The next county to which Bigg turned his attention was Lincolnshire. If Lancashire had bad posts, Lincolnshire had next to none. Five post towns were all of which Lincolnshire could boast--Stamford and Witham and Grantham, Lincoln and Boston; and of these only two were off the great north road which ran through the extreme west of the county. It is true that other towns received letters; but they received them only by virtue of a private arrangement, and heavily had they to pay for the luxury. From Lincoln, for instance, the postmaster went twice a week to Gainsborough and to Brigg, to Horncastle, Louth, and Grimsby, charging as his own perquisite on each letter he collected or delivered the sum of 3d. over and above the postage; but, so far as depended on any official post, these and all the intervening towns were absolutely cut off from the rest of the world.[15] Bigg procured a farm of the district in favour of his son, and the lease was signed on the 4th of August 1705. On the 1st of October in the same year posts began to run, and gratuities on the delivery of letters had become a thing of the past. One penny on each letter collected was the only charge that remained over and above the postage. [15] In the case of Grimsby it is the more surprising that this should have been so, because out of the only five towns in the kingdom which the Act of 1660 mentions by name Grimsby is one. According to this Act the post was to go there once a week. It would be less than justice not to recognise the important part which about this period the farmer played in the history of the Post Office; nor is it possible not to admire the sagacity of those who, when they found the posts to be slipping through their fingers, summoned this extraneous agency to their aid. It was no mere venture which by a happy accident happened to turn out well. The postmasters-general had foreseen and foretold exactly what would be the result--that under a system of farming the public would be better served, letters would become more numerous, and the revenue, when it should revert to the Crown at the termination of the lease, would be higher than when the lease began.