A Treatise on the Commerce and Police of the River Thames: Containing an Historical View of the Trade of the Port of London ... With an Account of the Functions of the Various Magistrates and Corporations Exercising Jurisdiction on the River ...

while others availing themselves of the security created by having their employers in their power, have gone lengths which exceed all credibility.

XIX, DEPREDATIONS ON THE PUBLIC STORES IN THE RIVER THAMES AND MEDWAY.

Nor have the Stores belonging to His Majesty escaped Peculation, Embezzlement and Plunder, in many instances, under similar impulses arising from impressions "that the Clandestine possession of Public Property injures nobody."

Avarice goads the mind frequently to acts in a moral point of view the most atrocious, while habit and example sanction Fraud and Dishonesty in transactions where the Property of the State is only to be affected.

Hence it is, that the Public Stores deposited in the Naval and Military Arsenals, and floatingin Ships and Vessels on the River Thames, have been subject to such extensive Depredations. It is to be feared that the chief part of the culprits are so effectually guarded as to be beyond the reach of Detection, while hopes are entertained that they are of late considerably diminished, at least, since the influence of the Police has operated in developing and exposing the general System of Delinquency which prevailed.

Yet it is still to be lamented, that much remains to

be done, to check and keep down this hydra-headed

151

evil; for the various Detections of the newly established Marine Police on the River Thames, joined to the numerous Criminal Trials in the different Courts of Justice, prove incontestibly that the mischief extends very far; and so completely are the Chief Officers, who so worthily preside over these Departments, convinced of the importance of applying an antidote, that their attention has been directed to the framing of such apposite Legislative Regulations as shall operate as a remedy.(s)

It is not possible to ascertain the actual extent in point of value of the Peculations, Embezzlements, and Pillage of Naval, Victualing, Ordnance, and other Stores, which are deposited in the Arsenals, or move in transit on the River Thames and Medway. But certain it is, from the laborious investigations which various detections have invited on the part of the Magistrates of the Marine Police, that the influence of the relaxed morals and the systematic thieving which pervade the Mass of the Labourers of every description upon the River Thames, extend to the Public Property, perhaps in a greater degree, for the reasons which have been already assigned, than to the Merchandise and Naval Stores of Individuals.

(s) The Commissioners of the Navy deeply impressed with the necessity of improved Laws, and a System of Police, calculated to prevent the Depredations committed on His Majesty's Stores, have applied, through their Solicitor, to the Author of this Work for his assistance, in suggesting means for correcting the evils which have been found to exist.

sorted

The discovery of the devices which have been resorted to by the persons who navigate the Victualing Hoys, in abstracting Spirits and Provisions in their passage to His Majesty's Ships and the Russian Men of War in the River, and the facilities afforded them, by the numerous Receivers who are also discovered to reside in the Towns and Villages adjoining the River Thames and Medway, sufficiently indicate the existence of a regular System long established, and apparently fully matured.

And when the extent of the resource for this species of Peculation and Plunder is considered, the number of Delinquents eager to devise means of obtaining Public Property, -the deficiency of the existing Laws, and of the means of putting them effectually into execution;-joined to a total want of a systematic and preventive Police, applicable to the protection of Naval, Victualing, Ordnance and Military Stores, in the Public Arsenals, in Ships of War, and in their various transits in the River Thames and Medway; and above all, the immense value of this Stationary and Floating Property,-no doubt can be entertained of the annual Loss to the Public being immense, in all the Ramifications of Fraud, Peculation, Embezzlement and Plunder.

HAVING thus endeavoured to develope the extent of the Depredations, to which each specific branch of Commerce has been exposed, in its transit from the Repositories of the Merchants to Ships and Vessels in the River Thames-and vice versa: Having also explained the various means which are employed in the embezzlement and spoliation of Commercial Property, in outward and homeward-bound Ships, Vessels, and Craft, in the River Thames :-Having likewise unfolded the various devices, which contribute in so eminent a degree, to the injury of the Public Revenue, and the diminution of the National Property by the Peculation and Pillage of his Majesty's Stores: It remains now to bring under the eye of the Reader, a collected View of the whole estimated Depredations on Commercial Property, in the order in which each branch has been considered; to which is added, a Statement of the number of Packages, and the aggregate value in the following

RECAPITULATION:

RECAPITULATION;

Exhibiting in one View the Foreign and Coasting Trade of the River
Thames :-The Tonnage: - Number of Packages :- Value of Goods
imported and exported:- And the estimated Plunder on each
Branch of Trade: amounting in the whole, to the enormous sum of
Five Hundred and six Thousand Pounds:

Calculated on the Imports and Exports, of the Year ending

Specification of the
different Trades.

January 5, 1798.

Ships.

Tons Estimate Total value Estimated including of the their number of repeated Packages Foreign. British. Voyages out & home.

Imports
and

Exports.

amount of Plunder on each Branch.