In 1637, Lord Stanhope having surrendered his patent, Witherings was appointed in his room, and thus became centred in one person the offices of postmaster for inland and for foreign letters. In the same year a letter office, the erection of which had formed an important part of Witherings's plan, was opened in the city of London, and nothing remained to hinder him from carrying his project into full effect. But, fair as everything promised, hardly three years had elapsed before Witherings met with the fate which has overtaken so many of his distinguished successors. In 1640, on a charge of divers abuses and misdemeanours in the execution of his office, this eminent man was deprived of his appointment. Whether the charge was well or ill founded we have no means of judging. Only the fact has come down to us that after this miserable fashion ended the career of one who had the sagacity to project and the energy to carry out a system, the main features of which endure to the present day. Among those who had lent money to the King was Philip Burlamachi, a naturalised British subject, and one of the principal merchants of the city of London. He had advanced, on the security of the sugar duties, no less than £52,000, an immense sum in those days; and it was probably this fact rather than any special qualification on his part that pointed him out as Witherings's successor. Be that as it may, into Burlamachi's hands the office of Master of the Posts was sequestered, subject to the condition that he was to discharge the duties under the control of the Secretary of State. The sequestration was announced to the public by means of placards fixed up on the old Exchange, and Witherings lost no time in fixing up counter-placards by way of protest. And now began an unseemly contention which, arising ostensibly out of the rights of individuals, went far to bring the two Houses of Parliament into collision. In 1642, after struggling for the best part of two years to maintain his position, Witherings assigned his patent to the Earl of Warwick, and, under the influence of this peer, both Houses declared the sequestration to be illegal and void. Meanwhile Burlamachi had fallen into the power of one in whose hands he was the merest puppet. This was Edmund Prideaux, afterwards one of the Commissioners of the Great Seal and Attorney-General under the Commonwealth. At his instigation Burlamachi still kept possession of the letter office. In vain the Lords ordered him to give it up to Lord Warwick, and summoned him before them to explain his contumacy. It was true, he replied, that the office was still kept at his house, but this house and his servants had been hired by Mr. Prideaux, and it was he that disposed of the letters.