any country, and most of all to that of England.

The worst features, perhaps, of these writers of _Mercuries_, were the
readiness with which they apostatized, and the systematic and unblushing
manner in which they sold their pens to the highest bidder, and
prostituted the press to serve the purposes of their patrons. Mrs.
Hutchinson, in the memoirs of her husband, Colonel Hutchinson, gives a
curious instance of their venality:

'Sir John Gell, of Derbyshire, kept the diurnall makers in pension,
soe that whatever was done in the neighboring counties against the
enemy, was attributed to him, and thus he hath indirectly purchased
himself a name in story which he never merited. That which made his
courage the more questioned was the care he tooke and the expense
he was att to get it weekly mentioned in the diurnalls, so that
when they had nothing else to renoune him for, they once put it
that the troops of that valiant commander Sir John Gell tooke a
dragoon with a plush doublet.... Mr. Hutchinson, on the other side,
that did well for virtue's sake, and not for the vaine glory of it,
never would give aniething to buy the flatteries of those
scribblers; and, when one of them once, while he was in towne, made
mention of something done at Nottingham, with falsehood, and had
given Gell the glory of an action in which he was not concerned,
Mr. Hutchinson rebuked him for it; whereupon the man begged his
pardon, and told him he would write as much for him the next weeke;
but Mr. Hutchinson told him he scorned his mercenary pen, and
warned him not to dare to be in any of his concernments; whereupon
the fellow was awed, and he had no more abuse of that kind.'

The _Mercuries_, however, were not allowed to have everything their own
way without any interference on the part of the powers that were. In
1647, Sir Thomas Fairfax called the attention of the House of Lords, by
letter, to the great number of unlicensed newspapers, with a view to
their suppression; but he adds, in mitigation of his attack:

'That the kingdom's expectation may be satisfied in relation to
intelligence till a firm peace be settled, considering the
mischiefs that will happen by the poisonous writings of evil men
sent abroad daily to abuse and deceive the people, that if the
House shall see it fit, some two or three sheets may be permitted