The evasion of the postmaster general's monopoly also was too common to excite particular remark. It was beyond doubt a breach of the law, but that it was wrong was a proposition to which few even good citizens gave assent, at least by their practice. Thomas Hancock made a merit of his saving the colony of Connecticut from thirty to forty shillings a year through the interest he had with certain captains, which enabled him to secure the colonial letters, as they came over in the ships, and thus prevent their passing through the post office. In England, also, the practice was wellnigh universal. The increased rates imposed by the act of 1710 gave an immense impetus to clandestine traffic. Every pedlar and driver of public coaches lent himself to the profitable business of carrying letters for a few halfpence a letter. In London an effort was made to stop the practice by having officials of the post office frequent the roads leading into the city, for the purpose of searching the vehicles of those who had made themselves objects of suspicion. It is interesting to note that the work for which the post office surveyors or inspectors were first appointed was to detain the mail couriers in the course of travel, and check the contents of the mail bags, and thus prevent postmasters from becoming parties, as they too frequently were, to frauds on the revenue, to their own great advantage. As late as 1837, when Rowland Hill[84] laid his penny postage scheme before a public which was impatient for its adoption, Richard Cobden declared to a committee appointed to report on the scheme, that five-sixths of the letters passing between Manchester and London were conveyed by private hand. This state of things continued until the postage rates were brought down to a point, at which the service offered by the post office was cheaper as well as better than any other. The only certain means by which a government monopoly in a free country can maintain its position is to outbid its rivals. There is no safe dependence to be placed in legal process. In ordinary times, then, the evasion of the exclusive privilege of the postmaster general by any community would deserve no more than passing mention. It is as part of a general boycott of the government that the action of the Americans is worthy of note. From the time of the passage of the stamp act in 1765, the attitude of the colonies towards all schemes in which taxation by Parliament could be detected was one of resistance active or passive. When this act went into operation, the Americans bound themselves to import nothing from England, a self-imposed obligation which in the undeveloped state of their manufactures entailed much inconvenience and even distress.