the Chancellor of the Exchequer, already quoted (page 13), to prove that, up to so late a date as the 5th July, 1839, Mr. Hill had not proposed to adopt an adhesive stamp. The press, up to 30th August, 1839, had heard of no such proposal on his part.[8]

This allusion to an adhesive stamp in February, 1837, was a mere passing allusion as to what might be done in a supposed exceptional case which could never have arisen so long as the penny in cash was accepted, and was nothing more. For Mr. Hill to represent to Mr. Chalmers that he, Mr. Hill, had proposed to adopt the adhesive stamp as a means of carrying out his scheme in February, 1837, was to state what was not the case; consequently any admission so gained from Mr. Chalmers was wholly invalid. An extract from the reply of Mr. Chalmers, dated 18th May, 1840 (reproduced at page 62 of my former pamphlet), has been circulated by Mr. Pearson Hill, in whose hands alone is the entire correspondence, with the object of showing that Mr. Chalmers "honestly abandoned" his claim. But Mr. Chalmers honestly abandoned nothing; while no impartial person will, upon consideration, for a moment attach any importance to just what "extract" from his correspondence Mr. Pearson Hill has thought proper to produce. I again contend, as I have already maintained, that this correspondence was public, not private, property—that such should have remained at the Treasury, subject to the inspection of all concerned, in place of having been appropriated by Sir Rowland Hill as private, and thus so as to admit of only such portion being ultimately made known as may have suited himself. In this extract of 18th May, 1840, Mr. Chalmers, after stating he had delayed to reply until seeing the stamps in operation, writes with surprise at what Mr. Hill now states. Had he known or supposed that any one else, especially Mr. Hill himself, had proposed the adhesive stamp for the purpose of carrying out the scheme, he would not have troubled him at all. But having sent his plan to Mr. Wallace, M.P., and got his acknowledgment of 9th December, 1837, saying same would be laid before the Committee; also to Mr. Chalmers, M.P., and got his reply of 7th October, 1839, saying such had been laid before the Committee; also Mr. Hill's own letter of 3rd March, 1838, a copy of which he encloses—from all these he was led to believe he had been first in the field. Now, not doubting Mr. Hill's assurance of 18th January, 1840, to the contrary (and in any case indisposed to contest a decision against which there was practically no appeal), he only regrets having through his ignorance put others as well as himself to any trouble in the matter; "while the only satisfaction I have had in this as well as in former suggestions—all original with me—is that these have been adopted, and have been and are likely to prove beneficial to the public."

Such is the letter or extract which, placed in the hands of every editor in London, has led to my statements being here treated with comparative neglect.[9] But let my statements equally with those of Mr. Pearson Hill be read by any impartial writer, as in the case of the "Encyclopædia Britannica," afterwards noticed, and the result, it will be seen, is to lead to an entirely different conclusion. "James Chalmers was the inventor of the adhesive postage stamp—Mr. Pearson Hill has not weakened the evidence to that effect." Here was honesty certainly—simplicity indeed—on the side of Mr. Chalmers; but what about the representation on the part of Mr. Hill? Was it the case that he had proposed the adoption of the adhesive stamp in February, 1837, as represented to Mr. Chalmers? The proofs to the contrary are conclusive. Mr. Hill had made a passing allusion to an adhesive stamp in February, 1837, but only a passing allusion. Nothing can be more clear than that the adoption of the adhesive stamp for the purpose of carrying out his scheme formed no part of the original proposals and intentions of Mr. Hill. His representation to Mr. Chalmers was therefore exaggerated, delusive, and misleading.[10] "Why did not you tell me anything of this before?" replies Mr. Chalmers in effect;—"there is a copy of your letter of 3rd March, 1838, when I sent you my plan, in which letter of yours no such pretensions were put forward. It is only now that I learn for the first time that you had ever proposed or been in favour of an adhesive stamp. Further, how is it that neither of these members of the Committee before whom I laid my plan had ever heard of any such prior proposal on your part? However, I am now only sorry at having troubled you—I have at least the satisfaction of knowing that the public have got my plan somehow."

"Why did you not tell me anything of this before?" Why indeed! Because Mr. Hill then had not contemplated an adhesive stamp, as has been abundantly proved. An impressed stamped cover "was absolutely to be used in all cases," says the Chancellor of the Exchequer as late as in July, 1839—a "power" was asked for this, and for this alone. (See ante, page 14.) But much had happened in the interval betwixt Mr. Hill's two letters to Mr. Chalmers. The stamp not accepted by Mr. Hill in 1838 had become in 1840 the favourite of all opinions concerned, the adopted of the Treasury. It had saved his scheme. Mr. Chalmers must now be put aside, a matter which the entire contrast betwixt the dispositions of the two men rendered only too easy, and so this afterthought, this far-fetched pretext already noticed, was hit upon for the purpose.

At the same time Mr. Chalmers appears to have been too apathetic in the matter, indifferent to personal considerations so long as the public got his stamp from some quarter; but the absence of any desire for personal advantage is a not unfrequent characteristic in those who have done some public service.

But it is this neglect, or mere indifference, on the part of my father, in not having made a better stand in 1840 with respect to a matter the national and universal value of which no one could then appreciate or foresee, that all the more calls upon me now, under a better acquaintance with the facts and circumstances, to claim for his memory that recognition to which he is clearly entitled, as having been "The Originator and Inventor of the Adhesive Postage Stamp."

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