As, in justice, the inland colonies were chargeable with the major part of the outlay for the Pictou service, and the maintenance of Halifax post office should properly be defrayed from the packet postage, the legislature declined to meet the demand made upon it by the post office. The lieutenant governor was in full sympathy with the legislature, and after fortifying himself with the opinions of his law officers as to the legal aspects of the case, appealed to the governor general to induce the Canadian government to take on themselves the proper share of the charge. The Canadian government for the reasons given could not see the propriety of their taking on themselves any part of the expense of conveying mails to their outport at Quebec, and the British government were powerless to bring pressure on the Canadians, since the treasury was in receipt annually of large remittances from Stayner as surplus post office revenues, which the British government, by their act of 1834, admitted to belong to the colonies, and which only awaited colonial legislation to be handed over to the several legislatures. The treasury was willing also as a measure of grace to allow the colonial legislatures to retain the part of the packet postage collected in the colonies, if they would only adopt the scheme involved in the act of 1834. But it was not prepared to admit that any part of the packet was, as a matter of right, chargeable with the maintenance of the post office at Halifax or of the Pictou coach service, and as it was becoming plain that the scheme of making Halifax the distributing centre for the Canadas, was not proving the success they hoped for, they determined to inquire as to the feasibility of having a port in the United States utilized in the exchange between Canada and Great Britain. To that end, an official of the British post office, W. J. Page, was sent to Nova Scotia to investigate this subject, and at the same time to make a thorough inquiry into the condition of the Nova Scotia post office, which had been animadverted upon rather severely by the royal commission, in its report of 1841. By means of Page's reports and of the report of this commission, we are enabled to give a clear account of the Nova Scotia post office in the beginning of the forties. There were eighteen post offices in the province at this period, and fifty-one sub-offices. The mails were carried on the route from Halifax to Pictou and St. John three times a week in summer and twice a week in winter. From Pictou the mails were carried to Antigonishe twice a week, and with the same frequency from Halifax to Annapolis. Mails were carried in all directions throughout the province, but, with the exceptions mentioned, only once a week.