The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the

412
LIFE OF SIR ROWLAND HILL.
could be a man of business.* But before long his
force was squandered by Sir Robert Peel. For the
next four years his work lay outside the Post Office.
With the return of the Whigs to power, he was once
more brought back to the great work of his life. Un-
happily the squandering of force did not come to an
end. Seven years more had to pass before he was
made sole Secretary, and placed in a position of real
and undoubted power. For these seven years he
had been, to use his own words, "a general almost
without an army." For the next six years his work
went on smoothly and rapidly under a happy suc-
cession of able and high-minded Postmasters-General.
But a change came all too soon. In the Post Office
certainly he should have had no master over him
at any time. There even the ablest of our statesmen
" He is King of
might well have sat at his feet.
Postal Reform," wrote a Postmaster-General of a
later date, "and I felt myself a very small subject
in waiting upon him." But under the able chiefs
under whom he served from 1854
to 1860 he
worked with full contentment. This happy period
came to an end, as has been seen, with the appointment
of Lord Stanley of Alderley. His force was
once more, and for the last time, squandered.
How strangely and how sadly was this man thwarted
in the high aim of his life. He longed for power, but
it was for the power to carry through his great scheme.
For the mere shows the trappings of authority he
cared but little. Such outward things dwelt not in his
" "
desires. My plan was often on his lips, and ever in
his thoughts. His strong mind was made up that it
should succeed. He looked upon it with all the fond-
* See Vol. I., p. 438.