on seeing another man's horse released while his own was seized for service. Sundry other instances of misconduct and oppression are charged against the postmaster, one of which is: that four men were sent out with warrants to warn country towns to bring in horses; that in two days about 200 were summoned, but that most of them were believed to have been compounded for by the constables. In reading this story of the proceedings of the postmaster and his wife, the comment suggests itself, that "the grey mare must have been the better horse." On the 7th May 1638, a Mr. John Nicholas writes to his son, Mr. Edward Nicholas, to the following effect, complaining of his local postmaster:--"Edward Nicholas may do his country good, and especially that neighbourhood, who are much oppressed by the postmaster of Sarum, Roger Bedbury, the innkeeper of the Three Swans, in Sarum. Sends copy of a warrant Bedbury has procured from the Secretaries of State. By virtue thereof he sends his warrants to the constables to bring in horses furnished, and to pay for their keep, and employs them, not in His Majesty's service, but to his own benefit. Leonard Bowles, one of the constables of the Hundred of Alderbury, being required, brought in horses; and in his presence a minister, coming to the postmaster to hire horses, he delivered to the minister one of them. The constable asked the postmaster wherefore the minister rode post, imagining he was not employed in His Majesty's service, to which the postmaster answered, he rode for a benefice, as he thought. If Edward Nicholas may prevent the postmaster's knavery, prays him to do so." From an enclosure with this letter, it appears that, in issuing his warrant to the constables to send in on the 9th May "six able horses, with furniture, for His Majesty's service for two days and two nights, at the charge of the owners," the postmaster relied upon and recited a warrant from Secretaries Coke and Windebank, dated 13th February, "for sending to the postmaster ten or twelve horses from New Sarum, a six-miles' compass."