Of course the main proceeding made its way into the newspapers, and thus became known to the public in general, and to the Commissioners of the Income Tax in particular--the consequence being an application from the Commissioners for Brighton, demanding income-tax upon the chief amount. Finding that representations to them produced no effect, I overleaped the next stage, and went at once to Mr. Trevelyan at the Treasury, who, like the Duke of Wellington on a well known occasion, exclaimed, "This is too bad!" adding, "It will never do first to deprive you of your salary, and then to tax the public subscription made in lieu of it. Leave this to me." I willingly agreed, and a few days later received a letter from the Income Tax Commissioners, enclosing an instruction from the chief office for the withdrawal of the demand. It would be ungrateful to omit mention here of some indications of public satisfaction besides those of a pecuniary nature. Thus, I received the following interesting letter from Mr. Cobden:-- "MY DEAR SIR, "Manchester, 30th May, 1846. * * * * * "The League will be virtually dissolved by the passing of Peel's measure. I shall feel like an emancipated negro--having fulfilled my seven years' apprenticeship to an agitation which has known no respite. I feel that _you_ have done not a little to strike the fetters from my limbs, for without the penny postage we might have had more years of agitation and anxiety. "Believe me, faithfully yours, "RICHARD COBDEN. "ROWLAND HILL, Esq." Probably Mr. Cobden, in this letter, referred merely to the great facility given by cheap postage for the transmission and circulation of those papers which played so material a part in the Anti-Corn Law agitation; but it seems not unlikely that other assistance may have been afforded to his great improvement by the success, so far as then ascertained, of my measure, as a bold reduction of taxation--a change much more sudden and decided than had ever before taken place in our fiscal system. I believe I am safe in assuming that this success has acted as an encouragement to the many adventurous changes in taxation which have followed one another in rapid succession even to the present time. Among the many minor evidences to the benefit derived from cheap postage, the following little circumstance was not the least pleasing. The late Mr. Tremenheere told me that a servant-boy in his father's house in London, learning that his mother in Somersetshire was dangerously ill, wrote home for a daily bulletin, which he duly received until the danger was over, eagerly rushing every morning to the door at the first sound of the postman's knock. Such an occurrence would seem trivial now; it was felt then as a striking novelty.