As part of the scheme of James II for the confederation of the New England States under a royal governor, a postmaster was appointed for the united colonies. The choice fell upon Edward Randolph, who had just previously been made secretary and registrar of the new province. The appointment was dated 23rd of November, 1685.[14] He seems to have discharged the duties of postmaster[15] until the fall of the Andros government, which followed closely the deposition of James II in 1689. Until this time, then, the post office would be classed generally among the merely temporary conveniences of the state, and not among its permanent institutions. When William III was settled on his throne, he managed, amid his cares at home and abroad, to give some attention to the affairs of the colonies. Those in North America had been growing rapidly, and at the end of the period of the revolution in England, the population is believed to have been about 200,000. The greater part of the increase was in the middle states of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania; though in the south, the colonies of Maryland and Virginia showed considerable gain, and a beginning was made in the settlement of the Carolinas. The question of providing the American colonies with a postal system was submitted to the king by Thomas Neale, Master of the Mint, who coupled his representations on the subject with a petition for authority to establish such a system in America at his own charges. He pointed out in his memorial that there had never been a post for the conveying of letters within or between Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New York, New England, East and West Jersey, Pennsylvania, and northward as far as the king's dominions reach in America; and that the want thereof had been a great hindrance to the trade of those parts. The king thereupon, on the 17th of February, 1691, granted a patent to Neale, conferring upon him authority to set up one or more post offices in each of the chief ports of the several islands, plantations and colonies in America, and to carry on all the functions of postmaster, either in person or by deputy. He might collect as his own, the postage accruing from the business, the rates being fixed by the English post office act of 1660; or he was at liberty to charge such other rates "as the planters and others will freely agree to give for their letters or packets upon the first settlement of such office or offices."