Goddard was not ill-fitted to take the lead in the agitation against the post office. He was the son of the postmaster of New London, and had been himself for two years postmaster of Providence, and in this way was quite familiar with the details of work in a post office. Moreover, during his residence in Providence, and afterwards in Philadelphia and Baltimore, he was constantly engaged in newspaper enterprises. As Goddard's schemes were, for the most part, unsuccessful, his wits never lost the edge that adversity usually gives. His grievance was that the post office charged rates so excessive on the newspapers he wished to circulate that he was unable to send them to his readers throughout the colonies. What measure of truth there was in Goddard's statements we have no means of ascertaining. But there was no doubt that the charge might be true, without the post office exceeding its legal rights. The fact was that newspapers had no special legal standing under the post office act. That act was passed in 1710, when newsletters in manuscript were in service and newspapers were too few and unimportant to engage the attention of the post office or of parliament at the time the law was being framed. Consequently no express provision was made for them in the act. If newspapers were to be carried by the post office under the authority of the act, it could only be by treating them as letters, and a glance at the scale of charges will show the impossibility of newspapers bearing so burdensome a tax. The newspapers of that day were inconsiderable in size compared with those that are now published, but few even at that time would weigh less than an ounce, and an ounce letter passing between New York and Philadelphia called for a postal charge of three shillings or seventy-two cents. This sum was the lowest charge in the scale for ounce letters passing between any two places of importance in America. Clearly newspapers could not circulate by means of the post office if they were to be regarded as letters. But as they were not mentioned in the act, newspapers had at least the advantage of not being subject to the postmaster general's monopoly. Publishers were free to turn to account any means of conveyance that happened to be available, for the distribution of their newspapers. Unfortunately, however, this freedom was of little benefit at that period, as there were no courier services regularly operating between the towns in America. There was nothing for it but for publishers to take advantage of the postal system if this were at all possible, and the possibility appeared through one of those curious devices, which are the derision of logical foreigners, but which afford a means of escape from the inconveniences of a law, which it is not desired to alter at the time.