When Mr Gladstone was Chancellor of the Exchequer, my father often worked with him, their relations being most harmonious. Shortly before the postal reformer's resignation, the great statesman wrote that “he stands pre-eminent and alone among all the members of the Civil Service as a benefactor to the nation.” At another time Mr Gladstone assured his friend that “the support you have had from me has been the very best that I could give, but had it been much better and more effective, it would not have been equal to your deserts and claims.” And at a later season, when Rowland Hill was suffering from an especially virulent outbreak of the misrepresentation and petty insults which fall to the lot of all fearlessly honest, job-detesting men, the sympathising Chancellor wrote: “If you are at present under odium for the gallant stand you make on behalf of the public interests, at a period, too, when chivalry of that sort by no means 'pays,' I believe that I have, and I hope still to have, the honour of sharing it with you.”[229] Writing soon after my father's death, the then leader of the Opposition used words which Rowland Hill's descendants have always prized. “In some respects his lot was one peculiarly happy even as among public benefactors, for his great plan ran like wildfire through the civilised world; and never, perhaps, was a local invention (for such it was) and improvement applied in the lifetime of its author to the advantage of such vast multitudes of his fellow-creatures.” Ten years later, the same kindly critic, in the course of a speech delivered at Saltney in October 1889, said: ”In the days of my youth a labouring man, the father of a family, was practically prohibited from corresponding with the members of his household who might be away. By the skill and courage and genius of Sir Rowland Hill, correspondence is now within reach of all, and the circulation of intelligence is greatly facilitated.”[230]