Then Sir Rowland claimed “the almost universal resort to prepayment of correspondence, and that by means of stamps,” the establishment of the book post, the reduction in the fee for registered letters from 1s. to 4d., a reduction in the price of money orders combined with a great extension and improvement of the system, a more frequent and more rapid communication between the Metropolis and the larger provincial towns, as also between one provincial town and another, a vast extension of the rural distribution, and many other facilities for the public, including the establishment of Post Office Savings Banks. He goes on to say: “The expectations I held out before the change were that eventually under the operation of my plans the number of letters would increase fivefold, the gross revenue would be the same as before, while the net revenue would sustain a loss of about £300,000. The actual figures show that the letters have increased not fivefold but nearly eight and a half fold, that the gross revenue, instead of remaining the same, has increased by about £1,500,000; while the net revenue, instead of falling £300,000, has risen more than £100,000.” This was written more than twenty years after the introduction of penny postage, but it must not be supposed that the reform was an immediate financial success. The last complete year (1839) of the old system of high rates yielded a profit of £1,659,000. The first complete year of the new system produced only £500,789. But in two years the number of chargeable letters passing through the post had increased from 72,000,000 per annum to 208,000,000, and in a few years the profit of 1839 had been passed. Sir Rowland was a fighter and reformer to the last. Like all men who accomplish great things, he was exceedingly self-confident and impatient of opposition. The official mind works from precedent to precedent, and Sir Rowland proposed to make all things new. Effort after effort was made to push him aside without any lasting success. He was dismissed from the Treasury in the second year of penny postage, at a time when its very success seemed to depend on friends, not foes, directing the organisation. Thomas Hood wrote to him: “I have seen so many instances of folly and ingratitude similar to those you have met with that it would never surprise me to hear of the railway people, some day, finding their trains running on so well, proposing to discharge the engines.” It was more in obedience to the feeling of the country than to any liking for the reformer that the Government of the day appointed him to the Post Office four years after his dismissal from the Treasury.