The king, in his instructions to Carleton[110] as governor, enjoined him to signify to the loyal merchants and planters the necessity for caution against allowing their letters to become the means of conveying information to the enemy, and directed him to use every possible effort to frustrate the schemes of the disloyal carried on through the medium of correspondence. The method employed by the governor to forestall danger from this source was the simple one of standing guard over the channel through which correspondence must ordinarily pass. In this way, he would discover many of the disaffected, and at the same time show such people the danger to them of being implicated in matters of that kind. To merchants, however, the governor's course was a great inconvenience. All their letters were delayed, and many not delivered at all, for the governor's staff had neither the training in post office work, nor the sense of the importance of mercantile correspondence necessary to assure the merchants of the safety of their letters, when these passed out of the accustomed courses. The merchants remonstrated against the governor's action, and called upon Finlay to assert the determination of the post office to secure respect for the act, which was being violated by the governor. Finlay was a man of tact, and a member of the governor's executive council as well, and he counselled patience to the merchants. They acquiesced for a time, hoping that the governor's surveillance over their correspondence would be relaxed, but the governor continued firm. Each season as the vessels began to come up the river, orders were issued for the renewal of the unpopular practice. What took place at Quebec was repeated at New York; and during the short period of the British occupation of Philadelphia, in that city, also. The postmaster of Philadelphia, who had retired to England when the British office was closed in 1775, returned on hearing that the city was again in the king's hands, but only to find that the letters were delivered to the commander-in-chief, who distributed them not only to the army and navy, but also to the merchants, and no steps were taken to collect the postage.[111] At that time, and indeed until a quite recent date, the postage on letters was not paid until the delivery of them was effected, and when, as during the war of the Revolution, the mails were diverted from their usual channel, the post office was unable to collect anything to meet the expenses it was incurring.