Such were the discussions raised on the occasion of these attempts to improve the police of the island. _Mr. Osborn_ again went to Newfoundland: but in a letter from St. John’s in September 1730, he gives a very bad account of the new institution. He says, he had hoped that a proper submission and respect would have been paid to the orders he had given, and to the magistrates he had appointed; but instead thereof, the _fishing admirals_, and some of the rest of the masters of ships and traders in the island had ridiculed the justices’ authority very much, and had used their utmost endeavours to lessen them in the eyes of the lower sort of people, and in some parts had, in a manner, wrested their power from them. The admirals had brought the powers given them by the fishing act in competition with that of the justices, and had not even scrupled to touch upon that of the _governor_. All this discord proceeded from a jealousy the admirals and the rest of the masters of ships had conceived, that their privileges granted them by Stat. 10 & 11 Will. 3. were invaded by these magistrates; which power, says he, “those admirals could hardly ever be brought to make use of (without it was to serve their own purposes) before, nor till they saw these officers established; and they are now, adds the governor, doing all they can against these men, only because they bear this commission. Indeed, says he, I find by their will, they would be sole rulers, and have nobody to controul them in their arbitrary proceedings. He expostulated with them, but it seemed to serve no other purpose than to raise their resentment against him, as the abettor of the justices. He could not charge the justices with having taken any arbitrary steps; their fault was rather the contrary, whereas the admirals were guilty of many.” “The commission of the peace was in general disliked by all the _masters of ships_, who were the chief people that opposed most of the steps the governor had taken; for which reason, and partly from the indifference of some of the justices, in their offices, who thought they suffered in their way of trade, and got the ill will of the people they dealt with, and partly from the incapacity of others, the commissions of the peace were but indifferently executed. However the governor, notwithstanding this opposition, proceeded to make appointments in places where he had before made none.” The _prison_ and _court house_ at St. John’s were nearly finished, and people had very well complied with the rate. He agreed to a presentment for a rate to build a prison at _Ferryland_; and he said, he did not doubt but the very sight of these two prisons would, in some measure, check many people in their evil courses[52].