"Under these circumstances, what remains for me to do? So long as there is no opportunity of advancing the public benefit, and so long as the absence of all power relieves me in justice from all responsibility, it is my earnest wish to retire from labours so heavy as those in which I have now for many years been engaged;--to avoid conflicts which, though I have not shrunk from them when necessary, have always been repugnant to my feelings and remote from my habits of life;--and, if possible, to recruit that health which both these causes have seriously impaired."[27] The preparation of the pamphlet from which I have drawn the foregoing account could not, of course, begin until the appearance of the printed report of the Committee's proceedings, which was not until more than three months after their close. The interim allowed me a period for needful rest, and was not quite without features of interest. On September 7th I received a letter from the Spanish Minister in London, requesting information desired by his Government, with a view to the introduction of the postage-stamp into Spain. Such information I was, of course, most happy to supply; the more so as I felt that the very use of the stamp must involve a certain amount of uniformity, and, as a consequence, tend to low rates. Not long afterwards, the papers announced that the Russian Government also had adopted the stamp, though for a reason which the Englishman even of that time would hardly have imagined for himself, and which certainly I had not set forth among expected advantages. The motive in each case was understood to be the desire of preventing fraud in the postmasters; and it is obvious that much peculation, practicable under the system of money payments, would be prevented by the use of stamps. It is remarkable, however, that the first countries to adopt the improvement--Spain and Russia--should be two so far from taking a general lead in European civilization and liberality. On November 22nd the Committee's Report was issued, and without loss of time I fell to such perusal and annotation of the whole evidence as were necessary preliminaries to the writing of my pamphlet. It was finished before the end of January, and copies were immediately sent to the leading journals, to every member of the Postage Committee, to Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Goulburn, to various other influential persons, and to a large number of friends and supporters. Amongst various letters of acknowledgement I received the following:-- "From the Rev. Sydney Smith.