I should have felt my own post less assailable had the Post Office revenue been more rapid in its recovery. I have already referred to such depression as was caused by increased Post Office expenditure, and by those circumstances which at the time depressed the revenue in every department; and it must be added that appearances were made worse by the manner in which the accounts of the Post Office were kept, the effect at this time being to reduce an actual increase for the quarter, amounting to between £30,000 and £40,000, to an apparent decrease. Later, however, the improvement began to be manifest:— “_April 6th, 1842._—The [Post Office] revenue accounts show an increase of £90,000 on the year.... The Post Office revenue is the only department ... which does not show a deficiency on the quarter, a phenomenon which puzzles the Tory papers amazingly.” It had already been shown in the statement made by Sir Robert Peel on March 12th, 1842, that a strong disposition existed somewhere to make the loss resulting from the adoption of penny postage appear as large as possible, nor could I doubt as to the quarter in which this disposition existed. Indeed, subsequent events made everything clear. The inference which it was intended that the public should draw from the statement that the cost of the packet service exceeded the whole Post Office revenue long served to mislead that large portion of the public which, for want of time or ability to examine, takes plausible appearances for facts. The fallacy, nevertheless, was fully exposed within two months of its first appearance. Lord Monteagle, on June 21st, 1842, in a debate on the Income Tax,[321] said:— “When his noble friend (Lord Fitzgerald) adverted to the revenue formerly derived from the Post Office, and stated that the whole of the revenue had disappeared, his noble friend was labouring under a very great mistake. The expense of the packet service, which was said to swallow up the whole of the revenue now derived from the Post Office, had no more to do with the penny postage than the expense of the war in Afghanistan or China. It was as distinct from the Post Office as the expense of the army or navy.”