disposal of Parliament for the use of the public; but
although the gross revenue had exceeded that sum, there was no surplus
for the use of the public, the explanation being that the sum mentioned
in the Act, viz. [L]111,461, was the amount of gross revenue, which could
only serve as a basis provided the cost of management remained
stationary. As a matter of fact, the cost so greatly increased that the
net revenue was not sufficient to provide the sum of [L]700 a week and
also a revenue equal to that obtained before 1711. As Mr. Joyce has
pointed out, the Treasury had confounded gross and net revenue.[46]

The essentially fiscal character of the rates of 1711 is evidenced by a
provision of the Act that from and after the 1st June 1743 the rates
charged under the previous Acts were to be restored.[47] But after 1743,
although they were without legal sanction, the rates of 1711 continued
in operation, and by an Act of 1763 they were made perpetual.[48]

The fifty years following the Act of the 9th of Anne were
uneventful.[49] The chief development was in connection with the cross
posts; a development which, although not having direct reference to the
question of the rates of postage, was yet of importance. At the
commencement of the eighteenth century the main system of the Post
Office still centred on London. All the main post routes radiated from
London, and the great bulk of the letters passing by post were either
for or from London, or passed through London. But there were, of course,
numbers of letters which were not sent to London at all: letters between
two towns on a post road, or letters between towns on different post
roads, which could be sent direct and not by way of London. These
letters were known as bye letters and cross post letters.[50] Since they
were not handled in London, the authorities had not the same means of
checking their numbers, and the postmasters' accounts of postage in
respect of them, as could be applied in London, and grave irregularities
arose. The revenue was continually defrauded by the failure of the
postmasters to bring to account the postage on such letters. No record
was made in respect of many of them, and their transmission became so
notoriously unsafe that illicit means of conveyance were constantly
resorted to. The matter was already so serious that a special clause was
included in the Act of the 9th of Anne, providing that for the
suppression of the abuse any postmaster found g