The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the

APPENDIX; A
[See p. 101.]
Letter to Postmaster-General Lord Clanricarde.
Hampstead, 3rd January, 1849.
Mv DEAR LORD, Referring to the various representations which
I have at different times taken the liberty of making to your
Lordship, relative to my position, and to the difficulties arising
out of it which still impede the course of improvement in the
Post Office, I find myself called upon by present circumstances to
request your kind attention to a review of the whole subject.
Your Lordship will remember that my present duties were
undertaken with great reluctance, because of the doubt I felt
whether in the position I was to occupy I should be able to
secure those great objects whose attainment would naturally be
expected of me, as well by the Government as the public, and that
one of the most weighty of the considerations influencing me to
accept the appointment, was the prospect which was held out of
such reorganization in the official arrangements of the Department,
as would at no distant time place in my hands such prompt and
direct means of acquiring information and exercising control as I
have always deemed necessary for the full realization of my plans.
These views, your Lordship will recollect, are fully set forth in my
letter to Mr. Hawes, of 23rd November, 1846.
I feel sure that your Lordship will bear witness to my having used,
to the best of my ability, all such authority as was placed in my
hands, and to my having made every possible effort to surmount or
avoid the obstacles incident to my present position.
It was with this view that I selected and submitted to your
Lordship those improvements which, from their comparative simplicity,
or from the concurrence of the practical officers in my
views, were most readily carried into effect, deferring others, either
in whole or in part, where the measures, however important and