The committee found it impracticable to call the postmasters of the more distant offices, but having regard to all the circumstances, they were satisfied that there was remitted each year to the deputy postmaster general at Quebec an amount exceeding L2500, of which perhaps ten per cent. or eleven per cent. was foreign postage collected in Canada, and, therefore, due to Great Britain or the United States. Next the committee addressed themselves to the question as to how this surplus was disposed of, which, after deducting the amount owing to the other postal administrations was probably more than L2000. Allan believed, though he was unable to give it as a fact, that the money was passed over to London. What was beyond doubt, however, was that this revenue in no way inured to the benefit of Upper Canada. Assuming, as the committee felt they might safely do, that the surplus from Canada was made part of the revenue of the general post office in London, the committee then sought to ascertain how the revenue of the general post office was dealt with, and whether any part of it was employed for the benefit of the colonies. The post office acts of 1710[197] and 1801[198] made this point clear. It appeared that after certain deductions had been made for pensions, the revenue of the post office was applied in various specified ways to the service of Great Britain, the postal rates being avowedly levied for raising the necessary supplies, and for making a permanent addition to the public revenue. The committee could find no instance in which any part of the post office revenues was devoted to the use of the colonies. Taking it, then, as established that a sum exceeding L2000 was raised each year in Upper Canada as profit from its post office, and that this sum was applied, not for the benefit of Upper Canada, but for the purposes of the public service in Great Britain, the committee next turned its attention to the laws bearing on the situation. There was an act passed in 1778[199] in the hope of staying the rising rebellion in the American colonies entitled "an act for removing all doubts and apprehensions concerning taxation by the parliament of Great Britain in any of the colonies and plantations in North America and the West Indies." It declared that the king and parliament would not impose any duty, tax or assessment whatever, payable in any of the colonies in North America or the West Indies, except any such duties as it might be expedient to impose for the regulation of commerce.