In November 1665, when the court removed to Oxford to escape the plague of London, Arlington licensed the issue of a new periodical called ‘The Oxford Gazette,’ which appeared bi-weekly, and was reprinted in London. L'Estrange, who stayed in London throughout the plague, vainly tried to withstand this infringement of his rights by changing the title of his ‘Intelligencer’ to ‘The Public Intelligencer’ (28 Nov.), and imitating the form of his rival at all points. But he was worsted in the struggle, and his journal ceased on 29 Jan. 1665–6, when the ‘News’ appeared for the last time. The rival gazette was continued on the king's return to the capital (4 Feb. 1665–6) as ‘The London Gazette,’ and became a permanent institution. In November 1675 L'Estrange encouraged, if he did not project, the publication of a new periodical called ‘The City Mercury, or Advertisements concerning Trade.’
L'Estrange rigorously performed the other duties of his office. In October 1663, soon after assuming his post, he made midnight raids on many printing offices. In one owned by John Twyn, in Clothfair, he found a seditious work entitled ‘A Treatise of the Execution of Justice’ in process of printing; caused Twyn's arrest, and gave evidence at the trial, when the man was convicted on a capital charge, and was executed (cf. State Trials, vi. 522 sq.) He regularly encouraged informers by money bribes, which he paid at his office, the Gun, in Ivy Lane. In dealing with such manuscripts as came under his supervision, he carefully excised expressions of opinion directly or indirectly obnoxious to the government or to the established church, and often modified attacks on Roman catholicism. He is said to have expunged from the almanacs submitted to him in 1665 all prophecies of the fire of London of 1666 (Pepys, Diary, iii. 56; Ward, Diary, p. 94). In 1672 L'Estrange was compelled, much against his will, to license the second edition of Marvell's ‘Rehersal Transprosed.’ The king admired its wit, although its principles were not those favoured by L'Estrange, who introduced some changes into the manuscript, and afterwards complained that they were incorrectly printed (Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. pp. 5, 17–18). Some correspondence which passed between L'Estrange and John Nalson [q. v.], the author of anti-presbyterian pamphlets, illustrates the conscientious care with which L'Estrange read work submitted to him, even by supporters of his own views, as well as his anxiety to ‘sweeten’ adverse criticism of the papacy (cf. Nichols, Illustrations, iv. 68–70, 83). In 1679 he made important changes in Borlase's ‘History of the Irish Rebellion,’ so as to avoid imputations on the memory of Charles I (see Borlase, Edmund, and Hist. MSS. Comm. 8th Rep. pt. iii. p. 39a; cf. The Loyal Observator, 1683; Letters to Joseph Williamson, Camd. Soc. i. 41; and Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. v. 462). According to Dunton, L'Estrange was always susceptible of female influence, and ‘would wink at unlicensed books if the printer's wife would but smile on him’ (Life and Errors, p. 266).
L'Estrange's official duties temporarily impaired his activity as a pamphleteer. But in 1663 he published an anonymous dialogue between Zeal, Conformity, and Scruple, entitled ‘Toleration Discuss'd,’ London, 4to, where he tried to show that the dissenters' plea for liberty of conscience was a claim for liberty of disorderly practice, and that toleration to be logical ought to extend to other than christian creeds. He seems to have reissued at the same time under his own name ‘Presbytery Display'd,’ a tract previously published anonymously. In 1674 he published a sensible and non-controversial ‘Discourse of the Fishery,’ London, 4to, in which he urged the government to encourage and organise the pursuit, and showed the value, of herring, cod, and ling. In 1679 he set to work to meet the attacks of Shaftesbury and his friends on Charles II and his government. The cry for the exclusion of the Duke of York from the succession he denounced in ‘The Case Put,’ 1679 (three editions). In an anonymous ‘Answer to the Appeal from the Country to the City,’ 1679, by Charles Blount (1654–1693) [q. v.], he attacked the ‘addressers’ who were petitioning the king to summon a new parliament. In the ‘Free-born Subject, or the Englishman's Birthright against all tyrannical Usurpation either in Church or State,’ London, 1679, anon., he urged the government to suppress more rigorously public avowals of discontent. To Andrew Marvell's ‘Account of the Growth of Popery and arbitrary Government,’ he replied in ‘The Parallel, or an Account of the Growth of Knavery under the pretext of arbitrary Government and Popery’ (London, 1678, anon., new edit. 1681, with author's name). Here he compared the policy of the contemporary whig leaders with that of the parliamentary leaders in 1641—a comparison which became a favourite cry with the tories. Two other of his pamphlets, entitled ‘Citt and Bumpkin,’ parts i. and ii., 1680, expressed similar sentiments, and were parodied in a scurrilous broadside entitled ‘Crack upon Crack, or Crackf—— Whipt with his own Rod.’ L'Estrange's energetic support met
