partial nature, inadequate to the object of complete protection, for want of a centre-point and superintending Establishment, under the controul of the first Minister of Police.--Reasons assigned in favour of such a System.--The advantages that would result from its adoption.--The ideas of enlightened Foreigners on the Police of the Metropolis explained.--Reflections suggested by those ideas.--Observations on the Police of Paris previous to the Revolution in France: elucidated by Anecdotes of the Emperor Joseph the Second and Mons. de Sartine.--The danger of an inundation of Foreign Sharpers and Villains on the return of Peace.--The situation of Europe requires, and the necessity of a well-regulated Police points out the utility of, a Central Board of Commissioners for Managing the Police.--This measure recommended by the Select Committee of Finance, since the publication of the last Edition of this Work._ Having in the preceding Chapters endeavoured to bring under the review of the Reader, not only those prominent causes which have occasioned that great increase of Public Wrongs, which every good man must deplore, but also the _various classes of delinquents_ which compose the melancholy catalogue of human depravity; having also stated such observations and facts, relative to _detection_, _trials_, and _punishments_, as seemed to be necessary for the purpose of elucidating a subject of great importance to be understood; it remains now to explain and develope the _System_ hitherto established for the purpose of protecting the Public against those enormities; and from which is to be expected that energy, and those exertions, which have been shewn to be so indispensably necessary, for the suppression and prevention of crimes. The POLICE _of this great Metropolis_ is undoubtedly a System highly interesting to be understood, although heretofore (as far as the Author has had access to know) it has never been, at any period, fully explained through the medium of the press;--and hence it is, that a vast proportion of those who reside in the Capital, as well as the multitude of strangers who resort to it, have no accurate idea of the principles of organization, which move so complicated a machine.