Such was the testimony of the man who of all others was best qualified to appreciate the enterprise and skill with which the operations of the Post-Office were conducted in these troublous days. It may, no doubt, be true that the credit of this success is to be divided between the Post-Office and private persons; for the merchants, in their constant communications with the smugglers, doubtless entrusted to them a considerable number of letters which had not passed through the British Post-Office. When all deductions are made, however, one cannot fairly refuse to Mr. Freeling and his colleagues the praise due to success in a perilous and difficult undertaking. Circumstances which had already turned the peaceful officials of the Post-Office into arbiters of battles, had now made them smugglers, controllers of a series of operations as wild, as dangerous, and as picturesque as any which have been conducted within the limits of history. They took up their new parts with a happy adaptability, and played them with a degree of skill and resource which must always be remembered as constituting one of the greatest achievements in the past history of the Post-Office. When to this success is added the credit of having evolved out of the chaos of disorder and misrule which existed at Falmouth when he entered on office, a Service which could boast of such triumphs as those which have been described in this book, one is inclined to credit Mr. Freeling with capacities for administration which have not often been surpassed. Only once after 1803 did any Packet surrender to the enemy without a resistance which was obviously the utmost that she could offer. In that single instance a captain of old service and of honourable record, both won by himself and inherited from his father, was cashiered for cowardice in the face of the enemy. Such incidents will happen occasionally in every body of men trained to war; and, even if it could be proved that the officer was rightly punished, there would be no occasion to make much of a solitary exception. The justice of his treatment was, however, very strongly questioned; and as all, or nearly all, the official papers which contain the evidence have been lost, the facts can never now be fully stated. There was no other commander whose conduct was even, doubtful, and as report followed report, each bringing the news of some fresh feat of gallantry against great odds, the satisfaction and pride of My Lords and Mr. Freeling mounted very high.