Two years before, the panic caused by the discovery of the Rye-House Plot had led to the issue of a Proclamation which, if differing little from others that had gone before, acquires importance from the circumstances under which it appeared. Unauthorised posts had again sprung up in all directions, simply, no doubt, because there was a demand for the accommodation they afforded; but the Government, no less than the persons who denounced Dockwra's undertaking as a Popish contrivance, seem to have been possessed with the idea that these posts were mere vehicles for the propagation of treason. To prevent treasonable correspondence was the avowed object of the present Proclamation, and the means by which the object was sought to be attained was the suppression of private and irregular posts, for by these, the Proclamation went on to declare, the conspirators had been materially assisted in their designs. Mayors, sheriffs, justices of the peace, constables and others were enjoined to make diligent search for letters passing otherwise than through the regular post. Special officers were to be appointed for the same purpose. All such letters, wherever discovered, were to be deemed to be "of dangerous consequence"; and not only were they to be seized and carried to the Secretary of State or the Privy Council for the purpose of being opened and inspected, but both the bearers and senders of them were to be proceeded against at law. On James's accession to the throne the Proclamation of 1683 was succeeded by another in almost identical terms; and it is certain that during his reign the liberties taken with post letters were hardly less than they had been in the worst days of the Commonwealth. Only a few months before Rochester's dismissal, for no better reason than to gratify curiosity, orders were given that the bags from Scotland should be transmitted to Whitehall, and during a whole week not a single private letter from beyond the Tweed was delivered in London. Happily, however, this state of things was soon to cease. After the Revolution the appointment of postmaster-general was conferred upon persons who were otherwise unconnected with affairs of State, and the effect of this change was, as William no doubt intended, at once to lift the Post Office out of the region of politics. In the eyes of the Rochesters, the Arlingtons, and the Thurloes, busied as they were in the detection of conspiracies against the State, the Post Office had been little else than an instrument which might be usefully employed as a means to that end. With plain citizens unversed in the ways of government, the only consideration was how best they could accomplish the object for which they had been appointed; and this object was so to manage and improve the posts of the country as to secure to their Sovereign the highest possible revenue.