In America as in England, from the first erection of the posts, the correspondence went on steadily increasing year after year. Thus, in the first year beginning the 1st of May 1693 the "New York Post" produced £61; in the second, £82; in the third, £93; and in the fourth year, ending the 1st of May 1697, it produced £122. The same progress is to be seen in what were called the "Boston, Road Island, Connecticut and Piscataway Posts." In the first two years beginning also in May 1693 these produced £296 or at the rate of £148 a year; in the third year they produced £227; and in the fourth, £298. The returns of the Philadelphia post also kept improving; but here Hamilton encountered difficulties of management, as will be seen by his own entries:-- By the produce of the Philadelphia post from the 22nd of August 1693 to the 23rd of April 1694, at which time I was forced to change the Postmaster £10 9 6 By the produce of the same post from the 23rd of April 1694 to the 13th of February 1697, at which time I was forced to change the Postmaster again 105 3 7 The Virginia and Maryland posts were the single exception. Of these Hamilton records "The Virginia and Maryland posts never yielded anything, but cost Mr. Neale near £600." However much these posts might be improved, he dared not reckon upon the correspondence exceeding one hundred letters a year. There is only one more entry which we will quote from Hamilton's account. It is this:-- By cash which the Postmaster of New York gathered up upon the road in Connecticut for letters £6 16 0 Promising as the prospect was on the whole, Neale's receipts from the posts fell far short of his expenses in erecting and maintaining them. His expenses up to May 1697 were £3817, and his receipts £1457, leaving him not only out of pocket to the amount of £2360, but with his means and his credit exhausted. It was admitted on all hands that the posts must before long become self-supporting, even if they should not prove remunerative. But meanwhile how were they to be carried on? Hamilton had his own plan to propose. This was first that within America the postage rates should be raised, and "that the post and his horse should go fferry-free"; and second, that between England and America rates should be settled, and that shipmasters should be required on the other as on this side of the Atlantic to take their letters at once to the Post Office of the port at which they first touched, and hand them to the postmaster, receiving as remuneration one penny a letter. For inland letters the increased rates which Hamilton proposed were as follows, all but the first two entries being in his own words:-- Pence.