“I have a good account to give of the printing machine. We have now completed the single machine, and the night before last we gave it a trial. It worked better than I hoped even, and fully established, I think, the correctness of the views we have entertained. Miss D——, who left for Birmingham this morning, has taken with her the scroll of paper which was printed.... It will be forwarded to you. I need not ask you to take care of it, and to return it when you come back to me. Some day or other it may be a great curiosity.” BOOK II. HISTORY OF PENNY POSTAGE. “_There is good to a man’s self in doing good to others; and the further this extends the higher it rises, and the longer it lasts. Besides, there is beauty in order, and there are charms in well-deserved praise: and both are the greater, by how much greater the subject._”—SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. PREFACE TO THE HISTORY OF PENNY POSTAGE. The following narrative was originally drawn up at much greater length, and in its present shape is the result of a double abridgment, first in manuscript and afterwards in print. This proceeding was according to a preconceived plan; my wish being to leave to my relatives a more detailed history than was likely to be acceptable to the public, and at the same time to supply ample means for dealing with any question that might arise as to accuracy of statement. Perhaps it may be thought that abridgment might have been advantageously carried yet further; but, on the one hand, I hope there is at present no more superfluous matter than can be readily skipt; and, on the other, I naturally desired that the public should have so much of detail as would distinctly set forth the authorship, execution, and administration of the chief Postal Reforms effected during the last thirty years. My story is told in the first person; but it is only in a limited sense that it is autobiographic. For reasons that will be easily gathered from the narrative, I had to devolve upon another the task of immediate composition, and I deemed it fortunate that one upon whose pen I had much relied from the first, had leisure for the work. This, I may remark, is much more vicarious in the narrative presented to the public than in the original, where events are to a great extent described in letters or in extracts from my Journal. Of course the whole has undergone my careful revision, a duty in which I have been by no means unaided; but, after every correction, I cannot feel sure that sense has not sometimes suffered in paraphrase; and if it appear hereafter that on some minor points expression conveys or suggests erroneous meaning, I must ask the reader to believe that such deviation is not only contrary to my intention and sincere desire, but has occurred in spite of our earnest efforts.