Description

As the Committee was not moved for until so late in the session, it could not have very long to sit; and, at the end of seven weeks, its inquiry was brought to a close by the approach of the prorogation. This abrupt ending was in two ways unfortunate. In the first place, it cut short the evidence I was giving in a reply to allegations from the Post Office; and, in the second place, it allowed no time for more than the briefest Report. To supply these deficiencies, and to present the whole in readable shape to the public, I drew up a careful statement of the principal facts given in evidence, with my own comments thereon, and published it under the title of "State and Prospects of Penny Postage"; and from this I proceed to abstract or extract, as may appear most convenient. The pamphlet, I may add, contained, in an appendix, the whole of the correspondence asked for by Sir Thomas Wilde; including, therefore, the letters refused by the Treasury, but which I had afterwards laid before the Committee in the course of my evidence.