| Gross product | Expenses | Net product | |
| 1765-69 | 17% increase | 22% decrease | 76% increase |
| 1770-74 | 11 " | 27 increase | unchanged |
| 1775-79 | 12 " | 30 " | " |
| 1780-84 | 19 " | 37 " | " |
| 1785-89[722] | 21 " | 21 decrease | 90% increase |
| 1790-94 | 24 " | 14 increase | 30% " |
The net product from both the Scotch and Irish Posts was remitted to England. These receipts did not amount to much as compared with those from the English Post. Earl Temple, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in writing to Grenville in 1784, said that the Irish post "had never paid £8000 a year clear of expenses."[723] In 1796, the gross product was £26,949 and the expenses of management £8718. Of the net product, £6651 were retained, being placed to the credit of Great Britain for returned and missent letters and for the £4000 which the Irish Post was entitled to receive in lieu of the receipts from the Holyhead packet boats. The remaining £11,579 were sent to the general Post Office. The Scotch Posts did considerably better. The gross product in 1796 was £69,338, the expenses of management £14,346, for returned letters £1206, and the net product sent to the General Office was £54,265.
The time had long since passed when the London-Dover road was the most important in the kingdom and when the receipts from foreign exceeded those from inland letters. As late as 1653, when contracts were called for from those wishing to farm the posts, the amount offered in one instance was almost as great for the foreign as for the inland post. The average annual gross product from the foreign post for the period 1785-89 was £61,431, the expenses £32,169 and the net product £29,262. For the period from 1790 to 1794 there was a small increase to £65,497 for gross product, £34,277 for expenses, and £31,200 for net product.[724]
The receipts from the London Penny Post were never an important factor in postal finance but it had always paid for itself and given a reasonable surplus. Its importance was due more to its social value in affording a cheaper letter rate and a speedier postal service than the General Post. The average yearly gross product from 1785-94 was £10,508, expenses £5177, and net product £5331. After Johnson had improved it so much, it produced a yearly average gross product from 1795 to 1797 of £26,283. Expenses averaged £18,960 and net product £7323.
In the seventeenth century the receipts from bye and cross post letters amounted to very little. So little was expected from them that no provision was made for checking the postage on them. It was taken for granted that all letters would pass to, from, or through London. In 1720 they brought in only £3700. Allen had done much to increase the revenue, but it was not until the last part of the eighteenth century that the increase was at all marked. From 1780 to 1784, the average annual gross product was £77,911, expenses £12,346 and net product £65,565. From 1785 to 1789, these had increased respectively to £104,817, £11,589, and £93,228, and from 1790 to 1794 to £140,974, £15,030, and £125,944. The small expense for these letters is explained by the fact that the separate department for bye and cross post letters was debited with only a portion of the total cost, the larger part being carried by the general establishment.[725]
The financial history of the Post Office from the beginning of the nineteenth century to 1838 is a rather depressing record.[726] From 1805 until 1820 both the gross and net receipts had increased steadily although not rapidly, but for the remainder of the period the revenue was practically stationary. During the five-year periods, 1820-24 and 1830-34, there had been a decrease in gross receipts, and during the latter of these periods the net receipts had been kept a little ahead of the five-year period 1815-19 only by a decrease in expenditure.
The annual gross receipts from Scotland had increased from £117,108 during the period 1800-04 to £204,481 during the period 1830-34, the annual net receipts for the same periods being £98,156 and £149,752. The relatively large increase in expenses from £18,952 to £54,729 had been due largely to the payment of mail coach tolls after 1814, amounting to something under £20,000 a year.[727] Ireland started with a smaller gross revenue, £92,745 a year during the period 1800-04, but a larger annual expenditure £64,368,[728] and comparatively small net receipts of £28,377. Gross receipts, expenses, and net receipts had increased slowly throughout the first thirty-four years of the nineteenth century with the exception of the period 1820-24. For the five years from 1830 to 1834 inclusive they amounted to £244,098, £108,898, and £135,200 respectively.[729]
The increases in rates in 1801, 1805, and 1812 had not produced the desired and expected results. The increase in 1801 had been estimated to produce £150,000 but results showed that this estimate was too large by £35,000. In 1805, the additional penny had resulted in an increase of only £136,000, inclusive of any natural increase of revenue, although it had been estimated to produce £230,000. The third increase in rates in 1812 proved even less productive. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that he expected it to produce £200,000. As a matter of fact the revenue increased only £77,892 in amount. The fact of the matter was that rates were already so high that an increase only led to greater efforts to evade the payment of postage. As a system of taxation the Post Office had become rigid. It could yield no more with postage as high as it had been forced by the acts of 1801 and 1805. But, considered primarily as a taxing medium, and it had been considered as such for 200 years, it could hardly be called a failure. We flatter ourselves that our idea of the Post Office is broader in its scope and more utilitarian in its object but we have the good fortune to live several generations after 1840. What England demanded was revenue and still more revenue, and a postal system which could produce £70 net for every £100 collected had some excuse for its existence.
Rowland Hill has pointed out that from 1815 to 1835 the population had increased from 19,552,000 to 25,605,000 while the net revenue from the Post Office had remained practically stationary. He said nothing, however, about the industrial depression of the country during that period nor of the political and economic crisis through which England was passing. He referred to the great increase in the postal revenue of the United States during the same period; on the one hand, a nation with immense natural resources and a population doubling itself every generation, and on the other hand, a people inhabiting two small islands, making heroic efforts to recover from a most burdensome war.