James I. in establishing a foreign post, was more anxious that Government secrets should not be disclosed to foreign countries, "which cannot be prevented if a promiscuous use of transmitting foreign letters and packets should be suffered," than that the post should be of use to traders and merchants. There was a motive for the jealous monopoly of postal communications; and if the proclamation from which the above is taken (Rymer's Foedera) is not clear on the subject, the following extract from a letter written by the one of James's secretaries to the other, Lord Conway, is sufficiently explicit: "Your Lordship best knoweth what account we shall be able to give in our place in Parliament of that which passeth by letters in and out of the land, if every man may convey letters as he chooseth." Sir John Coke, the writer of the above, would seem to have got rid of the difficulty in a thorough manner, if we may believe an English letter-writer addressing a friend in Scotland, when he wrote, "I hear the posts are waylaid, and all letters taken from them and brought to Secretary Coke."[118] During the Commonwealth, of course, letter-opening was to be expected. The very reason which Cromwell gave for establishing the posts was, that they would be "the best means of discovering and preventing many wicked designs against the Commonwealth, intelligence whereof cannot well be communicated but by letter of escript." Foreign and home letters shared an equal fate. On one occasion, the Venetian ambassador remonstrated openly that his letters had been delayed and read, and it was not denied. At the Restoration, a distinct clause in the "Post-Office Charter" provided that "no one, except under the immediate warrant of one of our principal Secretaries of State, shall presume to open any letters or pacquets not directed unto themselves." Under the improved Act of Queen Anne, 1711, it is again stated that "no person or persons shall presume to open, detain, or delay any letter or letters, after the same is or shall be delivered into the General or other Post-Office, and before delivery to the persons to whom they are addressed, except by an express warrant in writing under the hand of one of the principal Secretaries of State for _every such opening_, detaining, or delaying." This Act was continued under all the Georges, and again agreed to in 1837, under 1 Vict. c. 32.