they feel so anxious to remedy, sanguine hopes are entertained, that an improvement in the mode of keeping the Official Accounts may be speedily carried into effect. VIII. AN ANNUAL INVENTORY OF STORES. Supposing an accurate System of Book-keeping to be adopted, and to be followed as a part of the proposed System of Accuracy, indispensably necessary, _by an annual account of Stores_; the advantages resulting from it are not to be estimated by the most sanguine mind. Independent of the benefits which would arise from the general accuracy, which would thus incircle the whole oeconomy of the design, discoveries would be made wherever frauds or embezzlements took place, while the labour and expence, which such a task might impose, would be compensated one hundred fold, in the National advantages which it would produce. * * * * * Thus has the Author briefly gone over the whole ground, which he had assigned to himself, as comprehending every object on the subject of the depredations on his Majesty's Stores, which appeared likely to render his suggestions useful to his country, whether they relate to improved Legislative Regulations requiring the aid of Parliament, or to Measures competent for the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to carry into effect. In the prosecution of this task he has been stimulated in a particular degree, by the laudable and patriotic disposition, which has been manifested to promote improvements in Naval Police, and the honourable proofs he has received of a desire to render his suggestions useful. If the period should indeed arrive (and it is to be hoped it may soon arrive) when these suggestions, or even a part of them, shall be acted upon, in a manner calculated to promote the National Interest, the Author of these pages will then feel himself gratified, and rewarded by the pleasing reflection, that his well-meant labours, in placing an important branch of the political oeconomy of the country in this particular point of view, have not been in vain. CHAP. X.