Chamberlayne’s,Hartley’s,
Cotton’s,Pearson’s,
Haye’s,Holland’s,
Beale’s,Cole’s,
Griffin’s,Carrington’s
Symon’s,Hoggarth’s,
Stainton’s,Scott’s,
Davis, Butt & Co.’s,Merriton’s,

representing a river tonnage of 2,890 feet. Those on the north side of the river were:

Irongate,Bryant’s,
St. Catherine’s,Down’s,
Watson’s,

representing a frontage of 786 feet; or a total for both sides of the river of 3,676 feet.

In many instances, the charges at the Sufferance Wharves were even higher than those at the Legal Quays, to say nothing of the increased liability to plunder incurred by merchants in sending their goods there. And not only was this the case, but as Customs officers were only officially stationed at the Legal Quays, whenever they did duty at the Sufferance Wharves they were paid extra fees at the consignee’s expense; and when permission was given to land the whole of a cargo at these places, the consignee of each parcel of goods had to pay extra fees for his particular parcel, and those pro rata, in order that a separate sufferance might be taken out for them. If, therefore, after waiting four or six weeks to get his goods landed at one of the Legal Quays, a merchant, in despair, sent them to a Sufferance Wharf, it was like jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire. Again and again the necessity of extending the Legal Quays was brought under the notice of Parliament, and in 1762 Lord Bute, then Prime-Minister, warmly supported a scheme for thus laying out a large tract of ground, including the Tower Ditch; but with all his influence, the parties interested in the maintenance of the then existing order of things were too strong for him, and the scheme had to be abandoned. Three years later another commission was appointed; but, after a bitter controversy, their proposition was rejected on the frivolous ground that the land which they proposed to acquire and lay out as Legal Quays was not an ‘open space’ as defined in the Act of Queen Elizabeth. From this time until 1793 various plans were suggested, but all of them were frustrated by the powerful combination of the wharfingers.

Thus the condition of things on the river went on growing from bad to worse, until we reach the years 1793-94, when the crowded condition of the river was declared to be altogether intolerable. Meanwhile, in spite of these drawbacks, the increase in the commerce of the port during the twenty-four years ending with the latter year had been as great as in the first seventy years of the century. In the year 1702, the shipping entered inwards, foreign and British, exclusive of coasting vessels, was 1,335 ships, with a tonnage of 157,035 tons; in 1751 it was 1,682 ships, with a tonnage of 234,639 tons; in 1794 it was 3,663 ships, with a tonnage of 620,845 tons. From a little over £10,000,000 in the year 1700, the value of the exports and imports had rushed up to £31,442,040. With Legal Quay accommodation for only 32,000 hogsheads of sugar, the annual importations had reached upwards of 140,000 hogsheads. During war time, the West India fleets only could more than trebly fill the warehouses. One fleet from the Leeward Islands brought 35,000 hogsheads; another from Jamaica brought 40,000: on the arrival of the latter fleet only 7,000 hogsheads could be warehoused at the Legal Quays; the rest had to remain in barges in the river at the mercy of the river thieves, or be left on board the importing vessels until it could be landed elsewhere. I may add that in five months in the year 1794 not less than 122,000 hogsheads of sugar arrived in the port. Indeed, at this period the Legal Quays could not accommodate one-fourth of the trade.

I need hardly remind you that in the absence of quays at which vessels could lay alongside and discharge, their freights had to be unshipped in the river and crafted ashore, and some arrangement existed as to those portions of the stream in which vessels from different parts took up their position for this purpose. Mooring chains extended from the Upper Pool to Limehouse, on both sides of the river. Each of these mooring chains was intended to afford anchorage for fourteen or sixteen vessels; but, sometimes, as many as thirty were moored to each. The moorings from London Bridge to the Tower were for the most part occupied by coasters; those at Blackwall were for East Indiamen; and West Indiamen and king’s ships moored off Deptford. Altogether there was mooring accommodation for 800 vessels, large and small. Now, as I have already shown, in the year 1794, 3,663 ships, British and foreign, with a tonnage of 620,845 tons; and 10,286 coasters, with a tonnage of upwards of 1,000,000 tons, competed for this limited anchorage. Of course, hundreds of vessels grounded with the tide, and in rough weather sometimes sustained more injury than accrued from two or three bad voyages. These figures will help to convey some impression of the crowded state of the river, although I am unable to say what number of vessels were, as a rule, in the river at one time. This condition of things was greatly aggravated by the exigencies of war, which, by throwing ships into large convoys, resulted in the river at times being completely blocked. To increase the confusion it would sometimes happen that as many as 300 colliers would come up the river at one time, and although a regulation existed that a fair way of 300 feet should always be preserved for vessels passing up and down the stream, the crowd of shipping has been so great that one might walk from the Middlesex to the Surrey shore over the decks of vessels. Here I may remark that, in the winter of 1794 coals reached the enormous price of six guineas the chaldron; for although there were hundreds of colliers in the river, the glut of shipping was so excessive that they could not be unloaded. Accidents and loss of life were matters of everyday occurrence: over 500 persons lost their life from drowning annually, three-fifths of these cases occurring in the Pool. But by far the most serious of the many evils arising out of this condition of things was the immorality which it generated amongst all classes of labour employed on the river. East Indiamen seldom came higher up the river than Blackwall, where they discharged their cargoes into decked lighters, or hoys, of from 50 to 100 tons; hence the pillage was, comparatively speaking, trifling. By far the greater bulk of the most costly and valuable merchandise, such as rum, sugar, wine, &c., was discharged into open lighters, punts, billyboys, lugger-boats; and, to say nothing of the plunder effected during discharge, and in the passage up the river to the wharf, these craft unprotected had to lie up, sometimes as long as six or eight weeks, before they could be unloaded, not a night passing without sustaining loss of some kind. Lightermen, labourers, watermen, the crews of ships—in some instances recorded, the officers included, and even the Revenue officers—combined in this nefarious system. The sides of the river swarmed with receiving-houses, many of them kept by persons of considerable opulence; and when it is borne in mind that the value of property floating on the river was estimated at £70,000,000 per annum, it will be seen what a rich harvest these rascals had to reap. The men engaged in the discharge of ships were under little or no control, and their depredations had come to be of so systematic a character that they were regarded as one of the taxes of the port. The several classes of thieves were even known by special designations to indicate the field of their operations. The body known as the ‘River Pirates’ were the most formidable of these marauders. Most of them were in open league with the marine store dealers. Reconnoitring by day, they made their attacks upon ships by night in armed boats, cutting adrift lighters and taking out their contents. The ‘Night Plunderers’—watermen of the lowest class—attacked unprotected lighters and made over the booty to the receivers. The ‘Light Horsemen’ comprised the mates of ships and Revenue officers. Then there were the ‘Heavy Horsemen,’ consisting of the porters and labourers employed on board ships, who wore dresses specially made with big inside pockets to secrete anything of value that was not too heavy to carry off; to say nothing of the ‘Mud Larks’, who picked out of the mud on the shore property thrown overboard by persons in concert with them at work in the ship. Some of these young thieves are said to have received as much as £5 a night for their booty. The losses sustained in wines and spirits were something enormous. Instances are recorded of lighters with double bottoms being employed; and by dexterously loosening two or three hoops of casks and turning them bung downward, hundreds of gallons of rum, wine, or oil—as the case might be—were deposited in the false bottom during transit from the ship to the wharf. The greatest sufferers were the West India merchants. Mr. Hibbert, one of the most eminent of our West India merchants, speaking in 1822 of this condition of things, gives a graphic description of the grievances of the trade. Both rum and sugar samples were drawn on board ship. The aggregate weight of the sugar samples drawn from each cask averaged 12 lbs. In breaking out hogsheads of sugar the casks were often knocked to pieces, in order that their contents might be picked up as scrapings, and claimed as perquisites. Sometimes whole packages were appropriated. Of a cargo of 120 puncheons of rum brought by one vessel 7 puncheons were thus missing. Mr. Lindsay, in his admirable work, ‘A History of Merchant Shipping,’ gives some interesting details of the method in which these transactions were conducted. He says:

‘Most of these infamous proceedings were carried on according to a regular system, and in gangs, frequently composed of one or more receivers, together with coopers, watermen, and lumpers, who were all necessary in their different occupations to the accomplishment of the general design of wholesale plunder. They went on board the merchant vessel completely prepared with iron crows, adzes, and other implements to open and again head up the casks; with shovels to take out the sugar, and a number of bags made to contain 100 lbs. each. These bags went by the name of “black strap,” having been previously dyed black to prevent their being conspicuous in the night, when stowed in the bottom of a river boat or wherry. In the course of judicial proceedings, it has been shown that in the progress of the delivery of a large ship’s cargo about ten to fifteen tons of sugar were on an average removed in these nocturnal expeditions, exclusive of what had been obtained by the lumpers during the day, which was frequently excessive and almost uncontrolled whenever night plunder had occurred. This indulgence was generally insisted on and granted to lumpers to prevent their making discoveries of what they called the “drum hogsheads” found in the hold on going to work in the morning, by which were understood hogsheads out of which from one-sixth to one-fourth of the contents had been stolen the night preceding. In this manner one gang of plunderers was compelled to purchase the connivance of another, to the ruinous loss of the merchant.’

Thousands of persons were employed simply to watch goods until landed. Of 37,000 persons employed on the river, 11,000 were either professional thieves or receivers of stolen property. Over 1,600 Customs officers were employed on the river in the interest of the Revenue. To an East Indiaman of 400 or 500 tons thirty officers were attached, and to a West Indiaman from seven to ten. While on board these officers were generally fed at the expense of the ship. The value of property annually stolen on the river was upwards of £500,000, and involved a further loss to the Revenue of £300,000. The Marine Police—as the Thames Police were formerly called—in the first year of their existence recovered stolen property worth upwards of £100,000. So bitter was the feeling amongst the river thieves against the magistrates and members of this useful body when established in 1797, that they made a most daring attack upon the office, with a view to intimidation. In defending themselves the magistrates were compelled to use fire-arms. Several persons were killed, and a number injured in the fray. As a further illustration of the delays incurred under this condition of things, I may add that goods were often seized by the Customs though duly entered, and in some cases, even the duties paid. Wines were required to be landed within twenty-one days; rum and coffee were allowed thirty days; whereas sometimes vessels remained in the river two months before they entirely got rid of their cargoes. On one occasion 5,000 puncheons of rum in this way became subject to seizure, and would have been seized had not the Customs granted a special indulgence.

Before proceeding to call your attention to the various schemes which at this time (1794-96) were submitted to the Government for the improvement of the port, I wish to bring under notice the existence of a small private dock at Blackwall. This dock, commenced on March 2, 1789, and known as the Brunswick Dock in honour of the reigning royal family, was constructed by Mr. Perry, of Messrs. Perry, Wells, & Co., who owned the adjoining ship-building premises, and opened on November 20, 1790. Here I may observe that, from a very early period, Blackwall has been a noted place for ship-building yards. Pepys speaks of a visit which he paid to them in 1661, and again in 1665, when, much to his discomfort, he complains that he was compelled to pass a night in what he calls the ‘unlucky Isle of Doggs.’ I may also mention in passing that Mr. Perry built a small dock in 1783, just large enough to receive one whaling vessel. This little dock, of which I have not been able to obtain a view, was subsequently converted into one of the slips now occupied by Messrs. Wigram’s dry docks. The Brunswick Dock was built for the accommodation of the vessels of the East India Company, and was capable of receiving twenty-eight large Indiamen and a number of smaller vessels. This dock formed the nucleus of the existing East India Export Dock, and many of you remember the old Mast House, which, you will observe from its appearance here, was coeval with the origin of the existing dock. But the relief afforded by this dock was merely a drop in the bucket, and from the years 1793 to 1799, when the Bill for the construction of the West India Dock was passed, we find a number of schemes for increasing the accommodation of the port engaging the attention of the mercantile community and Parliament. These, I now proceed, as briefly as possible, to notice in the order in which they were reported upon by the Committee of the House of Commons appointed to take evidence and consider and report on them.