It is not, however, to be understood that this System has entirely eradicated the pillage which prevailed, a circumstance not to be expected, since the design was partial and limited in its nature, and only intended for the protection of West India property, although very extensive benefits have unquestionably arisen from its collateral influence, and its energy, in terrifying thieves of every description upon the River, and diminishing their depredations, which, but for the dread of detection by means of the Police Boats in the night, would unquestionably have been committed. But while it is readily admitted that amidst the opposite attractions of pleasure and pain, it is impossible to reduce the tumultuous activity of such a phalanx of individuals to absolute order and purity, who have been in many instances reared up in habits of delinquency. And while it is a vain hope to expect that crimes can be totally annihilated, where temptations assail the idle and the dissolute, and religion and morality, or even in many instances, the fear of punishment, does not operate as a restraint;--yet is it, notwithstanding, clear to demonstration, from the effects produced by the limited experiment which has been made, that the General Police for the River Thames which is in contemplation, aided by the apposite Legislative regulations which experience has suggested to be necessary,[65] must in its operation, under the guidance of an able and active Magistracy, so far diminish and keep down the depredations which were committed, as to prove scarce a drop in the bucket, when compared to the extensive and enormous evils which it has been the object of the promoters of this new System to suppress. [Footnote 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.]