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1
435
Her Majesty's Mails
·
William Lewins
205
During
the
last
century,
the
practice
of
granting
warrants
was
exceedingly
common;
and
they
might
be
had
on
the
most
trivial
pretences.
It
was
not
the
practice
to
record
such
warrants
regularly
in
any
official
book,[119]
and
few
are
so
recorded:
we
can
only
guess
at
their
number
from
the
frequent
mention
made
of
them
in
the
State
trials
of
the
period,
and
in
other
incidental
ways.
In
1723,
at
Bishop
Atterbury's
trial,
copies
of
his
letters
were
produced
and
given
in
evidence
against
him.
A
clerk
from
the
Post-Office
certified
to
the
fact
that
they
had
passed
through
the
post,
and
that
he
had
seen
them
opened,
read,
and
copied.
Atterbury,
as
well
he
might,
asked
for
the
authority
for
this
practice;
and,
especially,
if
the
Secretary
of
State
had
directed
that
his
letters
should
be
interfered
with?
A
majority
in
the
House
of
Lords
decided
that
the
question
need
not
be
answered.
It
is
pleasant
to
relate
that
twenty-nine
peers
recorded
an
indignant
protest
against
this
decision.
One
of
them
proposed
to
cross-examine
the
Rev.
(!)
Edward
Willes,
"one
of
His
Majesty's
Post-Office
decipherers,"
but
the
majority
going
to
a
still
greater
length,
resolved:
"That
it
is
the
opinion
of
this
House
that
it
is
not
consistent
with
the
public
safety
to
ask
the
decipherers
any
questions
which
may
tend
to
discover
the
art
or
mystery
of
deciphering."[120]
Again,
at
the
trial
of
Horne
Tooke
for
high
treason
in
1795,
a
letter
written
to
him
by
Mr.
Joyce,
a
printer,
was
intercepted
at
the
Post-Office,
and
was
stated
by
the
prisoner
to
be
the
immediate
occasion
of
his
apprehension.
On
his
requiring
its
production,
a
duly
certified
copy
was
brought
into
Court
by
the
Crown
officers
and
given
in
evidence.
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