The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the

1844-6] THE ANTI-CORN LAW LEAGUE. 31
It would be ungrateful to omit mention here of
some indications of public satisfaction besides those
of a pecuniary nature. Thus, I received the ******
following
interesting letter from Mr. Cobden :
"MY DEAR SIR,
"Manchester, 3Oth May, 1846.
" The League will be virtually dissolved by the passing of Peel's
measure. I shall feel like an emancipated negro having fulfilled
my seven years' apprenticeship to an agitation which has known no
respite. I feel that you have done not a little to strike the fetters
from my limbs, for without the penny postage we might have had
more years of agitation and anxiety.
"
Believe me, faithfully yours,
" "
ROWLAND HILL, RICHARD Esq."
COBDEN.
Probably Mr. Cobden, in this letter, referred merely
to the great facility given by cheap postage for the
transmission and circulation
played
of those papers which
so material a part in the Anti-Corn Law
agitation ; but it seems not unlikely that other assistance
may have been afforded to his great improvement
by the success, so far as then ascertained, of my
measure, as a bold reduction of taxation a change
much more sudden and decided than had ever before
taken place in our fiscal system.
safe in assuming that this success has acted as an
I believe I am
encouragement to the many adventurous changes in
taxation which have followed one another in rapid
succession even to the present time.
Among the many minor evidences to the benefit
derived from cheap postage, the following little circumstance
was not the least pleasing. The late
Mr. Tremenheere told me that a servant-boy in his
father's house in London, learning
that his mother in
Somersetshire was dangerously ill, wrote home for a
daily bulletin, which he duly received until the danger
was over, eagerly rushing every morning to the door