The terms of this memorial were entirely in accord with Stayner's views as to the proper settlement of this long standing difficulty, and he urged the postmaster general to do what was possible to give effect to the petition. He pointed out that, with Mackenzie and Papineau out of the country, and fugitives from justice, there was no further disposition on the part of the legislatures to wrest from the imperial post office the control of the postal systems in the provinces, and that the appropriation of the surplus revenues to provincial purposes removed the only valid argument against existing arrangements. The postmaster general, however, was not to be moved from the position he had taken. He replied to the address stating that no disposition could be made of the surplus post office revenues, until the several colonial governments had come to an agreement on the subject. FOOTNOTES: [244] Seventh report of the committee on grievances (_Journals of Assembly_, 1835, App. 21). [245] Second report of a committee of the house of assembly of Lower Canada, 1835-1836. [246] This gentleman was afterwards the editor of the monumental _Documentary History of New York_. [247] 4, Geo. III. C. 24. [248] Glenelg to Head, December 5, 1835. [249] _Journals of Assembly_, Upper Canada, 1836, p. 320, and Appendix, No. 52, to these _Journals_. [250] Freeling to postmaster general, March 28, 1836 (_Can. Arch._, Br. P.O. Transcripts, VII.). [251] June 6, 1836 (_Can. Arch._, Br. P.O. Transcripts, VI.). [252] _Journals of Assembly_, 1837, p. 580. CHAPTER XII Durham's report on the post office--Effects of rebellion of 1837 on the service--Ocean steamships to carry the mails--The Cunard contract--Reduction of Transatlantic postage. The long controversy which had agitated the legislatures of the provinces was approaching its end. The decision on the constitutional point was given in their favour, though they did not know it; but the specific thing for which they had contended, they were constrained to relinquish. The Upper Canada legislature which had commenced the agitation, and elaborated the argument against the constitutional standing of the British post office in the colonies, had become convinced that the provincial system, which they demanded, was not in the interest of either the mother country or the colonies. They therefore asked the British government to put the stamp of legality on the existing system, by suitable legislation in the imperial parliament. But the argument of Upper Canada had done its work too well, and it became the turn of the British government to employ it, to show the impossibility of meeting the desires of Upper Canada. The difficulty now, however, was not one of principle, but of ways and means.