It is pleasant to remember that when, in after years, the postal reform, by its complete success, had proved the soundness of its author's reasoning, the Conservatives and “Peelites,” who of old had opposed the Penny Postage Bill, seemed sometimes to go out of their way to show him friendliness. One of the kindest of his old opponents was Disraeli—not yet Earl of Beaconsfield—who, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, invited the reformer to share his hospitality, and especially singled out the new guest for attention. The first Postmaster-General to invite Rowland Hill to his house was his second chief, the Tory Lord Hardwicke, who had also asked Colonel Maberly, but was careful to put the two men one at each end of the very long table. When, therefore, at last (in 1854) my father was given the post Colonel Maberly had so long filled, and became thenceforth known to the world as Secretary to the Post Office, it was with deep gratification that he recorded the fact in his diary that “all those to whom I had on this occasion to return official thanks had been members of the Government by which, twelve years before, I had been dismissed from office.[201] I could not but think that the kind and earnest manner in which these gentlemen now acted proceeded in some measure from a desire to compensate me for the injustice of their former leader; and this view made me even more grateful for their consideration.”[202] The old hostility between Colonel Maberly and Rowland Hill was scarcely likely to decrease while they remained, to use the sailor Postmaster-General's favourite expression, “two kings of Brentford.” Colonel Maberly had never been sparing of his blows during the long agitation over the postal reform previous to its establishment; and a dual authority is hardly calculated to transform opponents into allies. It was therefore fortunate that the peculiar arrangement, after enduring, with considerable discomfort, for seven and a half years, was brought to a close.