"I need hardly say that I shall be happy at any time to submit to you the original documents which are in my possession, which disprove the claims put forward in behalf of Mr. James Chalmers of Dundee, if you would desire to see them. "Your statistical information about the Post Office, as given in my copy of the Encyclopædia (the eighth edition) is of course now much behindhand. I dare say you have already on your staff of contributors some gentleman well able to supply you with fresh information; but should you be in want of any such help, I feel sure that my cousin, Mr. Lewin Hill, head of the statistical branch of the Secretary's office, General Post Office, London, would gladly undertake the work if you desired it. "I am, Gentlemen, "Your obedient servant, "(Signed) PEARSON HILL. "MESSRS. A. & C. BLACK, Edinburgh." It is thus manifest that, in having obtained this conclusive recognition, I have taken no undue advantage of Mr. Pearson Hill, while it will also be manifest that Mr. Pearson Hill's statements have found acceptance in other quarters only because I have not been afforded an equally impartial hearing as in the present case. His printed documents, his statements, with all the advantage of being sole possessor of the correspondence betwixt his late father and mine, have been put forward, and yet the decision is against him. Again, as respects the penny postage scheme itself, the proofs are conclusive that _originality of conception_ formed no element whatever in any one of the proposals of Sir Rowland Hill, preceded and heralded as the penny postage reform had been by the labours of a whole band of pioneers. Special reference may be made to the statements of the Rev. Samuel Roberts, whose biography as the pioneer of uniform penny postal reform is given in the _Times_ of 30th September last. The "Rowland Hill Memorial Fund" Committee have themselves admitted, after what has been laid before them, their sense of this non-originality by the change made in the inscription upon the City statue of Sir Rowland Hill, thereby confirming the accuracy of my statements. Moreover, a Treasury Minute of 11th March, 1864, distinctly states that uniform penny postage had been urged upon the Government prior to the proposals of Sir Rowland Hill. Thus, independent and conclusive testimony, as distinguished from the mere family tradition with which many writers have hitherto been content, leaves the question of plagiarism beyond dispute. As with the stamp, so with the scheme, the ideas were _acquired, not original_. Here, then, is the justification of my statements. So far from having been "persistently making false and groundless charges," I have been stating facts and elucidating the truth, and the aspersions of Mr. Pearson Hill are thus scattered to the winds.