Crime and the State 387to conduct several of the trials of the Blacks, and who succeeded Cracherode
in 1730.^55
The work of the under-secretaries of state themselves had so increased by
1724 that a more streamlined procedure for dealing with requests for prosecu-
tion help was put in place. Until then it had been common for the information
about suspicious activities that came to the secretaries’ office to be sent to the
attorney-general with a request that he undertake a prosecution, or at least
make a judgment whether the evidence provided sufficient grounds for an in-
dictment. By 1724 , however, there were so many cases to be pursued around the
country that that procedure had become cumbersome, and Delafaye informed
Cracherode of a change in policy. In sending the treasury solicitor a group of de-
positions accusing a man in Surrey of speaking treasonable words and seeking
advice about the likelihood of mounting a successful prosecution, Delafaye
wrote (as a way of confirming that a change of policy had occurred):
Formerly when any such Informations were brought to the Office they were sometimes
sent to the Attorney General with Orders to prosecute if he found Cause and sometimes
they were transmitted to him in the Way of a Referrence for his Opinion whether there
was sufficient ground for a prosecution. Both these Methods proving tedious and ex-
pensive another has of late been followed which is to reimburse to the partys who bring
such Informations the Expences they shall have been at in carrying on such prosecu-
tions. This has been much less chargeable...^56
The new practice, cutting back on the direct involvement of the administration,
had been followed for some time, Delafaye acknowledged. Instead, private
prosecutions had been encouraged by providing financial support for public-
spirited citizens who prosecuted the seditious words and deeds of their neigh-
bours. The danger, Delafaye recognized, was that people would ‘get into the
Way of putting their own private Quarrels to the Account of the Government
and... get into the hands of Attorneys who learn to make large Bills when they
know the Government is to pay them, of which I believe you may have met with
several Instances’. None the less, despite the risk, Delafaye emphasized the need
to encourage prosecutors whose reasonable expences could be supported by the
government.^57
(^55) For Paxton, the trials, and the involvement of other administration officials in the pursuit, appre-
hension and trial of the Blacks, see Thompson, Whigs and Hunters. For an argument—against Thomp-
son’s—that the government was mainly concerned about the Blacks because they thought they were
Jacobites, see Eveline Cruikshanks and Howard Erskine-Hill, ‘The Waltham Black Act and Jacobitism’,
Journal of British Studies, 24 ( 1985 ), 358 – 65. And for the complexity of the Jacobite challenge, see Paul
Monod, Jacobitism and the English People 1688 – 1788 (Cambridge, 1989 ), esp. chs 4 – 7 ; and Rogers, Crowds,
Culture, and Politics, ch. 1. The torrent of material in the State Papers suggests that, whatever the reality,
the Walpole administration was genuinely concerned about the threat Jacobitism presented to the
regime.
(^56) SP 44 / 147 , 25 April 1724.
(^57) Ibid. There is evidence of Cracherode reimbursing several men who had prosecuted ‘in his
Majesty’s behalf ’ as early as 1718 (SP 44 / 79 A, p. 217 ).