But the whole administration was in such a state that it was hardly possible to track one offender without discovering ten others.  In the course of the inquiry into the conduct of the troops at Royston, it was discovered that a bribe of two hundred guineas had been received by Henry Guy, member of Parliament for Heydon and Secretary of the Treasury.  Guy was instantly sent to the Tower, not without much exultation on the part of the Whigs; for he was one of those tools who had passed, together with the buildings and furniture of the public offices, from James to William; he affected the character of a High Churchman; and he was known to be closely connected with some of the heads of the Tory party, and especially with Trevor.567

Another name, which was afterwards but too widely celebrated, first became known to the public at this time.  James Craggs had begun life as a barber.  He had then been a footman of the Duchess of Cleveland.  His abilities, eminently vigorous though not improved by education, had raised him in the world; and he was now entering on a career which was destined to end, after a quarter of a century of prosperity, in unutterable misery and despair.  He had become an army clothier.  He was examined as to his dealings with the colonels of regiments; and, as he obstinately refused to produce his books, he was sent to keep Guy company in the Tower.568

A few hours after Craggs had been thrown into prison, a committee, which had been appointed to inquire into the truth of a petition signed by some of the hackney coachmen of London, laid on the table of the House a report which excited universal disgust and indignation.  It appeared that these poor hardworking men had been cruelly wronged by the board under the authority of which an Act of the preceding session had placed them.  They had been pillaged and insulted, not only by the commissioners, but by one commissioner’s lacquey and by another commissioner’s harlot.  The Commons addressed the King; and the King turned the delinquents out of their places.569

But by this time delinquents far higher in power and rank were beginning to be uneasy.  At every new detection, the excitement, both within and without the walls of Parliament, became more intense.  The frightful prevalence of bribery, corruption and extortion was every where the subject of conversation.  A contemporary pamphleteer compares the state of the political world at this conjuncture to the state of a city in which the plague has just been discovered, and in which the terrible words, “Lord have mercy on us,” are already seen on some doors.570 Whispers, which at another time would have speedily died away and been forgotten, now swelled, first into murmurs, and then into clamours.  A rumour rose and spread that the funds of the two wealthiest corporations in the kingdom, the City of London and the East India Company, had been largely employed for the purpose of corrupting great men; and the names of Trevor, Seymour and Leeds were mentioned.