A week later, Mr. John Nicholas, finding that the prosecution of the complaint was likely to prove troublesome, declares that he will have nothing more to do with it. "Touching the postmaster," he writes, "I will meddle no further, if there be such a business in it; but let the constable, or who else finds himself wronged, follow it and inform against him. It will be good service in any that shall do it, and good for your own understanding to know the ground of the warrant, and whether the postmaster may require the owner of the horse to pay for his meat two days and two nights. It may be my own case, for the constable has been to me for a horse. I put him off with good words; but how I shall do it again, I know not; yet if it be too troublesome to you, I pray you meddle no further." Mr. John Nicholas was one of a very common type of men, who are ever ready to make a fuss over a grievance in the first instance, but who are at all times forward to draw someone else in to fight their battles for them. There are grounds for supposing that at this time some order had been issued, empowering the postmasters to keep in their stables supplies of horses, taken up in the neighbourhood, and, while standing in the stables, to be fed at the owners' expense. This seems the meaning of a presentment made at the Grand Inquest at the Assizes holden at Bath on the 2nd July 1638. The statement made is: "That of late there are come commissions into the country, under the hand of the two Secretaries of State, to all postmasters, for taking up such numbers of horses as the postmasters shall think fit; and the postmasters take into their stables ten or twelve horses at one time, and keep them two nights, and then take in so many more; and if they have employment for any of them, they pay the post price, otherwise they make the owners pay for their meat and dressing what rate they please; but some, upon composition, they release, which makes the burthen the heavier upon the rest. We beseech you to present this grievance to His Majesty."