The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the

1850] MR. COBDEN : MR. HUME. l6/
pay. On my brother's return, I learnt that, though
Mr. Cobden engaged to defend Government in the
House if attacked for allowing Colonel Maberly to
retire on full salary, he objected to give in writing a
guarantee
to be shown to the Postmaster-General,
unless Mr. Hume would move in the same direction.
At all events he advised that Mr. Hume should at
once be applied to,"" and thought Mr. Warburton the
best man to make this application. Mr. Warburton
preferred to do this by letter, and in the end decided
on merely suggesting to Mr. Hume that he should see
me on the subject.
When I saw Mr. Hume, he expressed concurrence
with Mr. Cobden, and undertook to write to him on
the subject, but wished to consult other members
before signing any paper to be used by Government.
He was exceedingly earnest in the matter, and reminded
me of a speech he made in 1846, urging on
the Whig Government, just then come into power, the
necessity for placing me in the Post Office.
Meanwhile I prepared for use in my expected interview
with the Chancellor of the Exchequer a statement
of improvements effected in the previous two years ;
a step the more needful, as it might well have been
supposed, seeing how much my attention was occupied
during the main part of this time with the agitation
respecting Sunday observance and with attempts to
rectify my own position, that the course of improvement
had been entirely suspended. Serious as was the
check from these causes, and particularly from the
former, which had involved me in a sort of life and
death struggle, there was quite enough to show that
* "December 2Oth. . . . Cobden advises that to prevent jealousy on
Hume's part he should at once be appealed to ; the fact of his, Cobden's, having
been consulted first being concealed ." Sir R. Hill's Journal. ED.