As the arrangements for printing the stamps advanced, it became apparent that it would be necessary to appoint some well-qualified person to superintend the process, manage the machinery, &c. My thoughts turned to my brother Edwin;[292] and my recommendation being favourably received, and the consequent inquiries being answered as satisfactorily as I was well assured they must be, the Chancellor of the Exchequer informed me, about a fortnight later, that he had made the appointment. The salary he mentioned was £500 or £600 a-year; but, at my brother’s wish, I informed him that the smaller sum would be preferred, provided that the sacrifice might avail to secure him efficient assistance; an arrangement to which the Chancellor readily consented.[293] This appointment promised no small relief to me; as hitherto much of the time urgently demanded for more important business had been necessarily given to merely mechanical arrangements, since I could not and did not find in uninterested persons those zealous efforts and that watchful care which were essential to combined rapidity and security.
FAC-SIMILE OF THE MULREADY ENVELOPE.
Much, however, still, and indeed for a long time afterwards, inevitably devolved upon me, which would be commonly supposed to be altogether out of my range. Naturally I was regarded by everybody as responsible for an innovation made on my advice. It would be beyond measure tedious to describe or even enumerate, the efforts and precautions for which I was called upon to give efficiency to the operation of my plan, and at the same time secure it against that various trickery to which innovation necessarily opens the door. Of course, too, each novelty in proceeding was admitted with more or less difficulty. Thus, for instance, though it was obviously desirable that the paper to be used as covers should, before issuing, be cut into the proper shape (machine-made envelopes were not yet thought of), yet that preliminary was objected to, because of the additional trouble it would give, not only in cutting, but also in counting. It really cost me a considerable portion of three several days, to say nothing of some trial of temper, to carry the point.
Towards the end of the following month (April) Mulready’s design, together with the stamps intended for Post Office use, was formally approved. Of this design I may remark, that though it brought so much ridicule[294] on the artist and his employers, yet it was regarded very favourably, before issuing, by the Royal Academicians, to whom it was presented when they assembled in council. Neither is the discrepancy hard to explain, since that which is really beautiful so often wearies by endless repetition.[295] I will mention here that the public rejection of the Mulready envelope was so complete as to necessitate the destruction of nearly all the vast number prepared for issue. It is a curious fact that a machine had to be constructed for the purpose; the attempt to do the work by fire in close stoves (fear of robbery forbade the use of open ones) having absolutely failed.
Of course my watch on the number of letters was unceasing, the result being very variable; sometimes encouraging, and sometimes so unsatisfactory as to cause me no small uneasiness; a feeling not much soothed by information that the plan, as I was informed in confidence by Mr. Gordon (Secretary to the Treasury), was already pronounced at the Post Office a total failure.
On March 12th the first parliamentary return on the subject was obtained; when it appeared that the increase in the number of chargeable letters was somewhat less than two and a quarter-fold. Certainly I had expected more, and was obliged, in my disappointment, to fall back on my general confidence in the soundness of my views, deriving, however, some encouragement from finding that the average postage, instead of being only 1¼d., as I had calculated, proved to be nearly 1½d.; a difference which, however trifling in appearance, would, when multiplied, as it already had to be, by a hundred and fifty millions, tell sensibly in the result. This, also, enabled me to correct my calculation as to the increase in the number of letters necessary to sustain the gross revenue; which I now reduced from five-fold to four and three-quarters-fold; a reduction fully justified eleven years later by the result.[296]
A Treasury Minute of April 22nd appointed the 6th of the following month as the day when prepayment by stamps should begin; the alternative of prepayment in money being left for the present, so as to allow time for the public to fall quietly into the new practice. Mr. Baring, indeed, having but little faith in the expected preference of the public for stamps, offered to promote their use by making them the only means of prepayment; but, independently of my confidence in their acceptability, I preferred that the two modes, money and stamps, should contend for public favour on equal terms.
A difficulty, however, arose here, for which I was quite unprepared, and which may still excite wonder. Objection was raised in the department to the sale of stamps at the three Chief Offices, viz., of London, Dublin, and Edinburgh. I can only suppose that official dignity was touched, the feeling excited being such as might arise on board a man-of-war at a proposal to intrude bales of merchandise on “Her Majesty’s Quarter-deck.”