[171] And a hasty hand, too, for in those days of manual labour there was a keen race among the stampers as to who, in a given time, should make the greatest number of obliterations. The man whose record stood habitually highest was usually called on to exhibit his prowess to visitors who were being escorted over the Department. [172] Rowland Hill's Journal, 9th November 1840. [173] “Life,” i. 399-407. CHAPTER VII AT THE POST OFFICE As the evident weakening of Peel's Government became more marked, the thoughts of the man who had been sacrificed to official intrigues, and unto whom it was, as he pathetically writes, “grief and bitterness to be so long kept aloof from my true work,” turned longingly towards the Post Office and to his insecurely established and only partially developed plan. With a change of Ministry, better things must surely come. His hopes were realised. In 1846 the Peel Administration fell, and Lord John (afterwards Earl) Russell became Prime Minister. The public voice, clearly echoed in the Press, demanded Rowland Hill's recall to office, there to complete his reform.[174] One of the first intimations he received of his probable restoration was a letter from Mr Warburton advising him to be “within call if wanted.” A discussion had risen overnight in Parliament. Mr Duncombe had complained of the management of the Post Office, and so had Mr Parker, the Secretary to the Treasury. The new Postmaster-General, Lord Clanricarde, it was reported, had found “the whole establishment in a most unsatisfactory condition”; and the new Prime Minister himself was “by no means satisfied with the state of the Post Office,” and did not “think the plans of reform instituted by Mr Hill had been sufficiently carried out.” Messrs Hume and Warburton urged Mr Hill's recall.[175] Several of the good friends who had worked so well for the reform both within and without Parliament also approached the new Government, which, indeed, was not slow to act; and my father entered, not, as before, the Treasury, but his fitter field of work—the Post Office. The whirligig of time was indeed bringing in his revenges. An entire decade had elapsed since the reformer, then hopeful and enthusiastic, inwardly digested the cabful of volumes sent him by Mr Wallace, and dictated to Mrs Hill the pages of “Post Office Reform.” He had at the time been denied admission to the Post Office when seeking for information as to the working of the old system he was destined to destroy. He now found himself installed within the official precincts, and in something resembling authority there.