The act of 1670 gave to informers a pecuniary interest (they were to have one-third of the fine imposed) in hunting down Nonconformists who broke the law, and this and other statutes were unduly strained to secure convictions.
On the breaking out of the Rye House Plot, of which neither he, Essex, nor Sidney had the slightest knowledge, he was accused by informers of promising his assistance to raise an insurrection and compass the death of the king.
It describes his entering Rome on foot, amid the rejoicings of the citizens; his liberality towards his soldiers and to the citizens of Rome, a liberality that was extended even to persons under eleven years of age; his charities for the maintenance of the children of the poor; his remission of succession-duties in cases where the property was small or the heirs members of the testator's family; his establishment of free trade in corn between the various parts of the empire; his abandonment of vexatious and petty prosecutions for "high treason"; his punishment of informers; his abolition of pantomimes; his repairs of public buildings and his extension and embellishment of the Circus Maximus.
All controversies of a civil nature, and any question of personal injury on which a suit for damages will lie, although it may also he indictable, may be referred to arbitration; but crimes, and perhaps actions on penal statutes by ntary common informers may not.
He also encouraged informers and persecuted suspects on their unsupported statements.