“Same day.—Wrote to Mr. Stephen thanking him for his kindness, which, from the very unreserved manner in which he spoke of the Government, I feel very strongly; but of course declining to apply to Government.”[337]
About three weeks later, Mr. Goulburn, in reply to an application made by Mr. Hutt, on behalf of Sir Thomas Wilde, for the production of my correspondence with the Treasury, refused to give more than a few letters, withholding those of chief importance;[338] and though, on being pressed, he somewhat enlarged the grant, it still remained very imperfect. Unsatisfactory, however, as was this concession, motion was made accordingly:—
“March 29th.—My correspondence with the Treasury. The printed copies were delivered this morning. By the omission of all the letters urging progress in the plan, Goulburn’s notice of dismissal is brought into juxtaposition with a minute of December 24th, 1841 (of which I never heard till now), confirming the extension of my engagement for one year from September 14th, 1841, and made to appear as the natural sequence of such minute, instead of being, as it was in fact, the answer to my complaints of no progress, and of Post Office interference to prevent my journey to Newcastle. The whole thing is cunningly done, and it shows that the five weeks taken to prepare the correspondence have not been lost. The case is so much damaged, however, that I have determined to give the papers a very limited circulation, and to press on Wilde to consent to the publication of the whole. Sir Robert Peel, in his letter[339] to me, admits that ‘important improvements’ still remain to be effected; but in the printed copy the word ‘important’ is dropped.”[340]
To my surprise, the strength of my case, grievously impaired as it was by this maiming of the correspondence, was nevertheless recognised in one of the journals regularly supporting the Government:—
“March 30th.—The Morning Herald gives the correspondence with Sir Robert Peel, and has a leader, sneering, of course, at penny postage, but expressing an opinion that I have been unjustly treated, and ought to have a place or a pension.”
This is the last entry in my Journal for the present. On the one hand, I became so engrossed in preparation for the coming conflict—a conflict which seemed to me as one almost of life and death—that I had no time to spare save for pressing demands; while, on the other hand, the motive to record was greatly weakened since my exclusion from the Treasury. For the history of the following three years and a-half, my dependence is on documents, parliamentary or otherwise, produced during the period (all of which I have carefully preserved), and on such recollections as are suggested by their perusal.
On April 10th a petition for inquiring into the state of the Post Office, prepared by myself and in my own name, was presented to the House of Commons by Mr. Baring; and on the following night Mr. Hawes gave notice that Sir Thomas Wilde would call the attention of the House to the same soon after the Easter holidays—a notice, however, which from various causes had to be repeated several times before being acted upon. Of this petition, which appears at length in the Report of the Committee,[341] I will merely mention here that, after reference to my appointment and subsequent dismissal, after statements as to the very incomplete introduction of my plan, evidence as to the hopelessness of its completion being effected by the Post Office, and representations as to the vast interests at stake, I concluded by expressing my desire “to submit the truth of the foregoing allegations to the severest scrutiny,” and by petitioning for the necessary inquiry.
This petition was presently backed by another from eight members[342] of the Mercantile Committee, so often mentioned before, in which, after briefly adverting to the beneficial effect of the improvement already made, the petitioners, expressing an earnest desire for the completion of the plan, prayed for inquiry with a view to that end.
I now felt that the time was come when my friends should be put in full possession of the facts of the case; and, consequently, having printed all of the correspondence which had been applied for in Parliament, that withheld as well as that granted, I sent copies, marked “strictly confidential,” to the members of the Mercantile Committee, and some others of my friends, prefacing it with an introduction, in which I justified the proceeding—first, by the declaration of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that his denial was made on the ground that the part which had been withheld was unnecessary, no allegation being made as to inconvenience to the public service, and, secondly, by the high authority which I had for saying that I had a right, looking to the nature of the correspondence itself, to official usage, and all other circumstances, to place the whole before the public. This step, taken on April 13th, was on the 19th condemned in the House of Commons by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Goulburn, but defended by the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Baring.
It was not until May 1st that I obtained a copy of the return upon which Sir Robert Peel, in the preceding November, based his injurious and erroneous statement that the inland post yielded but £100,000 a-year to the revenue. This return was now laid before Parliament on the motion of Sir George Clerk. In consequence I addressed a letter to the daily papers, in which I expressed myself as follows:—