THE FIRST EARL OF SALISBURY 151
reached Exeter on September igth, and at once found it necessary to take active steps to prevent embezzlement and waste. " Whomsoever I met by the way," he writes to Burghley, " within seven miles, that either had any thing in cloak- bag or in mail which did but smell of the prizes, either at Dartmouth or Plymouth (for I assure your Lordship, I could smell them almost, such hath been the spoils of amber and musk amongst them), I did, though he had little about him, return him with me to the town of Exeter ; where I stayed any that should carry news to Dartmouth and Plymouth, at the gates of the town. I com- pelled them also to tell me where any trunks or mails were. And I, by this inquisition, finding the people stubborn till I had committed two innkeepers to prison which example would have won the Queen 20,000 a week past I have lit upon a Londoner's [? agent], in whose house we have found a bag of seed pearls." He further ordered every bag or mail coming from the west to be searched, and made an impression on the " Mayor and the rest " by his " rough dealing " with them. " My Lord," he continues, " there never was such spoil ! . . . My sending down hath made many stagger. Fouler ways, desperater ways, nor more obstinate people, did I never meet with." 1
Soon after he came to Dartmouth, Raleigh arrived, having been joined with him in the Commission. Raleigh was at this time in disgrace,
1 Col. S. P. Dom., September igth, 1592.
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