In 1775, Finlay proposed to introduce some system into the arrangements by having couriers from Quebec and Halifax meet at fort Howe for the exchange of despatches. While the war lasted, the arrangement was to be kept secret. In 1781, the merchants in London who traded to Quebec urged the adoption of this route for a regular winter service, but the danger of having the couriers intercepted by prowling parties of Americans on the long unprotected stretches made it impossible to have more than an occasional trip. The trips, also, cost at least L100 each, a not unimportant consideration in those days. Finlay's activity as deputy postmaster general was confined to the inland service in Canada, and he gave his attention to improving the conditions under which the service was performed. The state of the roads was a matter which occupied him considerably. They were probably, as Finlay reported, as bad as they could be. For many years before Canada passed into the possession of the British, the habitants were fully occupied with the war, and when peace was restored, the roads remained as the war had left them. Work on the roads was never willingly undertaken by the habitants. When Lanoullier constructed the great highway between Montreal and Quebec, it was only by his personal superintendence that he was able to keep the habitant to his task. As soon as his eye was withdrawn the work lagged. Lanoullier lived until 1751, and during the last few years of his service he failed to maintain the energy that had been an earlier characteristic; and after his death, the country was in a constant state of war, so that even if there had been an efficient grand voyer to succeed him, the general neglect into which the domestic affairs fell must have affected the condition of the roads. The procedure employed in calling upon the habitants to work upon the roads was that the grand voyer issued an order to the local captains of militia, who published the order to the habitants by notice at the church doors. The grand voyer complained to Finlay that it was impossible to induce the habitants to work upon the roads. When the order was read at the church, the habitants would dismiss the matter with a shrug, and the remark "c'est un ordre anglais." The consequence of this neglect was seen in the details of Finlay's reports[125] as he travelled from Quebec to Montreal. As he passes from post house to post house, his journals are a monotonous, though indignant, recital of ruts, bogs and rocks.