I opened the year 1838 with a series of letters to Lord Lichfield, which were inserted in all the morning papers. These letters were written in the manner described below; and it may save trouble hereafter to remark that much else which has appeared under my name, together with not a little to be found in my minutes at the Treasury and at the Post Office, was produced in the same way. To me the device and elaboration of plans was incomparably easier than their exposition or advocacy; with my brother Arthur the case was the reverse; and this led me to the frequent employment of his pen. What neither of us could have effected separately, joint action made easy. Our mode of proceeding was as follows: I having collected and arranged my facts and formed a skeleton of the proposed paper, we sat down together, my brother dictating and I writing, often, however, pausing to bring the language into more exact expression of my thoughts, or to mention, or at times to learn, some new idea that arose as we went on. Occasionally, however, when business pressed we worked apart; but in any case the whole paper so constructed underwent our joint revision, and we sometimes found that the thoughts with which we had started had, in the very attempt to express them, undergone such modification that we rejected all that had been done, and began our task afresh. The letters to Lord Lichfield were written mainly in reply to his lordship’s speeches in Parliament, from which some passages have already been cited. From these letters I give one or two quotations:— “In the series of letters which I shall take the liberty of addressing to your lordship, I hope I shall carefully maintain that respect for the claims, and consideration for the feelings of others, which, I trust, have marked all that I have hitherto written. Your lordship must be well aware that whoever enters on the task of innovation must expect some amount of ridicule or abuse aimed either at his plan or himself. Your lordship must feel that a person so circumstanced ought not to allow such a necessary consequence of his attempt either to deter him from his adopted course, or to provoke his retaliation.” The following passage from the third letter is in reply to the announcement by Government that the _principle_ of stamped covers would be tried in the London District:—