The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the

1 64 LIFE OF SIR ROWLAND HILL. [1850
for a week, and once for more than a month. My com-
plaint was a tendency of blood to the head. It has
always been my opinion that at this time were sown the
seeds of the disorder which, subsequently aggravated
by other painful circumstances, later on compelled me
finally to withdraw from duty at a period when other-
wise there would have remained to me, to the best of
my belief, several years of useful service. Indeed I
should have been forced to retire much earlier had it
not been for the subsequent appointment of my brother
Frederic as assistant-secretary.
Being, however, again pressed repeatedly to under-
take duties I beyond my power, at length resolved to
make another effort to obtain what I knew to be the
me a fair chance of
only change that could give
retaining my health, and at the same time of success-
fully performing the important
duties for which I was
the reforms which I
responsible, or even of completing
had held up to public expectation fourteen years before.
Again, therefore, I sought the aid of my ever-zealous
friend, Mr. Warburton ; zealous, indeed, he must have
been, or long ere this he would have been tired of my
claims, and even of the public
were based.
interest on which they
In a letter which I wrote to him (Appendix G), I
pointed out that four years had elapsed
since the
promise of speedy promotion was made, and two years
since I first claimed its performance ; and that though
no objection was raised to the justice of my claim, no
steps had been taken towards its practical acknowledgment.
I showed the utter insufficiency of my present
staff for the enormous amount of work now devolving
upon me, and the impracticability of giving me an
adequate force without either making me Chief Secretary
or incurring an unwarrantable expense of several