“‘I think it but justice to you not to conclude this letter without expressing to you my thanks for the unwearied and zealous assistance which you have given me in the carrying on the Post Office business. I feel satisfied that without that assistance it would have been scarcely possible for the Treasury to have given any proper consideration to the arrangements for putting the scheme into effect, and I am happy in having to record my entire satisfaction with the manner in which you have conducted the business of your office. “‘You will make what use you please of this letter by showing it to my successor. “‘Yours very sincerely, “‘F. T. BARING.’ “This is not what I could wish as regards the length of the engagement, but I am satisfied that it is all Mr. Baring considers himself justified in doing; and feeling that it would be very ungracious to object to so kind a letter, I acknowledged it as follows:— “‘Downing Street, September 2, 1841. “‘DEAR SIR,—Pray accept my earnest thanks for your very kind and gratifying letter, and for the just and able manner in which you have carried my plan, so far, into effect. “‘Looking forward with much anxiety, but in the hope that happier times for all of us may yet be in store, “‘I have, &c., “‘ROWLAND HILL.’” This must have been one of Mr. Baring’s latest official acts, as the formal resignation of Ministers took place on the following day; and though I had subsequently, and, indeed, to the end of his life, much pleasant intercourse with him, our official relations here terminated. Of the important aid which he afterwards gave me much remains to be said; but I will here so far anticipate as to mention an incident which occurred twenty-two years after this time. Soon after my final retirement from the Post Office, happening to be at Brighton, I met Sir Francis Baring—for he had then succeeded to the Baronetcy—and presently received a call from him. In conversation with my wife he remarked that oftentimes, when he worked with me at the Treasury, he had disagreed with me in opinion, but had always found afterwards that he was in the wrong and I was in the right. Upon Lady Hill’s observing that she had been taught by her husband to believe all Sir Francis Baring’s decisions right, he replied, with a laugh, “Well, then, now you have the very best authority for believing them wrong.”