not possibly at any court be allowed to rank above a king.  With reference to its possible effect on the subsequent relations of Peel and his followers with the court, it was, perhaps, well that a few months later they had the opportunity of proving that no personal objection to the Prince himself had influenced their course in these transactions, by giving a cordial assent to the ministerial proposal of conferring the Regency on him in the event of the Queen giving an heir to the throne, and dying while he was still a minor.  The principle was the same as that which had guided the arrangements for a Regency ten years before; but it was not inconceivable that Parliament might have hesitated to intrust so large an authority to so very young a man, and him a comparative stranger, such as the Prince still was, had the leaders of the Opposition given the slightest countenance to such an objection.

Lord Melbourne’s ministry was hardly strengthened by the circumstances under which it resumed office.  Yet the close of the same year witnessed a reform of which it is hardly too much to say that no single measure of this century has contributed more to the comfort of the whole mass of the people, with which it has also combined solid commercial benefits.  Hitherto the Post-office had been managed in a singular manner, and the profit derived from it had been treated as something distinct from the ordinary revenue of the kingdom.  In the reign of Charles II. it had been given to the Duke of York, and the grant was regarded as conferring on him such extensive rights, that when, some years afterward, an enterprising citizen set up a penny post for the delivery of letters in the City and its precincts, the Duke complained of the scheme as an infraction of his monopoly, and the courts of law decided in his favor.  That grant ceased, as a matter of course, on the Duke’s accession to the throne; and in the reign of Queen Anne a portion of the Post-office proceeds was appropriated, with the general consent of a grateful country, to reward the great achievements of the Duke of Malborough, a perpetual charge on it of L5000 a year being annexed to the dukedom.  In those days the postage of a letter was twopence for short distances, and threepence for any distance beyond eighty miles.[251] But those charges had been gradually increased; about the middle of the century the lowest charge was fixed at fourpence, rising in proportion to the distance, till the conveyance of a single letter from one extremity of the kingdom to the other cost eighteen-pence.  Such a rate could not fail to be very profitable; and by the beginning of the present reign the yearly profit exceeded a million and a half of money.  The heaviness of the charge, however, had latterly attracted attention, and had been the cause of many complaints, as being a great discouragement, and, in the case of the poorer classes, a complete obstacle to communication.  However, neither the ministers nor the Parliament