When Witherings set up the new plan of "estafette" posts in 1633, the men who had up to that time performed the post service between England and the Continent were all dismissed. They, like the deputy postmasters, had purchased their places, and upon being turned off received no compensation. Aggrieved as they felt themselves to be, they had recourse to a petition to Lord Cottington. They were Sampson Bates, Enoch Lynde, Jarman Marsham, Job Allibon, Abraham van Solte, and Samuel Allibon "heretofore ordinary posts for the Low Countries." "At their first entrance into their places," says the petition, "they paid great sums of money for the same, and they were granted for term of life, some of petitioners having served twenty-six years, and others various other long periods. About April 1633 petitioners were all dismissed without restoring any of their moneys, or giving them any allowance towards their maintenance, so that they have been driven to pawn their household stuff, and, if not relieved, are like to perish. The ordinary posts beyond the seas likewise dismissed have been allowed £80 yearly, although their places were not so good as petitioners'. Pray that, upon a new election of a Postmaster, petitioners may be admitted to their several places again, or each of them receive a pension from the office of the Postmaster." Besides the constant stream of horse posts passing from London to Dover in connection with the continental mail service, there was a service by foot messenger between these two towns. At this period there was a prohibition against the carrying of gold out of the country. In _Moryson's Itinerary_, 1617, the following limitation is stated to have been in force:--"In England the law forbids any traveller, upon paine of confiscation, to carry more money about him out of the kingdom than will serve for the expenses of his journey, namely, about twenty pounds sterling." In 1635, the prohibition was still in force. On the 29th June of that year, the foot post between London and Dover, Edward Ranger, was examined as to the exporting of gold before Sir John Bankes, the Attorney General. Ranger deposed "that within two years last past he had carried from London to Dover gold and silver, to the value of several thousand pounds in the whole, for Cæsar Dehaze, Edward Buxton of Lime Street, Jacob Deleap, Roger Fletcher, Walter Eade, and John Terry of Canning Street, Charles French of Wallbrook, Peter Heme of Love Lane, Lucas Jacob of Botolph's Lane, and John Fowler of Bucklersbury, and Isaac Bedloe, and had delivered the same, in various sums, severally to John Parrott, Nathaniel Pringall, Mark Willes, John Demarke, David Hempson, David Neppen, John Wallop, and Henry Booth, at Dover; that he had after the rate of five shillings for every hundred pounds he carried; and that he believes that the greatest part of the gold was sent beyond the seas by such persons as he delivered the same