“‘I have, &c.,
“‘Rowland Hill.’”
This must have been one of Mr. Baring’s latest official acts, as the formal resignation of Ministers took place on the following day; and though I had subsequently, and, indeed, to the end of his life, much pleasant intercourse with him, our official relations here terminated. Of the important aid which he afterwards gave me much remains to be said; but I will here so far anticipate as to mention an incident which occurred twenty-two years after this time. Soon after my final retirement from the Post Office, happening to be at Brighton, I met Sir Francis Baring—for he had then succeeded to the Baronetcy—and presently received a call from him. In conversation with my wife he remarked that oftentimes, when he worked with me at the Treasury, he had disagreed with me in opinion, but had always found afterwards that he was in the wrong and I was in the right. Upon Lady Hill’s observing that she had been taught by her husband to believe all Sir Francis Baring’s decisions right, he replied, with a laugh, “Well, then, now you have the very best authority for believing them wrong.”
Three days after the date of Mr. Baring’s letter he left Downing Street for the continent. About eleven o’clock the same day Mr. Goulburn entered on the business of his office. Twenty-seven years before this time, when Bonaparte abdicated the throne of France and withdrew to Elba, a caricature was said to be privately circulated in Paris, representing an eagle flying out from a window in the Tuileries, while a fat goose waddled in at the door. Perhaps the reader who has followed me through my labours and anxieties, who has sympathized in my disappointments and rejoiced in my success, and who remembers in addition, that I had been all my life a Liberal, and was by no means free from the prejudices of my party, will pardon me when I confess that my mind, at this crisis, harboured a feeling too much resembling the scorn and bitterness which prompted the French caricature.
Yet had I, amidst all my troubles, some aids to complacency. Of the approbation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer I have already spoken, and certainly this was my greatest comfort. The following tokens, however, had their value. On the 8th of April, I received a very beautiful silver salver from Liverpool, accompanied with a letter from Mr. Egerton Smith, Editor of the Liverpool Mercury, the leading journal of that town, a gentleman who had from the first been an earnest supporter of Penny Postage, and who remained its steady advocate to the end of his life. The letter informed me that the salver had been purchased with the pence contributed by thousands of his fellow-townsmen, and that Mr. Mayer, in whose works the plate had been produced, and by whom it was delivered into my hands, had waived all considerations of profit, and worked con amore. On July 2nd I received from Glasgow two highly-wrought silver wine-coolers, bearing an inscription stating that it was “in testimony of gratitude,” from a few gentlemen of that city. I may here mention that two years later I received a very pleasing testimonial from Cupar, Fife, consisting of the works of Sir Walter Scott, including the Memoir by Lockhart,—ninety-eight volumes in all.
CHAPTER X.
NEW MASTERS. (1841-2.)
On the day when Mr. Goulburn entered on the duties of his office I wrote a note to him, enclosing Mr. Baring’s letter, and requesting an interview at his convenience. Meanwhile circumstances occurred to raise my hopes:—