Within a few days from my sending in the supplementary paper to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I had occasion again to trouble him. Mr. Labouchere having given notice of motion for a bill to amend the Post Office Laws, it seemed important that my plan, unless the Government itself were going to take it up, should be forthwith presented to the public, with a view to its producing some effect on the contemplated legislation; and it became necessary to inquire whether it would be proper to publish the paper. I thought, moreover, that if the Government seriously entertained my project, such intention would be given as a reason for withholding leave of publication; and that thus I should obtain some indication on the subject. I was informed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had no objection whatever to its publication; and so I brought out my little work with all speed. Meanwhile I had received many encouraging letters, some from private friends, and others from persons to whom I was less known, or not known at all. Amongst those which gave me the most satisfaction was one from Colonel Colby, who, in expressing approval of my paper, gave me also some account of exertions previously made by himself with a view to the gradual reduction of postage rates for long distances. A second letter was from Mr. Raikes Currie, who afterwards was a member of the Parliamentary Committee appointed to consider my plan, and a third from Professor Empson, of Haileybury College, who reported that he had heard my plan spoken of in Edinburgh, at a dinner at the Lord Advocate’s, in the most favourable terms; and who undertook to speak about it, within a few hours, to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, “if he can listen to anything and anybody except banks and bankers.” Now that penny postage has long been an established fact, and that doubt of its practicability has disappeared in the certainty of success, the circumstances just mentioned may seem trivial; but in the midst of the anxiety that attended its incipient course, every indication of advancing favour was eagerly received and carefully recorded. Meanwhile, however, a proceeding of yet greater importance had taken place. Soon after the private circulation of my pamphlet, I received a summons to give evidence before the Commission for Post Office Inquiry already mentioned, which was now collecting matter for its ninth report, (the subject being the London Twopenny Post, though the term comprehended also the threepenny delivery). The Commissioners were the late Lord Bessborough (then Lord Duncannon), Lord Taunton (then Mr. Labouchere), and the Duke of Somerset (then Lord Seymour). I need not say that their invitation was gladly accepted; my first examination took place on February 13th, 1837; and in my evidence I pointed out the principal defects, in the existing system of distribution within the London district.