The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the

42 LIFE OF SIR ROWLAND HILL. [1846
the I department, should doubtless be placed at the
head. As I still resisted, his urgency increased. He
warned me that, if I now declined, my plans might
remain for ever incomplete, for that no second oppor-
tunity was likely to be offered ;
and he concluded with
the words, " Let me implore you to accept it." To
such an exhortation from a kind and valued friend
I could not return an abrupt answer, and though
grievously disconcerted at what had occurred, I promised
to consider the matter.
Here, then, I found myself in a painful dilemma.
On the one side I was called on to accept a lower
position than before, and thus to maintain from inferior
ground a contest which had almost worn me out when
the ground was equal ; to consent to carry out my
plans, if at all, through wearisome controversy, over
factitious obstacles, and by reluctant hands ; perhaps
to break down in the trial, and thus leave my work
still undone. On the other hand, could I let slip this,
my sole chance, as it appeared, of at le'ast attempting
to complete the great task on which I had entered ?
Could I disappoint the friends who had striven so
earnestly on my behalf, and for the promotion of my
great object ? Could I forget the noble subscription
raised for me by the public, and seem to show, by my
acts, that I preferred emolument to achievement, or
doggedly stood out for unimportant distinctions of title
or ? position * The question was a very difficult one,
* Some months before his death Sir R. Hill sent to inform me of a circumstance
that had been lately brought back to his memory, but which he had
omitted, he said, to mention in the History of Penny Postage. At the time
when it was proposed that he should return to the Post Office with a lower
salary than Colonel Maberly's, and therefore in an inferior position, he himself
was unwilling to do so. He foresaw the troubles that would arise. On mentioning
this to some of his friends, he found that they considered that he was bound to
return to the Post Office work, having received, as it were, a retaining fee in the
public subscription. If it had not been for this he should, he said, have refused
the place. ED.