"I am, &c., "C. E. TREVELYAN. "The Right Honourable the Postmaster-General, "&c., &c., &c." "Addressed the following letter to the Postmaster-General:-- "G. P. O., 25th April, 1854. "MY DEAR LORD,--Allow me to tender my sincere and earnest thanks for the change which has been effected in my position--a change for which I feel the more indebted because of the persevering kindness with which, in the midst of your own laborious duties, you have wrought for it from the moment of my earliest application to you on the subject, and with which I feel the more deeply gratified because it affords a promise of seeing those improvements which have been the main object of my life brought to completion under your lordship's enlightened administration. "I have the honour to remain, "Your Lordship's obliged and faithful servant, "ROWLAND HILL. "The Right Honourable VISCOUNT CANNING, "&c., &c., &c." I also wrote letters of thanks to Mr. Gladstone and Lord Aberdeen. Letters of congratulation soon poured in from the many friends in and out of Parliament, at home and abroad, who had so long and so steadily supported the cause of postal reform, and so kindly interested themselves in my favour; amongst others, from Lord Brougham, Lord Truro, Sir Francis Baring, Mr. Warburton, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Cobden, Mr. Hume, Mr. Moffatt, Mr. Raikes Currie, and M. Piron.[103] Government went further even than I had ever asked for, advancing my salary at once to the maximum rate of £2,000 a year. It will be observed that all those to whom I had on this occasion to render official thanks had been members of the Government by which twelve years before I had been dismissed from office. I could not but think that the kind and earnest manner in which these gentlemen now acted proceeded in some measure from a desire to compensate me for the injustice of their former leader; and this view made me even more grateful for their consideration. CHAPTER XXIII. PROGRESS OF REFORM FROM THE MIDDLE OF 1851 TO THE END OF 1854. Having thus conducted the narrative to that point in my official career to which my hopes and expectations had so long been directed, I now pause again to speak of concurrent events, and particularly to mention the improvements effected during the three years of which I have been treating.[104] I shall, as before, deal separately with the several departments of Post Office administration. I must add that, for the sake of convenience, I have in several departments continued the narrative somewhat beyond the period of my appointment as sole secretary, viz., April, 1854, trenching even, in one or two cases, on the year 1855.