Three days after the date of Mr. Baring’s letter he left Downing Street for the continent. About eleven o’clock the same day Mr. Goulburn entered on the business of his office. Twenty-seven years before this time, when Bonaparte abdicated the throne of France and withdrew to Elba, a caricature was said to be privately circulated in Paris, representing an eagle flying out from a window in the Tuileries, while a fat goose waddled in at the door. Perhaps the reader who has followed me through my labours and anxieties, who has sympathized in my disappointments and rejoiced in my success, and who remembers in addition, that I had been all my life a Liberal, and was by no means free from the prejudices of my party, will pardon me when I confess that my mind, at this crisis, harboured a feeling too much resembling the scorn and bitterness which prompted the French caricature. Yet had I, amidst all my troubles, some aids to complacency. Of the approbation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer I have already spoken, and certainly this was my greatest comfort. The following tokens, however, had their value. On the 8th of April, I received a very beautiful silver salver from Liverpool, accompanied with a letter from Mr. Egerton Smith, Editor of the _Liverpool Mercury_, the leading journal of that town, a gentleman who had from the first been an earnest supporter of Penny Postage, and who remained its steady advocate to the end of his life. The letter informed me that the salver had been purchased with the pence contributed by thousands of his fellow-townsmen, and that Mr. Mayer, in whose works the plate had been produced, and by whom it was delivered into my hands, had waived all considerations of profit, and worked _con amore_. On July 2nd I received from Glasgow two highly-wrought silver wine-coolers, bearing an inscription stating that it was “in testimony of gratitude,” from a few gentlemen of that city. I may here mention that two years later I received a very pleasing testimonial from Cupar, Fife, consisting of the works of Sir Walter Scott, including the Memoir by Lockhart,—ninety-eight volumes in all. CHAPTER X. NEW MASTERS. (1841-2.) On the day when Mr. Goulburn entered on the duties of his office I wrote a note to him, enclosing Mr. Baring’s letter, and requesting an interview at his convenience. Meanwhile circumstances occurred to raise my hopes:— “_September 6th._—Called on Mr. Stephen [the late Right Hon. Sir James Stephen, K.C.B.] at the Colonial Office on some postage business. He assures me that I shall find Mr. Goulburn very pleasant to transact business with—a man of high honour and of great skill in _details_. Mr. [now Sir John] Lefevre, whom I afterwards saw at the Board of Trade, gave a similar account of him.” The first part of this favourable opinion was, in a measure, confirmed the same day:—