In order to secure to Neale a monopoly of the postal business, the patent imposed a prohibition on any person except Neale from setting up post offices during the term of the patent, which was twenty-one years. Neale was held bound to provide an efficient service; in case of dissatisfaction, or of his failure to put the service in operation within two years, the patent was to become invalid. The consideration that Neale was to give for the patent was merely nominal; he was to remit six shillings and eightpence to the exchequer each year at the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel. Having secured his patent, Neale sought a suitable person to act as his deputy. His choice fell upon Andrew Hamilton, an Edinburgh merchant, who after seven years' residence in New Jersey, was made governor of that province in 1692. Hamilton was a man of energy and ability; and in the difficult task of conciliating sensitive legislatures, and bringing them into agreement with his views, he had much success. It was to him that the colonies were indebted for their first effective postal system. Neale's patent did not give him power to set up a postal service, and fix his charges without regard to the will of the people. He might either apply the rates fixed by the act of 1660; or come to terms with the people or their representatives as to the rates they would agree to pay. The latter was the alternative chosen. Accordingly, during the year 1693, Hamilton addressed himself to the several colonial governments, setting forth his plan, and begging that they might "ascertain and establish such rates and terms as should tend to quicker maintenance of mutual correspondence among the neighbouring colonies and plantations, and that trade and commerce might be better preserved." The colonies having responded favourably to his overtures, Hamilton prepared a draft bill, which he submitted to the legislatures for their acceptance. This bill provided for a general post office or chief letter office in the principal town of each colony, the postmaster of which was to be appointed by Hamilton. The monopoly conferred on Neale by his patent was enforced in the proposed bill by considerable penalties for infringements. The postal charges, as well as the privileges and appurtenances to be granted to post masters and mail couriers, were discussed between Hamilton and the several legislatures. There was some variety in the privileges allowed to postmasters and couriers. In Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut, the mail couriers were granted free ferriage over the rivers and other water courses which lay along their routes. In the acts passed by New York and New Hampshire, there was no mention of free ferries, but in each of these acts a rather peculiar exemption is made in favour of the postmasters, that they should not be subject to excise charges on the ale and other liquors which formed the stock in trade of their business as innkeepers.