Here, then, was the plan of the future adhesive stamp, already laid before Mr. Wallace and the House of Commons Committee, also sent to the Secretary of the City of London Mercantile Committee, in printed form, as to one of many, long before leave was asked, on 5th July, 1839, even to introduce the Bill into Parliament. That Mr. Hill saw Mr. Cole's copy, or had a special copy sent also to himself, is clear, because Mr. Hill at once writes to Mr. Chalmers, under date 3rd March, 1838. What Mr. Hill states in that letter we know not altogether, as Mr. Pearson Hill has not thought proper to publish that letter, and my request to him for a copy has not been complied with. (See page 64 of my former pamphlet.) We know thus much, however, that Mr. Rowland Hill makes no pretension _then_ to ever having suggested or approved of an adhesive stamp, as already pointed out. Not until writing to Mr. Chalmers on the 18th January, 1840 (see page 62 of former pamphlet), before which period, in obedience to the general demand, the adhesive stamp had at length been adopted, did Mr. Hill, in reply to Mr. Chalmers' claim as the originator, set up any counter-claim on his own part to any share in the merit of the adhesive stamp. But, as with the scheme itself, so now with the stamp which saved it, no second party was to be allowed to divide with Mr. Hill the sole merit of this great reform. So the far-fetched excuse, the mere afterthought, bred of the success which had attended Mr. Chalmers' proposal to the Committee and to Mr. Cole, is hit upon (page 54) to put Mr. Chalmers aside and to attach to himself the whole merit of the adhesive stamp. Mr. Hill had said something about a bit of gummed paper before the Commissioners of Post Office Inquiry in February, 1837 (subsequent to publishing the first edition of his pamphlet, in which nothing was said of an adhesive stamp), an idea Mr. Hill had acquired in the interval, just as he had acquired all the principles of the scheme itself, at second hand (page 60). On this occasion Mr. Hill had supposed a difficulty which might occur to a person who had to re-address a letter at a Post Office, but was unable to write, and at the same time precluded from paying the penny in cash, while the stamped wrapper would obliterate the address. In such an exceptional case, and in order to secure "the universal adoption" of the impressed stamp, a bit of paper just large enough to bear the stamp, and covered at the back with a glutinous wash, might be wetted and applied. Better, however, he goes on to say, allow the penny to be received in cash, so that you have only the impressed stamp or the penny in payment, and which penny was accepted up to the year 1855.[6] Up to the year 1855, consequently, no such exceptional case could have arisen, the penny in cash being sufficient acceptance. This allusion to an adhesive stamp is repeated by Mr. Hill in the second edition of his pamphlet.