If credit is to be given to the general and specific proofs of the depredations which took place before the establishment of the Marine Police, and to the numerous documents which demonstrate the saving of property, which has been the effect of this system of prevention, the above estimate will not appear to be over-rated. In an importation amounting to above £.8,000,000 sterling a year, it is not too much to say that 1½ per cent. on this sum may have been saved under a system of such extreme vigilance, where every class of depredators were defeated in their iniquitous designs, and deprived in a great measure of the powers they formerly possessed, of doing mischief. The probability is, that it has amounted to more, though the fact never can be accurately ascertained.
[64] At a meeting of the Committee of the West India Merchants appointed to manage the general concerns of the Trade, held on the 4th of January 1799, It was
"Resolved,
"That this Committee are deeply impressed with a high sense of the singular advantages, which appear to have resulted to the Commerce of the Port of London in general, but particularly to the West India Planters and Merchants, in the protection afforded to their property by the exertions of The Marine Police Institution, as well as by the General System established for the prevention of pillage and plunder arising out of the measures for detection pursued by the Magistrates presiding at the Marine Police Office, by which, in the opinion of this Committee, great and extensive benefits have also resulted to his Majesty's Revenue."
[65] For the specific provisions of the Marine Police Bill, see the "Treatise on the Commerce Navigation Police of the River Thames."—The object of this Bill is rather to prevent Crimes than to punish; and where punishments on conviction are to be inflicted, they are of a nature which, it is to be hoped, will operate sufficiently as an example to diminish the evil, without the exercise of any great degree of severity.
[66] John Harriott, Esq. the Resident Magistrate.
[67] So powerful was the effect of the preventive System, wherever it was permitted to be applied, that no instance has occurred in the course of more than fifteen months, since the Marine Police was established, of sufficient grounds for a criminal prosecution having taken place by the commission of any Larceny or Felony in ships or craft under the immediate protection of the Institution.
[68] As a proof of the approbation of the whole body of the West India Planters at the General Meeting, not only of the System of the Marine Police, but also of the Bill which has been prepared to extend its influence to the general Trade of the River Thames, the following extracts are inserted:
Extract from the Minutes of a Meeting of a Committee of the West India Planters and Merchants—London, June 7, 1799.
"Resolved,