“It was about this time that I began to entertain distinct hopes, however slight as yet their foundation, of employment in relation to postal affairs; and as usual in cases of great difficulty, I consulted my father and my brothers on the subject of future proceedings. I represented that I found myself unable to continue my duties in relation to the Australian Commission, and, at the same time, both to take effectual means for establishing the success of the printing machine, and to labour efficiently at my project for postal reform. Here was grave matter for consideration, the invention having already cost a large amount of labour, spread over a whole year, from both my brother and myself, besides £2,000 in hard cash; while, on the other hand, postal prospects, in which every one present took a deep interest, all having indeed already laboured with me in the cause, were regarded as promising. It was inquired whether my brother, who had thus far assisted me in the printing machine, could not himself carry the matter to completion; but unhappily his health was at that time in too depressed a state to leave any hope that he could alone surmount obstacles so formidable. Here I may remark that, at one time or other, every member of our family has fallen, at least once in his life, through excessive labour and anxiety, into severe, protracted, and even dangerous illness—illness involving consequences which nothing but our unshaken union could have enabled us to support. After long and careful consideration, they concurred in advising that the Post Office should be preferred to the printing machine; and as this recommendation seconded my own opinion, I decided to act upon it. “I have only to say, in conclusion, that a printer of the highest standing in his trade, induced, I suppose, partly by what I had done in this matter, partly by a general knowledge of my antecedents, offered me in 1839 a very advantageous partnership,[89] which I should certainly have accepted, but that it would have involved my refusal of the offer which Government had just then made me, viz., of a post in the Treasury for the prosecution of my plan of postal reform.”[90] [This account of Rowland Hill’s printing-press may be well brought to an end by the following extract from a letter which he wrote to his wife on July 17th, 1835:—]