Nor has the Export Trade on the River Thames been in any respect secured against the rapacity of this phalanx of plunderers. Many well-authenticated cases have recently been developed, which prove that Hamburgh vessels outward bound, have been plundered to a considerable amount,[61] particularly those which were laden with sugar, coffee, and other West India produce. Outward-bound ships to every part of the world have also been more or less objects of plunder, to the numerous herds of delinquents who were employed upon the River, aided by their associates in iniquity, the Receivers. [Footnote 61: A Shipmaster in the trade a few months since was compelled to pay 40_l._ for deficient sugars plundered by Lumpers and others, who assisted in lading his vessel, notwithstanding his utmost personal vigilance and attention while the sugars were taking on board. A single Marine Police Officer would have prevented this. The effect of their power in overawing delinquents, from the nature of the system and the discipline peculiar to the institution, is not to be conceived.] To enter _into particulars_, or to detail specific instances, would far exceed the limits prescribed for this branch of the general catalogue of delinquency exhibited in this Work. Suffice it to say, that the most satisfactory evidence can be adduced, that the system of depredation which had so long prevailed, and which had advanced with the growing Commerce of the Port, had pervaded every species of Merchandize laden or discharged, as well as the Tackle, Apparel and Stores of almost every ship and vessel arriving in, and departing from, the River Thames. Nor can it be a matter of wonder, that such pervading mischiefs should have prevailed when it is known, that above 5000 individuals, employed in various stationary situations upon the River, have, with a very few exceptions, been nursed from early life in acts of delinquency of this nature. In a group so extensive there are unquestionably many different shades of turpitude; but certain it is, that long habit, and general example, had banished from the minds of the mass of the culprits implicated in these offences, that sense of the criminality of the action, which attaches to every other species of theft. * * * * * Such was the situation of things in the Port of London, in the month of July 1798, when the MARINE POLICE INSTITUTION, a wise and salutary measure of Government, arose from the meritorious exertions of the West India Merchants. The object of this Establishment was to counteract these mischievous proceedings, and by salutary arrangements _in the Science of Police_ to prevent in future a repetition of those crimes which had so long contaminated the morals of the people, and operated as an evil of no small weight and magnitude on the Trade of the River Thames.