The plague followed the Court to Salisbury and drove Charles to Oxford, where Parliament sat for three weeks in October 1665. Clarendon says that the members, for want of time and fear of contagion, 'rejected all other businesses but what immediately related to the public,' one of which was the atrocious Five-mile Act. Ormonde had hoped that the restrictions on Irish cattle might be repealed, but quite a contrary spirit prevailed, and a Bill for total prohibition passed the House of Commons. The first Act had been freely evaded, and a much more stringent one was called for. The King had no wish to be unjust unless it was very inconvenient to be just, and the Lords, not being subjected to Court pressure, held the Bill over until the prorogation. When the Houses met for business at Westminster nearly a year later, the question soon came up again. Pepys says the Prohibition Bill was the work of the western members, 'wholly against the sense of most of the rest of the House; who think if you do this, you give the Irish again cause to rebel.' The event, however, showed that the majority was the other way, and that it included the northern counties, but others, particularly Norfolk, Suffolk, and Kent, whose business it was to feed, and not to breed, made the Irish cattle welcome. The larger towns, whose interest it was to have cheap meat, had little power, and both landlords and farmers were generally against Ireland, the former because they thought low prices affected their revenue, and the latter because their produce was subjected to competition. Sir William Coventry, whose character was much better than that of most contemporary public men, threw his weight into the scale against Ireland, persuading the King that he would get no supply if the Commons were thwarted, that their fury would soon burn itself out, and that the rejection of the Bill could then easily be compassed in the House of Lords. Coventry's judgment was certainly not infallible, for it was his advice that made the Chatham disaster possible. But Clarendon was strongly opposed to the Cattle Bill, and animosity towards him may have affected the action of the younger statesman. Finch, the Solicitor-General, eloquently opposed the Bill at every stage, and Anglesey was sent to London to present the case of the Irish Government against it.[65] [Sidenote: Irish cattle worse than starvation.]