Of the three points to which mails were carried--Halifax, New York and Bermuda--the last named always held the position of advantage during the winter. Until the winter of 1826 the packet called first at Bermuda, leaving Canadian mails there, and continuing on to New York. At the beginning of the winter of 1826 a change was made.[183] The packet sailed to Bermuda, put off the United States mails there, and sailed northward to Halifax, omitting New York. The United States mails were conveyed by mail boat from Bermuda to Annapolis, Maryland. This scheme remedied none of the defects of its predecessor, and brought with it the additional disadvantage that it cut off all direct connection between the British minister at Washington, and the governors of the British colonies. The secretary of the post office in explaining the arrangements to the postmaster general washed his hands of all responsibility for them. He declared that the plan originated with the admiralty, and was sanctioned by the foreign and colonial secretaries as a practical measure. The postmaster general on reviewing the correspondence was not surprised at the general dissatisfaction, and was glad that the arrangements could not be laid at the door of the post office. The ocean mail service was beyond the control of the deputy postmaster general of Canada. The postal relations with the United States were not, and he exerted himself to improve these. A hardship under which Canadian merchants doing business with the United States laboured was that they had to pay the postage on all their letters as far as the United States border. It will be difficult to-day to see wherein the grievance of the early Canadian merchants lay. But at that time the postage was a considerable item in every transaction, and the merchant could not afford to disregard it. When he sold a bill of goods to a customer in the United States, he was obliged to throw on the customer the burden of the postage on the correspondence relating to the goods, and the only sure way of doing this was to post the letters unpaid, and leave the customer to pay the postage on the delivery of the letters. If he had to pay from eight to twenty cents which were required to take each single letter as far as the border, he was apt to lose this sum. To protect themselves the Canadian merchants used to employ private messengers to carry their letters as far as the nearest post office in the United States, and post them there. From this United States office the letters would go to their destination without pre-payment. Sutherland informed the postmaster general that some of the leading mercantile houses in Canada sent hundreds of letters into the United States by private hand.[184]