It is doubtful if anything but incessant struggles, the single-handed upholding of forlorn hopes, the fighting of battles with no other ammunition than irrefutable fact, and finally, the frequent victory over overwhelming difficulties, could have fitted Fawcett for the great task which lay before him. No easier life could have given him the instinctive grip of the essential, the sympathy which reads men truly, and the eagerness to serve the least of them which fitted this blind man to take efficient command of an army of over 90,000 people, to inspire them with an _esprit de corps_ which they had heretofore lacked, and incidentally to fill them with a sense of gratitude, loyalty and affection to their chief. This is what Fawcett did with the Post Office department of England. The General Election of 1880 returned the Liberals into power, with Gladstone once more at their head. Fawcett’s prominence before the public had grown so steadily and surely, and his attack on the last Government had been so strong, that he was widely accepted as a probable member of the new Government. [Sidenote: The Importance of a Fish.] He ran down to Cambridge just before he received his appointment. All who knew him there were on the _qui vive_, eagerly awaiting the good tidings which they expected any minute. A friend called, in the hope of gathering news. Fawcett greeted him cordially, and went on to ask, ‘Have you seen that fish I caught yesterday?’ Characteristic this, to discuss fish, not politics, at the crisis of his career. Mr. Gladstone offered the Postmaster-Generalship to Fawcett in April 1880. The following letter was written to his parents the day after: [Sidenote: Queen Victoria interested.] ‘My dear Father and Mother,—You will I know all be delighted to hear that last night I received a most kind letter from Gladstone offering me the Postmaster-Generalship. It is the office which Lord Hartington held when Gladstone was last in power. I shall be a Privy Councillor, but shall not have a seat in the Cabinet. I believe there was some difficulty raised about my having to confide Cabinet secrets; apparently because of the dependence on others for handling correspondence. This objection, I think, time will remove. I did not telegraph to you the appointment at first because Gladstone did not wish it to be known until it was formally confirmed by the Queen; but he told me in my interview with him this morning that he was quite sure that the Queen took a kindly interest in my appointment.’ He adds that Mr. Gladstone said ‘that he has given me the appointment in order that I might have time to speak in Indian and other debates.’ He goes on to make some arrangements for fishing at Salisbury.