Harry Lorraine is the famous Lt. Rose of the British Navy. The Admiralty sends him with some plans to a battleship to thwart spies who are out to wreck England's bulwark. As he descends to the street, the entire spy ring sees him, recognizes him, and knows he is carrying the plans. He must be stopped! Will Lorraine be any match for a dozen spies?
It is to laugh. This is the first of a series of shorts starring Lorraine as Lt. Rose; they continued occasionally until 1915 under the direction of Percy Stowe. This boy's thriller sort of effort -- Lorraine would later play Sexton Blake -- appealed to jingoism, love of the navy, and pleasure at the sort of fight in which one intrepid Englishman can take on eight or ten greasy foreigners at once, and emerge -- if not precisely victorious, then at least in condition to break away and flee. After all, his duty is to deliver the papers, and the pleasure he undoubtedly would have in thrashing all of them isn't worth a farthing against the slight possibility that they might bring him down; foreigners don't fight fair.
It's well shot and edited. Director Stowe had been an inventive director in the period before film grammar had been regularized, and was quite adept at using the newly standard techniques.