The motion, so important to me, and, as I thought, and still think, to the cause of postal reform, seemed in danger of lapsing to the end of the session, not coming on until June 27th. The House was far from full, but the number present was considerable. I obtained a seat for myself and my brother Arthur under the gallery, sitting on the opposition side of the House, that I might the more readily supply my friends with any information that might be required during the progress of the debate. Colonel Maberly, likewise under the gallery, was, I suppose for the like reason, on the Government side of the House. The debate occupies forty-seven pages in “Hansard;”[345] but keen as was the interest with which my brother and I listened to every word, I shall not trouble the reader of the present day with more than a brief abstract. The motion of which Sir Thomas Wilde had given notice was for a Select Committee, “To inquire into the progress which had been made in carrying into effect the recommendations of Mr. Rowland Hill for Post Office improvement; and whether the further carrying into effect of such recommendations or any of them will be beneficial to the country.”[346] Sir Thomas Wilde, after adverting to the deliberate adoption of my plan by Parliament, and this in a time of commercial depression, with the knowledge that its adoption was expected to produce a small permanent and a large immediate reduction of revenue, pointed out that my plan had been presented as a whole, no part being recommended unless accompanied with the remainder. After referring to the authoritative condemnation of the old system, to my appointment, to the acknowledged value of my services, to the opposition of the Post Office, to the hopelessness of expecting the completion of my plan from that department, or even from the Treasury, unless aided by one able and ready to deal with the fallacies with which resistance was defended; after having pointed out the unfairness of the experiment on which my plan had been judged, and, in fine, given a history of the progress (and non-progress) of postal reform during the time I was at the Treasury, and of my dismissal therefrom, he concluded by moving the resolution of which he had given notice.[347] The Chancellor of the Exchequer, while repeating some of the allegations made in his letter to me, endeavoured to inculpate the late Government, and to throw upon them the responsibility of my dismissal, condemned my divulging the correspondence as a breach of confidence, greatly overstated the power committed to me during his tenure of office, spoke of much having been accomplished since I left the Treasury, enumerating for this purpose some measures adopted on my recommendation while I was still there, and others hastily resolved on since the presentation of my petition, no one of which, however, was yet carried into execution.