The exchange of correspondence was slow and uncertain. The Cape Breton mails were exchanged by the Halifax packet, but it was usual for two months to elapse between the arrival of the letters from England and the first opportunity of replying to them. Half the delay, Ainslie thought, might be avoided, if the packets on their homeward voyages would lie off the harbour of Louisburg for an hour or two to enable a small boat to reach the packet. The commanders in port at Falmouth were consulted, and gave it as their opinion that the fogs and currents, which prevailed about Louisburg would make it inadvisable to attempt to land the mails there, and the proposition was rejected. In the winter of 1817, an overland communication was opened between Sydney and Halifax, an Indian carrying the mails between the two places once a month during the winter.[235] When the annexation of Cape Breton to Nova Scotia took place in 1820, the lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia, Sir James Kempt, managed to obtain a weekly mail between Sydney and Halifax.[236] The earliest period in which we find a postal service in operation in Prince Edward Island is 1801.[237] John Ross is mentioned as postmaster of the island in that year. He was succeeded by Benjamin Chappell, in whose hands and in those of his family, the postmastership remained for over forty years. The connections with the mainland and the mother country were maintained for some years by such vessels as happened to visit the island. The postal service of the island was within the jurisdiction of Nova Scotia. It was not, however, until 1816, that the deputy postmaster general made any mention of the island service in his reports to the general post office in London. Howe then informed the postmaster general[238] that when Lord Selkirk was in Nova Scotia some years before, that nobleman urged upon him the necessity of a courier service to Pictou, and thence to Prince Edward Island by packet. This service was established in 1816, and an arrangement was made with the island government, by which the postage was to be applied as far as it would go to maintain the packet and pay the postmaster's salary, and the government would make up the balance. There were no accounts between the island post office and the general post office. The postmaster simply presented to the deputy postmaster general periodical statements of the postages collected, and his expenses, together with a receipt for the deficiency which was paid by the government. This arrangement had the immense advantage that from the very first the island service was in the hands of the local government, which carried on the post office with no more than a formal reference to the general post office. The postage on a single letter from Charlottetown to Halifax was eightpence.