The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the

220 LIFE OF SIR ROWLAND HILL. [1853
In this letter I repeated the request so often made
at an earlier period, that until the only effectual change
could be made I might at least have such support to
my authority as would arise from my being placed on
perfect equality in all respects with my colleague, * and
further have definitely assigned to me such departments
of the secretarial duty as his lordship might
judge proper, together with a transfer to my authority
of the corresponding portions of the secretarial staff.
An alternative expedient which I suggested was that
I should suspend my present duties, and employ the
interval in personally inspecting the postal arrangements
of foreign countries, and in negotiating, under
his lordship's instructions, such changes as might
appear best calculated to facilitate our foreign postal
communications.
Three days later I spoke again to the Postmaster-
General, pointing out that, by the death of Sir F. Adam,
there was a vacant colonelcy.
He was aware of the
fact, but thought he could not move in the matter.
In this posture of affairs, having first arranged with
Mr. Hodgson for a letter to the Postmaster-General,
which the latter had expressed his willingness to
receive, I left town for a holiday, and passed a
month in Scotland.
" October ijth. The Postmaster-General came to the office for
* "As this arrangement involves an immediate addition of ^500 a-year to my
salary, I may, perhaps, be allowed to remind your Lordship that emolument,
simply as such, is not, and, indeed, never has been, my object ; but I have had
bitter experience of the truth of the remarks lately made in Parliament by Lord
Palmerston to the effect that every man's salary is really taken as the index of his
position and authority.
"As, however, the necessity for such stamp of my official rank will be greatly
diminished whenever I become sole Secretary, I shall then readily submit to a
modification in the scale of remuneration attached to the office, should your
Lordship and the Treasury see fit to make any such change." Mr. Rowland Hill
to Lord Canning. August i6th, 1853. ED.