Yet, important as was the principle contained in these measures, none of
them, perhaps, caused such excitement at the moment as an exercise by
the government of what was, in point of fact, one of its most ancient,
as well as most essential, powers: the occasional opening of letters
which passed through the post, in compliance with a warrant of the
Secretary of State. England had at all times been the refuge of those
unquiet spirits who, in pursuit of their schemes of rebellion and
revolution, had incurred the displeasure of their own governments, and
had too easily found accomplices here. And in the course of the summer
some notorious offenders of this class found a member of the House of
Commons to present a petition, in which they complained that some
letters which they had posted had been stopped and opened by the
officers of the Post-office. The member who presented the petition
appears to have fancied it an unprecedented and wholly unlawful exercise
of authority; but Sir James Graham, the Home-secretary, not only at once
avowed that the statement was true, and that he had issued his warrant
for the opening of the letters mentioned, but also showed that the power
to issue such an order was reserved to the Secretary of State in all the
statutes which regulated the proceedings of the Post-office.
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