The _Times_ had long protested against the intolerable delay which foreign newspapers sustained at the Post Office. Especially had it protested against the absurdity of a system which, while withholding the newspapers themselves, yet permitted a summary of their contents to be published. But it had still more personal grounds of complaint. Letters for the _Times_, sealed letters addressed by permission to the Under-Secretaries of State, were excluded from the Foreign Office bag and kept back for the general delivery because, forsooth, the clerks at the Post Office were pleased to feel sure that these letters contained foreign newspapers, and feared that by forwarding them they would damage their own interests. Such were the amazing liberties taken with correspondence in those days. No wonder that the _Times_ proceeded to resent the outrage. In its issue of the 9th of May 1807 appeared an article which, after charging the Post Office with extortions and with sacrificing public convenience to the avarice of individuals, proceeded to declare that its administration was a disgrace to the Government. Freeling's indignation knew no bounds. That the charge was just never seems to have occurred to him. In his view it was nothing less than a libel--a libel of the most malignant character. Never had man been more cruelly wronged than himself. The postmasters-general, Lords Sandwich and Chichester, had been only four days in office, and their chief-officer was as yet unknown to them. Obviously the intention was to damage this officer's reputation in the eyes of his new masters. But this intention should be frustrated. A criminal information should be filed. No; not a criminal information, for thus the aggressor's mouth would be closed. It should be a civil suit or action at law; and then the aggressor would be at liberty to tell his own tale, and all the world should see how little justification there was for his aspersions. At this time it was not known to Freeling that letters for the _Times_ sent under cover to the Under-Secretaries of State were being diverted from the ordinary course; and when, a little later on, the fact of diversion became known to him, the terms in which he expressed his sense of the impropriety were such as even the aggrieved newspaper would probably have held to leave nothing to be desired. But to apologise and arrest proceedings--these were things which would appear not to have come within the sphere of contemplation. An action had been begun, and it must proceed to the bitter end. A righteous cause is not necessarily one that can be defended at law. Such would seem to have been the case in the present instance, for when the action came on for trial, the _Times_ failed to appear, and judgment went by default.