e had become part of a political matter of the first
magnitude, the provincial Legislatures alleged that the surplus amounted
to a very considerable sum each year, and that the circumstances
constituted a taxation of the colonies by the Mother Country; but the
Deputy Postmaster-General asserted that this surplus was in fact
composed of revenues to which the colonies had no claim, viz. the
charges for British packet postage, that is, for transmission of letters
across the ocean, and payments in respect of military postage, and that
in point of fact the local service had never yielded a surplus--that,
indeed, there was probably a deficit.

"This I feel myself bound to state as my firm conviction, that neither
for the last ten years, nor for any previous period, has the postage of
Lower Canada afforded one farthing of Net Revenue."--Mr. T. A. Stayner,
Deputy Postmaster-General (_Report of Special Committee of the House of
Assembly on the Post Office Department in the Province of Lower Canada_,
11th February 1832, p. 12).

[110] See, e.g., _Report of Special Committee, House of Assembly, Lower
Canada_, 8th March 1836.

[111] In 1790 Governor Carleton of New Brunswick manned the posts at St.
John, Cumberland, Preguile, and Fredericton with a troop of soldiers, by
which means "the route was kept in good order"; and in 1794 the Duke of
Kent, then Commander-in-Chief of the forces in Nova Scotia, constructed
a military post road from Halifax to Annapolis, and also other roads in
the vicinity of Halifax.--_British America_ (British Empire Series, vol.
iii., London, 1900), p. 121.

[112] _Vide_ p. 41, note, _supra._

[113] 31 Geo. III, cap. 31.

[114] 18 Geo. III, cap. 12.

[115] Will. IV, cap. 7.

[116] _Report of Special Committee, House of Assembly, Lower Canada_,
8th March 1836.

[117] Ibid., _Legislative Council, Lower Canada_, 15th March 1836. Cf.
_Report of Select Committee, Legislative Council, Upper Canada_, 17th
February 1837.

[118] "We have failed to discover reasonable grounds for hoping that the
several Colonial Legislatures will soon (if indeed they ever will)
arrive at such uniformity in their enactments for the management of the
Post Office within their respective localities as would ensure the
establishment of a practicable system, more especially since it is
admitted that the Bill of one Legislature, in order to become effective,
must correspond in all its material provisions with the Bills of all t