My friends, both in and out of the press, who have been puzzled at the silence of many of the London papers on this subject, will now be in a position to form some conclusion as to the cause of this silence. What has been sent to the Messrs. Black and to the Commissioners of City Sewers, may have been sent to the London papers; indeed, I have been given to understand has been generally circulated in these quarters, already compromised in their expressed opinions, and so in no way disposed to entertain fresh views.[20] My opponents, some of them in high position, others themselves connected with the press, are desirous, and naturally so, that public attention should not be drawn to my statements.[21] In this way, crushed beneath the weight of a hitherto great name, statements have been disregarded which, when read and investigated as in the case of the "Encyclopædia Britannica," have been found substantiated.
I ask my supporters and others, therefore, to read and judge for themselves. Whether the London papers, hitherto silent, seeing the important recognition my claim has now met with, and the fresh and conclusive evidence now disclosed from the papers of Sir Henry Cole, will also now read and admit some discussion of this matter of public interest in their columns, remains to be seen. In any case, an enduring record of my father's share in the great postal reform of 1837-40 is secured. A work of the highest standing, and a reference to which is the first act of historical writers, has recorded James Chalmers as having been the originator of that adhesive postage stamp which saved the reformed scheme. Moreover, in lands beyond the sea, an interest is taken in this subject wholly unknown here; individuals and learned societies collect for their own information, and hand down for future perusal, everything published on the great Penny Postage reform, and in some of these quarters amazement is expressed at the single-hero-worship which prevails in this country with respect to a subject which investigation shows to have been the offspring of many minds, the result of the labours of not a few zealous but unassuming men.
The services of Sir Rowland Hill, already cordially recognised in my pamphlets, it would be superfluous again to dwell upon here. And if, while cordially pointing out these great services, it has also fallen to my lot to put a fresh and less favourable aspect upon their nature and extent than hitherto understood, to bring to light his great failing of assuming or allowing to be assumed as conceptions of his own what were only acquired ideas, of omitting to notice what it was not convenient to notice, let it be remembered that such has been forced upon me as a necessity solely in the pursuit of what is now declared to have been a just claim. At one period, indeed, I had withdrawn from the whole matter, until recalled to it by Mr. Pearson Hill himself in a published statement to which I was challenged to reply. My replies, under ever-increasing and conclusive evidence, have now been put forward. Should the result not have proved such as the best friends of Sir Rowland Hill could have desired, upon his own son, and not upon me, rests the responsibility. It is enough for me that my father's memory as the originator and inventor of the adhesive postage stamp has been successfully vindicated.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] "Patrick Chalmers, Sir Rowland Hill, and James Chalmers, Inventor of the Adhesive Stamp (London, 1882), passim." See also the same writer's pamphlet, entitled "The Position of Sir Rowland Hill made plain (1882)," and his "The Adhesive Stamp; a Fresh Chapter in the History of Post-Office Reform (1881)." Compare Mr. Pearson Hill's tract, "A Paper on Postage Stamps," in reply to Mr. Chalmers, reprinted from the "Philatelic Record," of November, 1881. Mr. Hill has therein shown conclusively the priority of publication by Sir Rowland Hill. He has also given proof of Mr. James Chalmers' express acknowledgment of that priority. But he has not weakened the evidence of the priority of invention by Mr. Chalmers.
[This admission on the part of Mr. Chalmers, obtained through an obscuring and consequent misapprehension of the facts, was, of course, wholly invalid. Even if valid, it will be seen at page 44 that such priority of publication of an idea "suggested from without" was of no practical consequence.—P.C.]
[12] "Ninth Report of Commissioners of Post-Office Inquiry, 1837," pp. 32, 33, reprinted in Sir R. Hill's "History of Penny Postage" ("Life," &c., ii. 270).
[13] [That Mr. Chalmers had not made an earlier offer of his stamp officially is accounted for by the proposals of 1834 with respect to a penny postage on newspapers, in place of an impressed stamp of fourpence on the sheet, having come to nothing.—P.C.]
[14] I.e., by prohibiting the prepayment of letters in money.
[15] "Ninth Report," as above.