The newsletters of one writer named Dyer were widely circulated in manuscript.

He affected to be a Tory and a High Churchman, and was consequently regarded by the foxhunting lords of manors, all over the kingdom, as an oracle.

He had already been twice in prison; but his gains had more than compensated for his sufferings, and he still persisted in seasoning his intelligence to suit the taste of the country gentlemen.

He now turned the Lancashire plot into ridicule, declared that the guns which had been found were old fowling pieces, that the saddles were meant only for hunting, and that the swords were rusty reliques of Edge Hill and Marston Moor.

[542] The effect produced by all this invective and sarcasm on the public mind seems to have been great.