The receipt of this first remittance was the occasion of much satisfaction to the postmasters general. For a generation the post office in America had been nearly forgotten. Since 1721, it had cost the home office nothing for its maintenance, and for long before that time it had yielded nothing to the treasury, and so it had been allowed to plod along unregarded. A remittance from this source was quite unexpected, and one can imagine the pleasure with which the entry was made in the treasury book, and the words added "this is the first remittance ever made of its kind."[47] But though the first, it was by no means the last; for until Franklin's dismissal in 1774, a remittance from the American post office was an annual occurrence. Franklin declared that, at the time of his dismissal, the American office yielded a revenue three times that from Ireland.[48] The success of the post office under Franklin's regime suggests the question, as to the share Franklin had in that success. During the whole course of his administration, he had with him an associate deputy postmaster general, William Hunter, from 1753 until 1761, and John Foxcroft, from 1761 until his connection with the post office ceased. Little is known of the capacity of either of these officials; of Hunter, practically nothing. Foxcroft was certainly a man of intelligence, but nothing is known to warrant the belief that he possessed unusual qualities. That the routine of post office management was left in the hands of the associates, may be inferred not so much from the multifarious character of Franklin's activities, for he seems to have been equal to any demands made upon him, as from the fact that out of the twenty-one years of his administration, fifteen years were spent in England as the representative of the province of Pennsylvania in its negotiations with the home government. That Franklin's occupations in England did not absorb all his time is amply proven by his voluminous correspondence which shows him to have been engaged in abstruse speculations in science, and in economic and philosophic studies. But to administer an institution like the post office one must be on the spot, and the Atlantic ocean lay between him and his work from May 1757, until November 1762, and from November 1764, until his dismissal in 1774. Franklin was in America while the measures were taken which put the post office on an efficient footing, and again in 1763, when the treaty of Paris confirmed England in her possession of Canada. Franklin's contribution to the North American post office consisted mainly, it would seem, in certain important ideas, the application of which turned a half century of failure into an immediate success. It is a commonplace that money spent in increased facilities to the public is sure of a speedy return with interest, and in private enterprises competition keeps this principle in fairly active employment.