“I remain, &c., &c.,
“Rowland Hill.
“P.S.— . . . November 24th.—I have kept back my letter in order that I may show it to Mr. Warburton, who authorizes me to say that he approves it.”
Two days afterwards I received a letter from the Postmaster-General, requesting that I would call upon him on the following Saturday. Having meantime inquired of Mr. Warburton whether there were any further information which he thought it important for me to receive before this interview, I had a letter from him, in which he mentioned that he had told Lord Clanricarde of my acceptance of the offer made by Government, accompanying his announcement with the remark that those whom I had consulted had been in doubt as to the advice they should give, fearing that Colonel Maberly would be able to thwart me in my exertions. Mr. Warburton’s letter then proceeded as follows:—
“That the objections had been overcome by the promises of support which had been given both by his lordship and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and by the assurance of the latter that, if you proved yourself an able administrator, you were to look forward to promotion.”
A few days later, having in the meantime called on the Postmaster-General, I received my formal appointment. As I had again cast in my lot with the Post Office, I withdrew, of course, from my previous employments, resigning all my directorships, already three in number.
I was now in my fifty-second year, and in the tenth from that in which I first took Post Office reform seriously into my thoughts. I need not say that the interval had been a period of very hard work, that a decade in my life was in every sense gone; in short, that I was already somewhat old for the heavy work of reform that still lay before me.
[CHAPTER XVI.]
JOINT SECRETARYSHIP. (1846-1848.)