If Mr. Hill alluded to this adhesive stamp (the admitted invention of Mr. Chalmers in 1834) in February, 1837, while Mr. Chalmers urged its adoption officially only in December, this, it will be seen, arose from Mr. Hill having been privileged to give evidence on postal affairs before the Commissioners of Inquiry. The proposal of 1834 with respect to newspapers came to nothing; consequently there was no opening _then_ for Mr. Chalmers to send in his invention _officially_. In sending in his plan to the Select Committee of the House of Commons in December, 1837, Mr. Chalmers was still a year and a half before the Penny Postage Bill was even introduced into Parliament. Mr. Hill did not adopt same until he issued his "paper of 1839." Mr. Hill's allusion to this stamp in February, 1837, this "publishing" of the idea "very hesitatingly," had no practical effect whatever on the cause in hand; such only shows that Mr. Hill had heard of the invention of 1834, without seeing its value or proposing to adopt it. Moreover, Mr. Chalmers was publishing his own invention, while Mr. Hill was only publishing an acquired idea, "suggested from without." It is to the man who not only invented the adhesive postage stamp, but who further first urged the adoption of same in its entirety for the purpose of carrying out the Penny Postage scheme, that the merit of this plan and of its results are due and will be ascribed. But if I was to stop here I should be told now, as I have been told before on obtaining important recognitions, that the present decision in my favour was again got upon mere _ex-parte_ statements--that had Mr. Pearson Hill only been given the opportunity, a very different aspect would have been put upon the matter. No choice, consequently, is left me but to show that it is to Mr. Pearson Hill himself I am indebted for the introduction which has led to my success, and without which introduction, now reproduced, I should have remained in entire ignorance as to any forthcoming article upon postal affairs, or have been most courteously afforded an opportunity of stating my case:-- [_Copy._] "ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA." "50, BELSIZE PARK, LONDON, N.W., _15th March, 1883_. "GENTLEMEN, "As you are now issuing a new edition of your 'Encyclopædia Britannica,' and as for years past a Mr. Patrick Chalmers has persistently been making false and groundless charges against my father, the late Sir Rowland Hill, I think it well to send you the enclosed printed documents for your information, as it is by no means improbable that he may strive to get you to insert some untrue statement when you deal with the question of the Post Office and Postal Reform.