With these high qualities was united perfect integrity. He was the most upright and the most truthful of men. He hated By-ends and all his companions. He was often careless of any gain to himself, but the good of the state never for one moment did he disregard. He watched over the public money with a carefulness which few men show even in watching over their own private hoards. He was never even so much as tempted for a single moment to purchase popularity by swerving by a hair's breadth from the narrow path of duty. More than once a slight sacrifice of public money would have saved him from attack. To public censure he was by no means indifferent. He suffered beneath it even though he knew that it was unjust. Yet he was always ready to brave it in a good cause. One of the men who long served under him bore this high testimony to the character of his old chief:--"Sir Rowland Hill was very generous with his own money, and very close with public money. He would have been more popular had he been generous with the public money and close with his own." Of his generosity I discovered a striking instance in looking through his private Journal for his last year in office. For one of his subordinates, on whose ability and devotion to himself and zeal in the public service he set a high value, he had not been able to obtain from the Government the recompense which, in his opinion, that gentleman deserved. "I have compensated him to some extent," he records, "by a gift of £300." Beneath a manner that was cold beat one of the warmest and even tenderest of hearts. He had, in earlier life, known what it was to bear the proud man's contumely. The lesson that he had learnt in that hard school was one of forbearance. His rule was stern, yet never without consideration for the feelings of others. No one who was under him ever felt his self-respect wounded by his chief. It is not yet forgotten in the Post Office how, many years ago, one of the higher officers was summoned to the room of the Postmaster-General to give an explanation on some difficult matter. He found his Lordship and the Secretary sitting at the table, but he himself, though he was likely to be kept some time, was not invited to take a chair. Sir Rowland Hill stood up, and remained standing, till his Lordship requested both to be seated.