I then referred to the good effects of penny postage on the action of other countries; its adoption by the British Parliament having already led to reductions in Russia, Prussia, Austria, Spain, and the United States of America.
I continued as follows:—
“Before I conclude, I must request your kind indulgence while I lay before you a brief statement of the manner in which the establishment of penny postage has affected myself. It is notorious that a reformer must not expect a life of ease and comfort. Judging from my own experience, he must make up his mind to labour hard, to encounter much disappointment, and to have his motives and conduct misunderstood and misrepresented. Still, when I compare my own with the course of earlier reformers, I cannot but feel that, independent even of the munificent reward which your kindness has bestowed upon me, I have in many respects been most fortunate. Sir Samuel Romilly tried year after year in vain to effect so obvious an improvement as the abolition of capital punishment for privately stealing in a shop to the extent of five shillings. This attempt met with but little support from the people, while it was opposed by the Government of the day, by Lord Chancellor Eldon, and by Chief Justice Ellenborough. I, on the contrary, have seen my plan, however imperfectly, brought into practice; and none but those who have laboured long and anxiously to effect an important improvement can form any conception of the gratification which such a result brings with it. There was, however, one period of my course to which I cannot even now revert without pain. I allude to that period when, with my health impaired by six years of incessant labour and anxiety, I was dismissed from the Treasury, and left to seek afresh the means of supporting my family. I have on a former occasion expressed my thanks to Sir Robert Peel for the kind manner in which he has more than once been pleased to speak of my labours. I now thank him for the honour he has done me in contributing to the Testimonial; but had he yielded to my entreaties to be allowed, at any pecuniary sacrifice to myself, to work out my own plan—to prove that I had not misled the public as to its results, nor even adopted those sanguine views which in a projector might perhaps be forgiven, however erroneous;—had he done this, my gratitude would have been unbounded. But severe as was the disappointment which I felt, and still feel, at being unjustly deprived of all participation in the execution and completion of my own plan—in seeing it left in the hands of gentlemen who feel no interest in its success, and who, I must say, have evinced no peculiar aptitude either for comprehending its principles, or for devising and executing the necessary details—even at that moment of severe disappointment, I can truly say that I felt no regret at having embarked in the great work of Post Office improvement.”
I concluded thus:—
“I trust that you, as well as the thousands of my friends and benefactors who are not now present, will not judge of the strength of my feelings by the feebleness of their expression, but that you and all will believe that I, and every member of my family, feel truly grateful for the princely gift, and for the high honour which have been conferred upon us.”
[CHAPTER XV.]
APPOINTMENT TO POST OFFICE (1846).
Although I was confident that the return of the Liberals to power was but a question of time, it followed so rapidly upon the events already mentioned as almost to take me, and I suppose many others, by surprise. After holding office somewhat less than five years, Sir Robert Peel found himself without adequate support in the House which had raised him to power, and on the 29th of the month in which I received my testimonial he resigned.