The sympathies of the outside public appear to have been with those who made the plait and those who sold it contrary to the law, as was usually the case in the districts on the coast where smugglers carried on their trade. The number of those actually engaged in the traffic and making profit out of it was no doubt very considerable. A trial which took place at Huntingdon in 1811 shows the number of hands through which a packet of plait went before it reached the Luton bonnet makers. Four Stilton men, one the ostler at the Bell Inn, who had acted as intermediaries between the Luton merchants and the prisoners, had bribed the soldier who came in contact with the prisoners to take packets of straw cut to the proper length into the prison, and to bring the manufactured plait out; they were all four convicted and punished. Whether the soldier, who was acting in defiance of a special order by the Duke of York, escaped punishment is not known; they were paid by the Stilton men a shilling for getting the straw in and another for getting the plait out. The merchants, no doubt, took care to escape the hands of the law. [Picture: Plate XVIII.—The Bell Inn, Stilton. From a photograph by Mr. A. C. Taylor] In _The Stamford Mercury_ of 12th February 1812 are related the particulars of an outrage on Sergeant Ives of the West Essex Militia at that time stationed at the Depot. He was stopped between Stilton and Norman Cross by a number of men, knocked down and robbed of his watch and money, his jaws were wrenched open and a piece of his tongue cut off. It was said that the sergeant had been active in stopping the plait trade and that this led to the outrage. Another possible explanation of this outrage is suggested in a later chapter on the health of the prisoners. The Bishop of Moulins, of whom more shortly, was living at Stilton, and although he has been raised by tradition to a very exalted position of righteousness, he got into trouble by allowing his servant to become an outside agent for those engaged in this illicit traffic. The good Bishop applied to the Government for another young prisoner to take the place of Jean Baptiste David, and, his request being refused, he pressed into his service the intercession of Lord Fitzwilliam, who had already befriended him in other ways. The letter from Mr. Commissioner George, to the Secretary to the First Lord of the Admiralty, throws light not only on the particular case of the Bishop, but on this question of the straw plait manufacture in general, and it is therefore transcribed at length in the text. “TRANSPORT OFFICE, “19_th March_ 1808. “DEAR SIR,