Freeling was jubilant over the result. Here was a triumphant vindication of his own and Stanhope's proceedings. A charge had been brought--a charge as serious as any that could be levelled against a public department, and not even an attempt had been made to substantiate it. This was a happy termination of an unhappy business. So, at least, thought Freeling; but, as a matter of fact, the business was far from being terminated yet. On the 27th of July, within three weeks of his reporting to the postmasters-general the result of the action at law, appeared a second article headed "Post Office," in which the iniquities of the system were ruthlessly exposed. Strong language, indeed--language such as two months before had brought the _Times_ within the meshes of the law--was carefully avoided, and the article confined itself to a bare narrative of facts. But the case against the Post Office lost nothing on this account. The facts spoke for themselves, and these, stated in their naked simplicity, constituted an indictment, to the weight of which no words could add. We can well believe that from this period the _Times_ received its foreign newspapers in due course; but in other respects the only effect which the appearance of the second article had upon the Post Office was to spoil the triumph which it was celebrating over the result of the first. As to changing their practice and setting their house in order, this appears not to have occurred to either Freeling or Stanhope. On the contrary, they regarded themselves as deeply-injured persons, and, by dint of sheer importunity, induced the postmasters-general to consent to a second prosecution. Wiser counsels, however, prevailed. The attorney-general, to whom the official papers were sent, took care not to return them, and to the present day the Post Office is without these interesting records. It is time we inquired what measure of success had attended the experimental posts--the posts by which, under mutual agreement between the Post Office and the inhabitants, small towns and villages were to be connected with post towns. Village posts, they were sometimes called; but more commonly fifth-clause posts, from the clause of the Act under which they were established. At first they answered well, but in 1807 an authoritative decision to the effect that franked letters and newspapers conveyed by a fifth-clause post were exempt from charge tended materially to disconcert arrangements. Franked letters, though exempt from charge by the general post, were not exempt either by the penny posts in the country or by the twopenny post in London; and it had been taken for granted that they, as well as newspapers, would not be exempt by the fifth-clause posts.