Of the extent to which the penny post was used at this period we are not, so far as the suburbs are concerned, without some means of judging. According to the original plan, which had been adhered to in its integrity, one penny was to carry a letter within such parts of London as lay within the bills of mortality. Beyond these limits one penny more was charged; and this penny, which was technically called the second or deliver penny, constituted the messengers' remuneration. As this soon proved to be more than enough for its purpose, the messengers were put on fixed wages, and the second pennies were carried to the credit of the Post Office. Of the amounts derived from this source during the sixteen years from 1686 to 1702 a record is still extant. The lowest amount for any one year was £310, and the highest £377, the average being £336. It would hence appear that for such parts of London as lay outside the bills of mortality, for what in fact were at that time the suburbs, the number of letters at the end of the seventeenth century was about 80,640 a year, or, counting 306 working days to the year, about 263 a day. On one point the postmasters-general were determined, that the penny post office should not be let out to farm. All overtures to this effect they resolutely declined. The penny post and the general post had become so interwoven, and, outside London, so short a distance separated the limits within which the one ceased and the other began to operate, that it was considered of the highest importance, both on the score of convenience and as a protection against fraud, that the two posts should not be under different management. The same considerations were not held to apply to Dublin. In Dublin, rapidly as that city was now growing in size[19] and population, a penny post, it was thought, could not possibly answer. Yet in 1703 a spirited lady sought permission to set one up. This was Elizabeth, Countess-Dowager of Thanet. A desire to supplement a jointure, originally slender and now reduced by the taxation consequent on the war, was the simple reason assigned for the enterprise, and yet with the highest professions of public spirit it might have been difficult to render to the community a more signal service. The Duke of Ormonde, who was then Lord Lieutenant, approved the proposal, and the postmasters-general had made preparations for carrying it into effect. The new post was to extend for ten or twelve miles in and around Dublin; no receiving office was to be within two miles of the first stage of the general post; the lease was to be for fourteen years; and one-tenth part of the clear profits was to go to the Crown. At the last moment, however, the Treasury withheld their assent, and for no less than seventy years from this time Dublin remained without a penny post.