1797, 1801, and 1805 answered expectation. This, though not a justification, is perhaps their best excuse. In 1796, the year before the first of the three increases was made, the net Post Office revenue was £479,000; in 1806, the year after the last of them, it was £1,066,000. The same result is apparent in the case of what, for distinction's sake, we will still call the London penny post, although the London penny post had become a twopenny and threepenny one. In 1796 the net revenue derived from this source was £8000; in 1806 it was £41,000. Among those who about this time criticised the doings of the Post Office was William Cobbett. Cobbett was regarded by Freeling as a base calumniator with whom no terms were to be kept; and yet on a dispassionate retrospect it is impossible to deny that on the whole his criticisms were just, and that such of them as appeared in print[79] were expressed in not intemperate language. At the present time far stronger language is used every day under far less provocation. Of Cobbett's numerous subjects of complaint we will mention only two--the so-called "early delivery" of letters and the treatment of foreign newspapers; and these have been selected because they serve to illustrate, better perhaps than any others, the practice of the Post Office eighty or ninety years ago. The latter of the two subjects serves also to explain much that would otherwise be inexplicable. [79] _Weekly Political Register_, Nos. 25 and 26, 21st and 28th Dec. 1805.