civ ( Ireland.) SUPPLEMENT to the Ninth Report of the [ Poft- Office.] 1809, this Clerk returned his circulation for that year to be 20 quires 7 fheets; whereas by the Accounts produced to us in which his payments to Printers for that year are ftated, his circulation muft have been 24 quires 21 fheets, being a ihort return of 4 quires 14 fheets, which at 13s. 6\ d. per Paper, the average rate of his profits amounts to j£. 77. 3. 9. we propofe that he fhould be now chargeable with this fum. With refpeft to the Clerk of the Munfter Road, the amount of his adual profits Appendix( B) N° i6. has exceeded their computed amount in the feven years ending 5th January 1809, by£. 380. 19. 10 j. but on the principles aboveftated, we do not confider him now chargeable on that account. In the firft five years, however, it appears that the former exceeded the latter by only a fum of j£. 43. but in two of thefe five years the a6tual profit was lefs than the computed profit by 164. The great dis- proportion, however, between their refpeftive amount in the laft two years, the Appendix ( B) N° 2. Clerk confiders to be owing to his Correfpondents having been more regular in paying their fubfcriptions in advance, and in renewing them after they had expired, fo that the loffes confequent upon his continuing as was his practice to furnilh Newspapers to Subfcribers, after the time for which they had been ordered was elapled, and whofe fubfcriptions were not renewed, were diminilhed. This Clerk ftates, that not keeping Accounts of the produce of his Road by way of Dr and Cr he was not fenfible of their variation, and it indeed appears that during the whole of the period the fums which he entered in his books, as received from his Correfpondents, were not even totted, they afford, however, fome proof of the uncertainty and flu6luation to which the income arifing from the exercife of this privilege is fubjeft, and the advantage to the Public of having a rate of profit fixed and afcertained beyond which it fhould not be chargeable. We have already ppen ix ( B) N° i5. ftated the error committed by this Clerk, in returning the number of Papers cir- culated in his Road on the average of the three years ending 5th January 1801, making up the Accounts therefore, after correction of this error, as they fhould have been returned in the feven years ending 5th January 1809, for the purpofe Appendix ( B) N° if. of claiming compenfation, it will appear that this Clerk is now indebted to the Public in a fum of £. 336. 9. 11. Such has been the refult of our enquiries into this fubject, which fhould have been fubmitted, as we had intended, at an earlier period, had we not been prevented by other matters of greater public concern, from yielding to it that portion of time and attention, which from its complication and obfcurity it unavoidably required. It is to be regretted that an inveftigation, fuch as we have bellowed on it, did not precede the removal of the perfons accufed from their fituations ; for although we muft. cenfure the loofe manner in which they afcertained their yearly circula- tion of Papers, and have pointed out the inftances in which the public interefts were affected thereby, yet there do not appear to us grounds for attaching to their conduct a charge of fraud: we are confequently of opinion, that their former unimpeached characters and length of fervices, fhould have induced, for an irregu- larity fuch as we have defcribed, a milder courfe than difmiftal from office. At the fame time we confider it incumbent on us to declare, that we are con- vinced the Poftmafters General a& ed from a laudable and anxious zeal for the public fervice, and under impreflions of guilt, which we are by no means furprized were, on the firft impulfe, excited by the representation of their Secretary; but which, if our conclufions are juftly formed, a more deliberate examination into the circumftances of the cafe would have removed. J. S. ROCHFORT, ( l. S.) FRED. GEALE, ( L. s.) ROBERT ALEXANDER, ( l. S.) CHA. STEWART HAWTHORNE, ( L. S.) JOHN HAMILTON. ( l. S.) Office of Enquiry, Dominick Street, Dublin, 18th May 1810.