principles were to cost them, and to have
arrest or the dread of it commuted into a fixed money payment. As
soon as the tax was fairly in operation, all or most of those who had
been arrested were liberated, and subsequent arrests by the
Major-Generals themselves were only of vagabonds or suspicious
persons. The only appeal from the Major-Generals was to his Highness
himself and the Council.[1]

[Footnote 1: Godwin, 223-242; Carlyle, III. 101.]

What with the vigilance of the Major-Generals in their districts,
what with the edicts of the Protector and the Council for the
direction of the Major-Generals, the public order now kept over all
England and Wales was wonderfully strict. At no time since the
beginning of the Commonwealth had there been so much of that general
decorum of external behaviour which Cromwell liked to see.
Cock-fights, dancing at fairs, and other such amusements, were under
ban. Indecent publications that had flourished long in the guise of
weekly pamphlets disappeared; and books of the same sort were more
closely looked after than they had been. But what shall we say about
this Order, affecting the newspaper press especially:--"_Wednesday,
5th Sept._, 1655--At the Council at Whitehall, Ordered by his
Highness the Lord Protector and the Council, That no person whatever
do presume to publish in print any matter of public news or
intelligence without leave of the Secretary of State"? The effect of
the order was that not only the indecent publications purporting to
be newspapers were suppressed, but also a considerable number of
newspapers proper, insomuch that the London newspaper press was
reduced thenceforth to two weekly prints, authorized by Thurloe, viz.
Needham's _Mercurius Politicus_, published on Thursdays, and
_The Public Intelligencer_, a more recent adventure, published
on Mondays. Just after the order, I note, the _Mercurius
Politicus_ enlarged its size somewhat, to match with the _Public
Intelligencer_, and in the first number of the new size
(Sept. 22-Oct. 4, 1655) the Editor speaks with great approbation of the
Order of Council "silencing the many pamphlets that have hitherto
presumed to come abroad." Needham seems now to have assumed the
editorship of both papers; and after the twenty-third number of the
_Intelligencer_ (March 3-10, 1655-6) the publisher of it, as
well as of the _Mercurius Politicus_, was Thomas Newcome. The
newspaper press of the Protectorate was thus pretty well con