Another practice then existed, a practice dictated, as some may think, by convenience and common sense. It was that counsel engaged in Post Office cases gave receipts for their fees. In connection with this practice a curious incident occurred. Walsingham had ordered an independent inquiry to be made into the solicitor's accounts, and, in the course of the investigation, the inspector came across a heap of receipts signed, or purporting to be signed, by some of the most eminent lawyers of the day. Walsingham had suspected imposition before, and now he was sure of it. The solicitor, had he been asked, would no doubt have explained, as indeed was the case, that the practice dated from 1703, and originated with Godolphin, who, failing to see why counsel engaged by public offices should be exempt from doing what all other persons were required to do, issued peremptory injunctions that in legal cases no more fees should be paid by the Post Office for which receipts were not given.[76] Instead, however, of addressing himself to the solicitor, Walsingham referred to Kenyon, the Lord Chief Justice; and Kenyon's reply, as Walsingham himself admitted, filled him with astonishment. It was simply that when attorney-general he had always given receipts for fees from public offices, understanding when he was appointed that such was the practice, and that it had long been so. [76] This is Godolphin's letter:-- TREASURY CHAMBERS, _June 8, 1703_. GENTLEMEN--My Lord Treasurer hath commanded me to signify to you his Lordship's direction that whenever your Sollicitor shall pay any fees to any Serjeant or Councellor at law, or give any sum or sums of money for coppys to any Clerk or Clerks or Officers in any Court or Courts of Record at Westminster, he shall take a ticket subscribed with the hand and name of the same Serjeant or Councellor or from the Clerk or Officer testifying how much he hath received for his fee or hath been paid by him for coppys, and at what time and how often, according to the statute in the third year of the reign of King James the First, made and provided in that behalf, and His Lordship directs you to take care that what money shall be hereafter expended for law charges relating to the Revenue under your management, the same be so expressed in the Bill of Incidents, that it may appear to His Lordship that the above-mentioned directions have been duly comply'd with.--I am, gentlemen, your most humble servant, WILLIAM LOWNDES. Sir Robert Cotton, Knight, and Sir Thomas Frankland, Bart.