their duties. They had at their own orders not man, not a gun, not a boat. The office of vice-admiral was in itself honorary-but there were pickings. Pirates' ships and goods, wrecks, flotsam and jetsam, were all graft to them, and they detested the rude, crude methods of royal officers, whose one notion was to fight with and sink a pirate ship, which, tactfully decoyed into port under promise of a free pardon, might yield to vice-admirals much gratifying plunder. So it came about that Sir John Eliot joined his considerable influence to that of Sir George Calvert, and persuaded the Navy Office to send that uncomfortable officer Captain Best off to the Scottish coasts, where he could hunt rovers to his heart's content without incommoding their own designs concerning our John Nutt.

could not appear openly as Nutt's patron and protector— left Sir John Eliot a clear field for the exercise of his diplomatic gifts. Behind Sir John Eliot was the Lord High Admiral, Buckingham, the most mighty of patrons in that age of Court favourites. A little later Sir John Eliot was to fall out with Buckingham, become his most virulent accuser before Parliament, rise to the exalted office of Speaker of the House of Commons, and inscribe his name on the queer roll of great English patriots. But the subsequent career of Sir John Eliot, and all that he achieved, is another story which has nothing to do with John Nutt.

The act begins with mutual promises exchanged between Nutt and Eliot, Randall intervening. Nutt declares his willingness to surrender in return for a free pardon. Eliot engages that the pardon shall be forthcoming. On both sides there is bad faith of the blackest dye. Nutt is really laughing

JOHN NUTT.
Sir JOHN ELIOT.
RICHARD RANDALL
Lord CONWAY.

at the vice-admiral, whose impotence to arrest him no one knows better than he; Sir John Eliot is seeking to dish Nutt with an illusory form of pardon which will be of none effect. Immediately after engaging to surrender, Nutt shows his contempt for the proceedings by seizing a Colchester

ship, laden with sugar and wood to the value of £4000 (nearly £50,000 of our presentday currency). This capture Nutt brings openly into Torbay. To him resorts Eliot in person, and some very queer transactions take place which we are unable to resolve after an interval of three hundred years. We know that Eliot went on board, Nutt was in close conference with him for two hours, and renewed his offer of a pardon even after this latest exploit of the ravished Colchester ship. Eliot could afford to offer pardon because he had no intention of giving an effective pardon. He was still aiming at the deception of Nutt. From this conference sprang the mystery of the fourteen chests of sugar which the Court of Admiralty subsequently failed to clear up. The chests were hoisted out of the Colchester ship in the presence of Nutt and Eliot, and then Eliot departed. It was presumed at the time that the chests of sugar were Eliot's commission from Nutt on the pardon, a transaction quite in keeping with the standard of public morals in the early seventeenth century. In Eliot's report to Lord Conway of results of the conference he boasts of his skill in securing the surrender of Nutt in exchange for an outof-date pardon-his pleasant device was to issue a pardon available for three months, and then carefully to antedate it. But he says nothing of these chests of sugar which he saw

raised out of the hold of the Colchester vessel which Nutt had seized. Eliot followed his report to London, kissed hands with the King, James I., now near his end, and made interest at Court in view of developments in his western jurisdiction.

Away in Devon events were developing to some purpose. The Mayor of Dartmouth-I do not know if this was the same Mayor who had already profited by Nutt's naughtiness; it is quite likely-the Mayor of Dartmouth laid complaints before the Council in London against Sir John Eliot, with nasty references to those fourteen chests of sugar. We can understand the indignation of the worthy Mayor-if, indeed, he were the same Mayor-at Sir John Eliot dipping fingers into his own lucky-bag. He would want Nutt all to himself. Ultimately the Admiralty Court took cognisance of the matter, and ordered Nutt, Eliot, and others engaged in the comedy to appear before them.

John Nutt-it was not very sporting of him, but he was getting a bit anxious about his neck-charged Sir John Eliot with being a partner in his robberies. He declared that he first heard of the rich Colchester ship from Eliot, who gave him the tip to look out for her. He had seized another ship with the same kindly help. Randall gave evidence showing how Nutt came by the notion that Eliot was his accomplice, yet swore that Eliot had not

There is a subtle humour about the composition of the third Act in which both Nutt and the manners of the times are seen at their richest. In our rough modern fashion we should have hanged Nutt without more todo, and investigated the goings-on of the ViceAdmiral of Devon with severe impartiality. But not so in the early seventeenth century. We see Sir Henry Marten, Judge of the Admiralty Courtwhich had committed Eliot to prison, doing his best to get Eliot out. He may have been inspired by an abstract sense of justice, though as M.P. for St Germans, Cornwall, in the Eliot country, he was a personal friend of the incarcerated vice-admiral. The case was referred by Lord Conway to Marten, who held that Eliot in humbugging the notorious Nutt to surrender with an outof-date pardon had rendered good service to the State. He also waved the potent name of the Lord High Admiral Buck

JOHN NUTT.

Sir JOHN ELIOT.

Sir HENRY MARTEN. Sir GEORGE CALVERT.

ingham before the Secretary of State's office, and suggested that Eliot might be released on bail. But Lord Conway, bold perhaps so long as Buckingham was on the far side of the Channel, left Eliot in the Marshalsea.

Nutt, who had no lack of audacity, and to whom the bold course came instinctively, made interest with his patron Sir George Calvert, the other Secretary of State, and demanded not only a real effective pardon, but also redress against Eliot for concealing and embezzling his goods (which were the produce of his own robberies on the seas). Calvert responded to Nutt's appeal for help. He urged the services of the rover in protecting shipping bound for the infant colony of Newfoundland, and declared that Nutt had been born again in spirit, and now detested his former way of living, which sounds rather like the devil's attitude towards the monkery. And the astonishing thing, from

our modern point of view, is that Calvert prevailed with the King's Council, and Nutt got both a real pardon and permission to keep most of the produce of his piracies. The pardon to Nutt and his associates, issued on 28th August 1623, covered "all depredations and piracies committed before 25th June last, with right to retain all their ships and goods, except those piratically taken since 1st May, which are to be returned to their owners." By this astonishing instrument - it shows how strong was Nutt's influence with Calvert-Nutt won freedom and wealth, pardon for two years of roving with all that he had picked up of other people's property. I do not know whether he added any thing to the Council's grant by getting damages for disturbance in the exercise of his profession by the Vice-Admiral Eliot. I fancy not, for the Colchester ship with its cargo of wood and of what remained of the sugar, had been handed back to its lawful owners. It was this Colchester ship which

Nutt accused Eliot of embezzling."

As for Sir John Eliot, he continued to languish in the Marshalsea until 23rd December, when he was released. There is no evidence that Buckingham, who returned to England in October, lifted a finger in aid of him. Perhaps this was among those reasons which impelled Eliot to set up in business as a patriot, and to win fame as a venomous opponent of the upstart favourite.

There is no Act IV. with Wapping as the scene and John Nutt as the star character. Nutt carried on much as before for years and years, part rover part privateer, and no more interesting to us now than all the other rovers and privateers of those hard and lawless days. He may have been killed at sea or died in his bed at home. It is all the same now. His commonplace brother Robert was hanged at the Groyne. The Spaniards were a nasty practical people, and Robert was not amusing like his brother John. Hanging was good enough for him.

VOL. CCXVIII.-NO. MCCCXVIII.

K

IF, whilst pursuing their insidious but fascinating recreation, cross word enthusiasts were to come across the following pointer, "One of the greatest finger-print bureaux in the world, and the second largest in the British Empire," how many would be able to give the correct answer? They would see that the answer required eight letters, but to these exasperated searchers after truth, this fact would be but one more sign of that misplaced ingenuity which is so characteristic of cross-word puzzle contrivers. For a search through atlases and gazetteers would reveal but an embarrassment of riches, as several great and capital towns in the Empire have names of eight letters. So, having made wild shots with Montreal, Cape Town, Calcutta, and the like, they would have to wait impatiently for the appearance of the solution which should set their hopes and fears at rest. Then, to their indignant amazement, they would see the strange exotic name PHILLAUR instead of the great city of their choice, and more broken hearts would join the ranks of those rejected and despised of cross-word editors.

And they would be the innocent victims of fate, for how

could they know about the Phillaur Bureau when they had never been told? The self-effacement of the Indian Police where their own achievements and triumphs are in question is magnificent, but it is not wise. The title of "The Silent Service has already been bestowed on the greatest service in all the world. Far be it from me to challenge comparison for my own service with that mighty engine of human security, the British Navy, but it cannot be denied that, for modest silence, the Indian Police yield to nobody. The present article is written not to glorify the Punjab Police or the individual officers whose names come into the narrative, but to reveal to fellow Britons all over the Empire one of those unsuspected elements in the British administration of India which make for its marvellous efficiency in spite of difficulties and problems almost incomprehensible to those who know nothing of India. Still more, it is written to present a new side of the work of the Indian Police, one hitherto unmentioned, certainly by its foes, but even by its friends, one which, if properly sented, must affect the popular estimate of a much-maligned and long-suffering service.

The home of the Phillaur