The great O'Connell gave to the postal reform the aid of his powerful influence both within and without Parliament. He was a friend of Matthew Davenport Hill, and at an early stage of the agitation assured my uncle of his hearty appreciation of the plan. O'Connell himself would have proposed the Parliamentary Committee on Postage, of which, as we have seen, one of his sons was made a member, had not Mr Wallace already taken the initiative; and, later, when the Bill was before the House, four of the O'Connells, headed by their chieftain, went into the “Ayes” lobby, together with other members from the Green Isle. The proposed reform naturally and strongly appealed to the sympathies of the inhabitants of the poorer of the two islands. In May 1839, on the occasion of a public deputation to the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, to urge adoption of the reform, O'Connell spoke in moving terms of its necessity. One passage of his speech recalls the remark made, many years after, by Gladstone when, at the final interview between himself and a later Irish leader, the aged statesman, in answer to a question put by the historian of “Our Own Times,” said that, in his opinion, O'Connell's principal characteristic was “a passion of philanthropy.”[110] “My poor countrymen,” said O'Connell in 1839, “do not smuggle [letters], for the high postage works a total prohibition to them. They are too poor to find out secondary conveyances; and if you shut the Post Office to them, which you do now, you shut out warm hearts and generous affections from home, kindred, and friends.”[111] Hume, one of the great economists, a member of that “Manchester School” which the shallow wits of the present time deride, and present at this deputation, was a man who never advocated any course likely to be improvident. Yet, undismayed by possible loss of revenue, he gave the postal reform his heartiest support;[112] while Mr Moffatt, bolder still, volunteered, should the Government shrink from the undertaking, to start a City Company to work the Post Office, meanwhile guaranteeing to the State the same annual income that it was accustomed to receive. Mr Warburton, who headed the deputation, said, with telling emphasis, that the proposed reform was a measure which a Liberal party had a just right to expect from a Liberal Administration. The deputation, a very important one, numbering, among others, 150 Members of Parliament, was unmistakably in earnest, and the Government hesitated no longer. Mr Warburton's hint was perfectly well understood; and Lord Melbourne's reply was cautious but favourable.[113]