-WILLIAM AND MART.

333

There were then no printed newspapers except the LondonGazette. But since the Revolution the newsletter had become •a more important political engine than it had previously been.The newsletters of one writer named Dyer were widely circulatedin manuscript. He affected to be a Tory and a High Church-man, and was consequently regarded by the foxhunting lordsof manors, all over the kingdom, as an oracle. He had alreadybeen twice in prison: but his gains had more than compensatedfor his sufferings, and he still persisted in seasoning his intelli-gence to suit the taste of the country gentlemen. He nowturned the Lancashire plot into ridicule, declared that the gunswhich had been found were old fowling pieces, that the saddleswere meant only for hunting, and that the swords were rustyreliques of Edge Hill and Marston Moor.* The effect producedby all this invective and sarcasm on the public mind seems tohave been great. Even at the Dutch Embassy, where assuredlythere was no leaning towards Jacobitism, there was a strongimpression that it would be unwise to bring the prisoners totrial. In Lancashire and Cheshire the prevailing sentimentswere pity for the accused and hatred of the prosecutors. Thegovernment however persevered. In October four Judges wentdown to Manchester. At present the population of that town ismade up of persons born in every part of the British Isles, andconsequently has no especial sympathy with the landowners,the farmers and the agricultural labourers of the neighbouringdistricts. But in the seventeenth century the Manchester manwas a Lancashire man. His politics were those of his county.For the old Cavalier families of his county he felt a greatrespect;and he was furious when he thought that some of the best bloodof his county was about to be shed by a knot of Roundhead pet-tifoggers from London. Multitudes of people from the neigh-

* As to Dyer’s newsletter, see Narcissus Luttrell’s Diary for June andAugust 1693, and September 1694.

CHAP.

XX.

IBM.