It would fill a volume to recount the various ramifications of this nefarious traffic, and the devices used to defeat Justice and elude the punishment of the Law.[60] [Footnote 60: For the purpose of defraying the expence of prosecutions for criminal offences upon the River Thames, and to raise a fund for suborning evidence, and employing counsel for higher crimes, and of paying the penalties under the Act of the 2d Geo. III. cap. 28. commonly called the Bumboat Act; there existed a club composed of _River Plunderers_, and _Lumpers_, _Coopers_, _Watermen_, and _Receivers_, (denominated _Light-Horsemen_, _Heavy-Horsemen_, and _Copes_,) from the funds of which the Law expences and the penalties incurred by members of the fraternity were paid. By these iniquitous means not a few notorious offenders escaped justice, while those who were convicted of penalties for misdemeanors escaped the punishment of imprisonment, and being thus screened from justice the culprits (previous to the establishment of the Marine Police System) returned to their evil practices without the least apprehension of any other inconvenience than the payment of a fine of 40_s._ defrayed by the Club. The New System, however, affording means of detection in the ships where the offences were committed: what were formerly misdemeanors are now treated as larcenies, which has operated most powerfully in breaking up this atrocious confederacy, and in defeating all the nefarious designs of the criminal delinquents of which it was formed, some of whom, although apparently common labourers, resided in handsome houses furnished in a very superior style for the rank in life of the occupiers. As a proof, among many others, of the enormous extent of the River Plunder, the convictions for misdemeanors under the Act of the 2d Geo. III. cap. 28. from August 1792 to August 1799, exceeded _two thousand two hundred_; of which number about 2000 culprits paid the penalty; partly from their own resources, but chiefly, it is believed, from the funds of the club, amounting in all to about 4000_l._ in the course of seven years.] It extended to almost every article imported into, and exported from, the port of London. But the dealings in stolen West India produce were by far the most extensive; at the same time it appears from recent investigation, that the _East India Company_ and the _Russian_ and _American Merchants_, as well as the Importers of _Timber_, _Ashes_, _Furs_, _Skins_, _Oil_, _Provisions_ and _Corn_, were also considerable sufferers. The Coal Merchants have likewise sustained losses to a great amount annually, while every species of goods imported have been more or less subject to depredations.