“With respect to the position in which you would be placed, I would explain that you will be attached to the Treasury, and considered as connected with that department with reference to the proposed alterations in the Post Office. You will have access to the Post Office, and every facility given you of inquiry both previously to the arrangements being settled and during their working. Your communications will be to the Treasury, from whom any directions to the Post Office will be issued; and you will not exercise any direct authority, or give any immediate orders to the officers of the Post Office. I make this explanation as to the mode of doing our business, to prevent future misunderstanding. Your communications and suggestions, &c., will be with the Treasury, in whom I consider the power to superintend and carry into effect these alterations to be vested. “With respect to the money arrangements, I understand the employment to be secured for two years certain, at the rate of £1,500 per annum. I should also add that the employment is considered as temporary, and not to give a _claim_ to continued employment in office at the termination of these two years. “Having put duly upon paper a memorandum of our conversation, I cannot conclude without expressing my satisfaction that the Treasury are to have the benefit of your assistance in the labour which the legislature has imposed upon us, and my conviction that you will find from myself and the Board that confidence and cordiality which will be necessary for the well working of the proposed alterations. “I am, &c., “F. T. BARING. “ROWLAND HILL, Esq.” Of course I inwardly objected to that clause in the letter which limited my absolute engagement to two years, but I reckoned upon making myself within that period so useful as to secure a permanent appointment. Mr. Baring having referred to the arrangement which placed me, not at the Post Office, but at the Treasury, I replied that of course he might put me then where he liked, but that I should end by being Secretary to the Post Office—a prediction in the end fulfilled, though certainly by no means so speedily as I expected.