The postmasters-general were indeed heavily handicapped. Even with a free hand their position would have been one of great embarrassment. But bound hand and foot as they were, what could they do? They did what was perhaps the very best thing that could have been done in the circumstances. They grouped large numbers of post offices together and let them out to farm. These groups, or branches as they were called, spread over a wide area. The Buckingham branch, for instance, not only included the county of Bucks but extended as far as Warwick. The Hungerford branch comprised sixteen post offices in the counties of Berks, Wilts, and Somerset. The Chichester branch covered a large part of Surrey as well as Sussex; and the six remaining branches, for eventually there were nine altogether, were equally extensive. This, though by no means a perfect remedy for the existing evils, went far to mitigate them. The farmer, of course, could not alter the rates of postage; but with this single exception he was free from the restraints which hampered the postmasters-general. Within the area over which his farm extended he had only to consult his own interests; and, happily, his own interests and the interests of the public were identical. He improved and extended the posts, because to improve and extend the posts added to the number of letters and made his farm more profitable. He stopped the practice of levying gratuities on the delivery of letters, because this practice, by adding to the cost of the post, and so deterring persons from using it, diminished his own receipts. For the same reason he took good care that no agent of his own should omit to account for bye-letters, and, if other than his own agents continued to send letters by irregular means, that it should not be for want of facilities which he could himself supply. To this community of interest as between himself and the public may be ascribed the exceptional feelings with which, at the close of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries, the Post Office farmer was regarded. The very name of farmer in connection with other branches of the revenue had become a by-word for all that was rapacious and extortionate. Only recently the farmer of the customs and the farmer of the hearth money had been stamped out as moral pests. The Post Office farmer, on the contrary, was welcomed wherever he came as a public benefactor. In his case outrages and exactions such as had disgraced the others were impossible. Before he could collect a single penny he had a service to perform; and according as this service was performed well or ill, he repelled or attracted custom.