“It is to be hoped that our Queen will be solicited to cast such men out from her councils and executive; they are the men who endanger the State; for, most assuredly as there is a God who taketh vengeance, so will this realm be visited if the sins of it should be so enormously added unto; and the Lord’s people (who are the saving salt of it) will be constrained to say. ‘Even so, Lord, so let Thine enemies perish.’
“Fellow Christians of every denomination! continue to pray for the oppressed, they shall have a holy fortitude themselves to cast from them the bands of the oppressor.
“6, Finsbury Pavement,
“Friday, 26th October, 1849.”
As usual, in these exhortations to bold defiance, the printer’s name was cautiously suppressed.
While so much was doing to abuse the public mind, official reserve prevented my taking the most direct means for its correction:—
“Same day.—The Postmaster-General objects to my sending the proposed information to the newspapers; he thinks it will be better to wait and see what they say, contradicting it if necessary. I cannot convince him of the practical impossibility of correcting an erroneous impression when once adopted by the public.”
After all that has been described, the reader will not be surprised at the next passage from my Journal. I must first state, however, that ere this the time for hesitation was past, the labour of preparation concluded, and the day of actual trial come:—
“October 28th.—Sunday.—Very ill—confined to my bed nearly the whole day. I have no doubt my illness has been caused by the anxieties of the last month.”
Ill though I was, nevertheless I was eagerly desirous of information as to the success of the first experiment, particularly as to whether the force engaged had proved, as I expected, ample. I had ascertained the previous day “that no more carriages, drivers, guards, &c., would be employed in conveying the bags from and to the stations than heretofore on a Sunday; the only difference will be that four-wheeled carriages with two horses will be substituted for two-wheeled carriages with one horse.” Mr. Bokenham wrote up from the office that the work not having been quite completed by ten o’clock, though twenty minutes more would have sufficed, he had requested ten of the force to return in the evening to finish; a necessity arising, however, from the fact that the number of letters was 18,000 or 20,000 more than usual on the Sunday. He added, that, “the men were all in excellent humour, and exerted themselves to their utmost.”