The Lord Chancellor delivered a message to the House of Peers on the 19th of December, to the effect that, besides the apprehensions and fears then generally prevalent, His Majesty had received alarming letters from several parts of the kingdom; and also that from intercepted letters, it appeared there were many discontented persons troubling the nation's peace; in consequence of which he sought the assistance of Parliament.[275] The contents of some of these letters we know. The object of informers, and of the people who rifled the post, was to make it appear that Nonconformists were disaffected, that Dissent was treason; and that measures ought to be adopted for the utter extinction of the growing evil. Yet the accusers, in many cases, were forced to acknowledge, that the accused were quiet when let alone. The letters prove that the nation felt dissatisfied,[276] that multitudes murmured against the Government, that Republican officers were unsettled, and that some were watching for a good opportunity to take up arms. A few fanatics entertained rebellious designs; but that Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, or Quakers, either generally or in large numbers, were covering political plots under a veil of religious worship--the point sought to be established--is an unfounded surmise, indeed a pure invention. [Sidenote: PRETENDED PLOTS.] An example of the method employed to criminate innocent persons may be adduced, and it will furnish an illustration of some of the evidence to which Clarendon alluded. William Kiffin was a rich London merchant, and a famous Baptist preacher. Whilst held in honour by his fellow-citizens for commercial integrity, and by his fellow-religionists for fervent zeal, he was the object of relentless persecution to the party now in the ascendant, and his steps were tracked by informers with lynx-eyed vigilance, and wolfish ferocity. When other methods had failed to bring him within the reach of the law, one of the most abominable schemes which cunning and malignity ever contrived, was adopted with a view to compass his ruin.