The new rule, though good as far as it went, proved insufficient to check imposition; and Allen felt constrained to add an additional safeguard. For the future no postmaster was to have his claim allowed unless he should verify it on oath. This obligation brought its own troubles. By one the oath was omitted, by another it was objected to on conscientious grounds, a third would treat it as of small account, and all this meant additional work for Allen. "This officer," he writes of the postmaster of Salisbury, "constantly makes large deductions for missent letters" and on other grounds "without sending me the particulars of his demand or the office oath to the truth of his claim." The postmaster of Newark had conscientious scruples and objected to the oath in any form. "You have already," writes Allen, "been fully acquainted how tender I am in this respect; but if he still refuses to claim his demand for allowances by an oath framed in any shape, 'tis directly necessary to appoint an officer in that place who will obey their Honours' commands, for if his obstinacy should be suffered the rest of the kingdom who have readily complyed may raise new objections." No such scruples afflicted the postmaster of Stone in Staffordshire. Until lately "the errors made to my injury considerably exceeded those made to the hurt of that deputy"; but now "the articles to my hurt are dwindled to a trifle and the others much augmented, which causes Mr. Barbor to make constant and large claims on me for the difference. Only lately I received from him a statement of his demands on this head, with an oath at the bottom of it that the several articles to his prejudice were all true. But if it be the case, as I have always understood, that he never concerns himself with the bye-letters but leaves this business to his uncle, pray enquire of him how he came to send me such an oath."