[Footnote 66: John Harriott, Esq. the Resident Magistrate.]
[Footnote 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.]
Such has been, at least, the result of the partial operations of the Marine Police; and such will unquestionably be the issue of the general measures which have been planned and arranged, when the _Key-stone_ shall be finally laid to the fabric, by passing into a Law the Bill which has been prepared for the extension of this design to the protection of the whole trade of the port of London.[68]
[Footnote 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._
"That this Committee is fully convinced that considerable advantages have been derived from the institution of the Marine Police in checking the depredations on West India produce on board ships in the River Thames; and consequently approves of the Bill for constituting the said _Marine Police_, with powers enlarged and more effective, and on a more extended plan, provided the Act for that purpose be in the first instance limited to the duration of three years, and that the whole expence of the Institution does not exceed Ten Thousand Pounds annually."
_Extract from the Minutes of a General Meeting of the West India Planters, held by public Advertisement at Wright's Coffee-house, Soho-square, London, June 13, 1799._
The Right Honourable Lord PENRHYN in the Chair.
"That this Meeting confirms the Report of its Committee, and approves of the project of a Bill for the purposes, and within the limitations stated in that Report.