[232] Freeling to postmaster general, August 11, 1823, with enclosures (_Can. Arch._, Br. P.O. Transcripts, III.). [233] Howe to Freeling, October 18, 1825 (_Can. Arch._, Br. P.O. Transcripts, II.). [234] _Quebec Almanac_, 1802, p. 71. [235] Capt. Im Thurm to Freeling, April 5, 1819 (_Can. Arch._, Br. P.O. Transcripts, III.). [236] Kempt to colonial office, March 26, 1821. [237] _Quebec Almanac_, 1802, p. 71. [238] _Can. Arch._, Br. P.O. Transcripts, III. [239] _Journals of Assembly_, Nova Scotia, 1830, p. 717. [240] Hay to Freeling, January 15, 1834, and accompanying papers (_Can. Arch._, Br. P.O. Transcripts, IV.). [241] _Journals of Assembly_, Nova Scotia, 1836, App. 73. [242] _Journals of Assembly_, Nova Scotia, 1839, App. 8. [243] Letters from Young and Huntingdon to Baring, June 21, 1839, and accompanying papers (_Can. Arch._, Br. P.O. Transcripts, VIII.) CHAPTER XI Continuance of agitation in the Canadas for control of the post office--Much information obtained by committees of legislatures--Difficulty in giving effect to reforms. The proposals of the British post office for removing the objections to the existing arrangements without endangering the efficiency of the colonial postal system had a very different reception in the assemblies of Upper and Lower Canada from that which they met with in the Maritime provinces. Owing to a general indisposition on the part of the legislatures of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to push their contentions to extremes, and doubtless also, to the fortunate relationship between the deputy postmaster general of the Maritime provinces and Joseph Howe, the leader of the reform party in Nova Scotia, the post office had been subject to no authoritative criticism in those provinces up to the time when the plans of the British post office were laid before the legislatures. In the Canadas the situation was exactly the reverse, as regards both the state of public feeling and the claims of the deputy postmaster general upon the forbearance of the assemblies. The discussion of political grievances was arousing in the popular party a bitterness which was fast carrying the agitation for remedies beyond constitutional bounds; and as for Stayner, he had quite alienated from himself the good will of the assemblies in Upper and Lower Canada, by his open identification of himself with the government party. When, therefore, the British proposals were laid before the assembly of Upper Canada by the lieutenant governor in 1835, they were rejected with the contemptuous observation that the provisions of the proposed bill were so absurd and inapplicable that no benefit could be expected from any attempt to amend them.[244]