On 22 March 1656, the Major-General for Berkshire, Hampshire, and Sussex, William Goffe wrote to Secretary of State John Thurloe from Winchester having just returned from his progress around Sussex. As a Major-General, Goffe was tasked by the Protectorate Parliament with gathering as much revenue as he could from the counties under his jurisdiction to fund local soldiers commissioned to maintain order after the failed Royalist uprisings in March 1655. Goffe's duties included collecting compounding fines and other assessments. He was also responsible for the collection of the decimation tax, a levy against known or suspected delinquents as a measure to combat internal threats to the stability of the country. This tax was remarked by Francis Nevile to the Royalist Sir John Goodricke to be the ‘markes and characters of his highnes displeasure and of our guiltynes of these laite, and other rebellions, or disturbances of the publique peace’. Goffe's report was mainly concerned with the current state of affairs in Sussex, including problems with paying the local soldiers and mustering troops, for which Goffe apologised to Thurloe for ‘scrapping for money’ in order to perform his duties. In his concluding remarks, Goffe commented that ‘wee cannot but wonder that soe many of the delinquents are released’ before revealing that:

In other words, John Caryll, a Catholic from West Harting, Sussex, was being given legal counsel by Sir Edward Ford, a Protestant gentleman also from West Harting, who was a distant relation of Caryll. Ford was a Royalist during the war and had participated in the siege of Arundel castle against Sir William Waller's army before it capitulated in January 1644. Yet, despite his notoriety, Ford rose prominently under the Commonwealth. He was commissioned by the citizens of London to devise an engine for raising the water levels of the Thames in 1656, and significantly he was favoured by the Lord Protector, ‘his highnes’ Oliver Cromwell.