A Letter on the Late Post Office Agitation

Transcribed from the 1849 John Murray edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
CHARLES JOHN VAUGHAN, D.D.
HEAD MASTER OF HARROW SCHOOL, AND LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET: CROSSLEY, HARROW.
MDCCCXLIX.
LONDON: PRINTED BY W. NICOL, SHAKSPEARE PRESS, PALL MALL.
My Dear Sir,
We have been lately invited to sign a parochial remonstrance against some projected changes in the business of the London Post Office. I, for one, declined the invitation. I never thought of obtruding upon others my reasons for this refusal. I am not the Minister of the Parish; nor have my opinions, therefore, on such a subject, any particular claim on the attention of my neighbours.
You know the circumstance which now compels me to explain myself. I regret the necessity. But neither I, nor those who have agreed with me on this occasion, can listen in silence to the imputation of being indifferent to the national observance of the Sunday. If I can show you that we are not justly liable to this suspicion, it is well worth while to do so. If I fail to convince you, I shall at least have entered a serious protest, for myself and them, against such an imputation.
I have thoroughly examined the original minute (submitted by Mr. Rowland Hill to the Post Master General in February last) which formed the basis of the late alteration in the Sunday duties of the Post Office. I could wish that that minute had been more generally studied by those who have pronounced a judgment upon the question. It is open to your inspection: you may form, therefore, your own opinion upon the justice of the following observations.
Ought not these considerations to preclude at least a precipitate sentence of condemnation? May we not be permitted to learn the object of a measure from its author? Are we justified in imputing to any man, I do not say, motives which he disavows, but motives of which he professes the very opposite, and against which his own previous and subsequent acts obviously militate?