Letter-franking also commenced in this year. A Committee of the House of Commons which sat in the year 1735 reported, "that the privilege of franking letters by the knights, &c. chosen to represent the Commons in Parliament, began with the creating of a post-office in the kingdom by Act of Parliament." The proviso which secured this privilege to members cannot now be regarded otherwise than as a propitiatory clause to induce a unanimous approval of the bill in general. The account[18] of the discussion of the clause in question is somewhat amusing. Sir Walter Earle proposed that "members' letters should come and go free during the time of their sittings." Sir Heneage Finch (afterwards Lord Chancellor Finch) said, indignantly, "It is a _poor mendicant_ proviso, and below the honour of the House." Many members spoke in favour of the clause, Sir George Downing, Mr. Boscowen, among the number, and Sergeant Charlton also urged "that letters for counsel went free." The debate was, in fact, nearly one-sided; but the Speaker, Sir Harbottle Grimstone, on the question being called, refused for a considerable time to put it, saying he "felt ashamed of it." The proviso was eventually put and carried by a large majority. When the Post-Office Bill, with its franking privilege, was sent up to the Lords, they threw out the clause, _ostensibly_ for the same reasons which had actuated the minority in the Commons in opposing it, but _really_, as it was confessed some years afterwards, because there was no provision made in the Bill that the "_Lords' own letters should pass free_." A few years later this important omission was supplied, and both Houses had the privilege guaranteed to them, neither Lords nor Commons now feeling the arrangement below their dignity. Complaint is made for the first time this year, that letters have been opened in the General Post-Office. Members of Parliament were amongst the complainants. The attention of the Privy Council having been called to the subject, the King issued a proclamation "for _quieting_ the Postmaster-General in the execution of his office." It ordained that "no postmaster or other person, except under the immediate warrant of our principal Secretary of State, shall presume to open letters or packets _not_ directed unto themselves."