In succession to Worsley, Secretary of State Scott seems to have become Postmaster-General, but his connection with the Post Office was of brief duration; for a Parliament more favourable to the Restoration commenced sitting on the 3rd March 1660, and all persons who had been active in their opposition to the Royal House began to consider what was best for their own preservation. Scott was one of the men who had signed the death-warrant of King Charles I., and no doubt he would be forward in clearing out. That Scott was virtually Postmaster-General for a time seems to be proved by a warrant, issued by the Council of State on the 9th March 1660, "for intelligence, from the proceeds of the Post Office, paid by Wm. Scott and Isaac Dorislaus, whilst they managed it under Thomas Scott, £1000." Like most of the Postmasters-General of these early days, Scott had an experience of imprisonment. After the Restoration he was taken; he had been excepted out of the general indemnity given by Charles II.; and on the 17th October he suffered death, with several others, in the presence of the king. Evelyn thus refers, in his diary, to the closing scene in the career of Postmaster-General Scott:--"I saw not their execution, but met their quarters, mangled and cut and reeking, as they were brought from the gallows in baskets on the hurdle. Oh! the miraculous providence of God!" So much for a royalist exclamation, and the laying of responsibility on the shoulders of Providence. For a short period after Secretary Scott quitted the Post Office, it is not very clear how it was managed; but a State paper of 3rd August 1660 shows that an account was rendered of its business from 25th March to 25th June of that year by Job Allibond and Francis Manley--the former a clerk in the office, and the latter Riding Purveyor to His Majesty. The receipts for the quarter were stated to be £5578, 9s. 5d., and the disbursements, £5431, 9s. 6d. Manley speaks of himself as being late Manager. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 2: Havre-de-Grace.] [Footnote 3: Königsberg.] CHAPTER IX The Restoration was now an accomplished fact, and the Post Office passed into the hands of Col. Henry Bishop of Henfield, Sussex, to whom was granted the farm of the office for a period of seven years, dating from the 25th June 1660, at an annual rental of £21,500. Bishop was the third son of Sir Thomas Bisshopp, Knight, of Henfield. The Bisshopps were formerly a Yorkshire family, some of whom served under Lord Wharton in his proceedings against the Scotch in a previous age. Henry Bishop, the Postmaster-General, was married to Lady Elizabeth Plumley or Plumleigh, a widow who, in religion, was a papist. Before proceeding to deal with Bishop's work in the Post Office, we may here mention, as a matter of interest personal to the individual, that in the impropriator's chancel of the church of Henfield is a mural monument to his memory, setting forth that he died in 1691, at the age of eighty.