Although Stayner's friends were in control of both legislative chambers in Upper Canada, his peace of mind on that account was not of long duration. In April 1837, both houses passed a franking act, under which the members were authorized to send their letters free, during the sittings of the legislature. This act, as Stayner pointed out to the postmaster general, subverted the imperial acts, upon which the existence of the post office depended, and he was placed in a very awkward situation. Stayner, according to his letter to the postmaster general, had either to violate the instructions from St. Martins-le-Grand or to bring himself into collision with both the legislature and the executive. This act appeared to Stayner to be a fresh illustration of the unfitness of local legislatures to deal with an institution like the post office. If part of the revenues could be withheld, as would be the case where members did not pay their postage, any of the legislatures might, by passing an act for the purpose, oblige him to pay into the local treasury the whole of the revenue which came into his hands, or it might in any other way supersede the laws of the British parliament. The bill had received the assent of the governor. Constitutionally it had thereby become an act. But on Stayner's remonstrance the governor admitted to the colonial office that he should not have given his sanction to it. The act was disallowed by the home government. The question of franking the correspondence of the provincial governments and of the members of the legislatures was one upon which the legislatures in the several provinces had particularly strong convictions. For a considerable period before 1837, the legislatures of Upper and Lower Canada had not paid their accounts for postage. The account against Upper Canada, which amounted to L1629, was paid in the beginning of 1837; while the account against Lower Canada was not paid until after the dissolution of the last assembly at the time of the rebellion. It amounted to L4043. The governor general, Gosford, in reporting the payment of the account of Lower Canada, suggested to the colonial secretary that the sum might be remitted as an act of grace on the part of the imperial government, and he urged that if the home government should not feel warranted in making this concession in its entirety, the correspondence of the governor general and his civil secretary, which embraced all the executive business of the province, might be exempt from postage charges. Gosford's suggestions were in harmony with the whole character of his administration. Indeed his persistence in his policy of conciliation brought down upon him the distrust of the ultra-Loyalists.