The Intelligence of the Secretaries of State

In Restoration England the Secretaries of State performed the duties not only of a Home and Foreign Secretary combined, but also of a modern news-agency. This is a 1956 study in a vital function of seventeenth-century government, in communications, the dissemination of news, and the growth of articulate public opinion. Mr Fraser first shows the scope and nature of the Secretaries' responsibility for providing the Council with intelligence, their control of the Post Office, and their use of spies among the Dissenters and in Holland during the Dutch wars. The second part covers the continental system of news exchange, the Secretaries' correspondence with ambassadors, consuls, customs officers, postmasters and other, details of posts, and the sources of news published in the London Gazette and the newsletters from Whitehall.

Preface
List of illustrations
Introduction
The Secretaries as the Eyes of the Government
The use of spies
The control of the Post Office
Money spent on intelligence
The newsletter system
The Secretaries as the Voice of the Government
The official printed news, 1660-88
The earliest Continental gazettes and English newsbooks
Prevailing attitude to printed news at the Restoration
Henry Muddiman introduces the official newsletter
Its raison d'être
Continental newsletters
Their connexion with the gazettes, illustrated by the example of Abraham Casteleyn
Muddiman's relations with Williamson, the Under-Secretary. The latter brings out the London Gazette
Both Secretaries share responsibility for the London Gazette
The kind of news in the Gazette and the official newsletters
Foreign Correspondents
The business of the Secretary's office
Foreign posts used by the Secretaries
Arlington's foreign correspondents
The use of cover addresses
The Division of the Fleet, 1666
Circumstances of the division of the fleet, and the ensuing defeat
Attributed by a Commons Committee to a false intelligence
William Coventry and Arlington particularly blamed at Clarendon's investigation
Errors in the Committee's report on the 'want of intelligence' from abroad
Albemarle's information at the time the fleet was divided
The political background to the investigation by the Commons into the miscarriage of the Second Dutch War
Secretaries Morice and Arlington give an account of the intelligence
Williamson produces Arlington's papers
The effectiveness of Arlington's intelligence assessed, in detecting the state of Dutch naval preparations, and de Beaufort's movements, prior to the division
Opinions as to the relative efficiency of Thurloe
The Intelligence in the Third Dutch War
Williamson's journal commenced before the outbreak of war
The missions of spies sent into Holland: Taylor, Langley, John Scott, Vernon, Nipho, Gelson
The Dutch fail to prevent a conjunction of the French and English fleets
Settled informants in Holland: Casteleyn, Timens, Hildebrand, Vlieyger, Boeckell, Tucker
Operations of the packet-boats to Holland
Movements of the fleets. The English and French surprised in Solebay
Other spying activities in Holland
Estimate of the Secretary's expenditure on intelligence in wartime
The Secretaries and the Unlicensed News-Mongers
The growth of an organized public opinion
Eventual failure of the Secretaries to uphold their monopoly of licensed laws
Some justification for the monopoly
The growth of coffee-houses, and the attempt to suppress them
The unlicensed newsletter writers
Expiry of the Licensing Act, 1679, and the Whig newspapers
Changing attitudes to printed parliamentary proceedings
Some Whig newsletter writers
Effects of the London Penny Post
The increasing resources of the unlicensed newswriters: their part in the Revolution. The end of the Secretaries' monopoly of licensed news
Appendices
Bibliography
Index
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

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The Intelligence of the Secretaries of State

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