As each paper was under this ruling chargeable with the rate which was due on four letters, it may well be imagined that no publisher would offer to pay the post office for the distribution of his papers by that means. On these conditions, the postage on each copy sent from Montreal to any of the post offices on the island of Montreal, to St. Johns or to the nearer settlements in Upper Canada would be thirty-two cents. Each copy sent to Three Rivers or to any points between sixty and one hundred miles from Montreal would cost the subscribers forty-eight cents. It is needless to pursue the charges into districts where the copies were sent over one hundred miles. Freeling went on to explain that, as the post office act had no provision for the conveyance of newspapers, the postmaster general, in order to accommodate the publishers permitted the deputy postmaster general to make private arrangements with them for the transmission of their newspapers. By ancient and authorized custom, the deputy postmaster general was allowed to treat the receipts from this source as his own perquisite. This information with the comments thereon greatly enlivened many issues of the _Gazette_. Freeling was denounced as a sinecurist, who permitted impositions in the colonies which he dared not make at home. Armour announced that he would carry the matter into the legislature, and, if necessary, into the courts. He had no desire to escape the payment of postage. All he demanded was the establishment of an equitable rate, placed on a legal basis. His idea was that the postmasters who handled the newspapers should be paid from five to ten per cent. of their cost. The rates charged by Stayner amounted to from twenty to twenty-five per cent. of the subscription price. Armour would resist Stayner's claim to be a sleeping partner in his business, who, contributing neither capital nor talent, dictated what his share of the revenue should be. Armour could write well, and his onslaught caused Stayner much uneasiness. In a letter to the postmaster general[215] he attributed it to some neglect or indignity, which Armour fancied he suffered at the hands of a former deputy postmaster general, while, he stated, other newspapers were recognizing with gratitude Stayner's efforts to satisfy the reasonable demands of the public.