So the struggle went on for three years longer. Meanwhile a terrible outcry was raised in the City against the proposed establishment of docks of any kind either at Wapping or in the Isle of Dogs. It was urged that the conservation, rule, and government of the Thames was vested by prescription, confirmed by charters and Acts of Parliament, in the Lord Mayor for the time being; and that to embank or inclose the bed of the river, or make any cuts into it without previous license under the City Seal, was against the law. The ‘Tackle-house’ porters, the ‘City’ porters, the ‘City’ carters, watermen, and others, raised a jeremiad of their impending ruin if docks were allowed. One of the objections was that Christ’s Hospital would lose £400 a year, granted from the sale of licenses. The proprietors of the Legal Quays protested that the withdrawal of the West India trade alone would lower their property to one-third of its value. It was even said that so many men would be thrown out of employment that a vast increase would take place in the poor rates. One cannot help feeling puzzled to understand how objections of this kind could ever have been seriously advanced. At length, after apparently endless delays, Parliament succeeded in adjusting the conflicting claims of the various parties by payments out of the Consolidated Fund, amounting in the aggregate to £1,600,000; and on July 12, 1799, passed the first Dock Act. Under this Act, which is known as an ‘Act for rendering more commodious and better regulating the Port of London,’ the Corporation of London were authorised to construct a canal in the Isle of Dogs, with power for fourteen years to levy tolls of from 1_d._ to 3½_d._ per ton on all vessels using the port, fishing and passenger craft excepted. The incorporation of the West India Dock Company immediately followed. The West India Import Dock commenced on February 3, 1800, was completed at a cost of £17,000 per acre, and opened on August 27, 1802, by William Pitt, the Prime Minister. This view represents the appearance of the dock before the water was let in; and, I may add, in passing, that in excavating this dock, as also during the progress of the works at the South Dock, to which I will call your attention presently, some most interesting fossil remains and other curiosities were discovered. This view represents the first ship entering the dock—the ‘Henry Addington,’ a West Indiaman of the old school, and one of the wooden walls, in privateering days, of England’s reputation. It is to be hoped that the iron walls which have succeeded them in the Navy will give as good an account of themselves in ‘the battle and the breeze’ as these old wooden walls; and so dispel the misgivings to which some of their recent achievements have given rise.