These exceptions, trifling as they were, were withdrawn from time to time, as the Post-Office became more and more one of the settled institutions of the country. As it was, the prohibitory clauses caused great dissatisfaction in the country. The middle of the seventeenth century was certainly a bad time for introducing a measure that should bear any appearance of a stretch of the royal prerogative. That no one but the servants of the King's Postmaster should carry private letters was regarded as an unwarrantable interference with the liberty of the subject; so much so, that in 1642 a Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to inquire into that part of the measure. The subject was also frequently mentioned in Parliament; notwithstanding which, the Government strictly adhered to the clause.[13] The first rates of postage for the new service were fixed at _twopence_, for a single letter, for any distance under 80 miles; 4_d._ up to 140 miles; 6_d._ for any longer distance in England; and 8_d._ to any place in Scotland. Of course the distances were all reckoned from London. The control of the English letter-office was entrusted to the Foreign Postmaster-General, who had suggested the new undertaking. Witherings held the joint offices for five years, when in 1640 he was charged with abusing both his trusts, and superseded by Philip Burlamachy, a London merchant. It was arranged, however, that Burlamachy should execute the duties of his offices under the care and inspection of the principal Secretary of State. And now began a quarrel which lasted incessantly from 1641 to 1647. When the proclamation concerning the sequestration of his office was published, Witherings assigned his patent to the Earl of Warwick. Mindful of this opportunity, Lord Stanhope, the "Chief Postmaster" under the King's father, who had surrendered his patent some years before, now came forward and stated that the action had not been voluntary, but, as we learn from his petition to the House of Lords, he "was summoned to the Council table, and obliged, before he was suffered to depart, to subscribe somewhat there penned upon your petitioner's patent by the Lord Keeper Coventry." Lord Stanhope found a staunch friend and adherent in Mr. Edmund Prideaux, a member of the House of Commons, and subsequently Attorney-General to the Commonwealth. Two rival offices were established in London, and continued strife was maintained between the officers of the two claimants. On one occasion, Prideaux himself helped to seize the Plymouth mail which had just arrived in London, and was proceeding to the office of the Earl of Warwick near the Royal Exchange. Burlamachy and the Government failed to restore peace. In the Commission on the Post-Office, to which we have already referred, the subject was taken up, but the resolution of the Committee only rendered matters more complicated. The Committee, though Prideaux contrived to be made Chairman of it, declared that the