Part 21 (2/2)

III. LEGISLATIVE REGULATIONS PROPOSED IN AID OF THE GENERAL AND LOCAL POLICE SYSTEM.

1st. That persons having possession of _New Naval Stores_; or _Naval Stores not more than one-third worn_, with the King's mark thereon, shall be deemed guilty of receiving goods, knowing them to have been stolen, and on conviction may be transported for 14 years; with power, however, to the Court to reduce it to seven years, or to impose a fine, or punish the offender corporally at its discretion.

2d. Defacing the King's Mark, on any of his Majesty's Stores, to be deemed felony, and punished by transportation for 7 or 14 years.

3d. The powers and provisions of the Act of 2 Geo. 3. cap.

28. _commonly called, The b.u.mboat Act_; and also, the general powers and provisions of the Thames Police Act, when it shall pa.s.s into a Law, to be extended to all his Majesty's Dock-yards, and to the Rivers and Creeks leading thereto, within the distance of 20 miles.

4th. In all cases where the Crown or its Agents shall decline to prosecute persons, in whose possession the King's Stores shall be found, any one Justice before whom the offender is carried, may proceed as for an offence under the _b.u.mboat Act_, or the _Thames Police Act_ (by which maritime offences are to be more minutely explained) and if the party shall not give an account to the satisfaction of the Justice, how the said goods came into his possession, to be convicted of a misdemeanor, and subject to a fine of 40_s._ or such other minor punishment as these Acts direct.

5th. That all Marine Police Constables (whether the _Thames Police_, the _Medway Police_, or the _Police Offices_ at Portsmouth and Plymouth) shall have power to board all hoys and craft in the service of his Majesty, while employed in conveying stores, or in returning after such stores are delivered, for the purpose of searching the same; and in all cases, where stores are found which appear to have been abstracted from the cargo, or otherwise unlawfully obtained, to seize and convey the same, with the offender or offenders, (without prejudice to the service) before a Justice; and in case the Solicitor for the Crown, (on due notice given, shall decline to prosecute for the major offence) the parties in whose custody the stores were found, not giving a satisfactory account of obtaining the same, shall be convicted of a misdemeanor, and punished by fine or imprisonment.

6th. The act of having _jiggers or small pumps, or bladders with or without nozzles, or casks for drawing off liquor in hoys or craft; of throwing goods over board when pursued to elude detection; of fabricating false bills of parcels, to cover suspected goods, and defeat the ends of Justice; of having goods in possession, suspected to be King's stores, and not giving a good account of the same_; of refusing to a.s.sist Marine Police Constables in the execution of their duty; of obstructing the said Officers; of damaging Police Boats, to be punished as misdemeanors, under the authority of the said b.u.mboat Act, and the proposed Thames Police Act; namely, by fine or imprisonment.

7th. _Boats, craft, carts, carriages_, or _horses_, &c. from which stolen or embezzled King's stores shall be seized, to be forfeited, and disposed of as directed by the said Marine Police Bill.

8th. In all cases where, in seizing stores, articles not having the King's mark shall be found intermixed with stores having such mark, the party in whose possession they are found shall be obliged to give an account, to the satisfaction of the Justice, by what means he obtained the unmarked stores, otherwise the same to be forfeited, and sent to his Majesty's Repositories.

9th. Power to be granted to the Commissioners of the Navy, or any one Justice, to issue warrants, on proper information upon oath to Peace Officers, to search for King's stores, _without any proof of such stores being actually stolen, taken_, or _carried away_. The power of the Commissioners in this case to extend to all Counties in England.

10th. The Laws relating to falsifying, erasing, or fabricating _doc.u.ments, vouchers, books, accounts_, or _writings_, of any kind, with an intent to defraud his Majesty, to be revised and amended, so as to apply more pointedly to offences of this nature.

11th. Persons in his Majesty's service in any of the Dock-yards or Public a.r.s.enals, having King's stores in their possession, to the amount of 5_l._ value, and not being authorised to keep such stores, to be conclusive evidence of embezzlement, and to be punished by transportation.

12th. As an encouragement to excite vigilance in Officers of Justice, it is humbly proposed, that the Commissioners of his Majesty's _Navy, Victualing, and other Departments_, should be authorised, and required by Law, to pay the following rewards for the conviction of offenders, on the certificate of Judges and Magistrates, before whom such convictions took place--

40_l._ on Conviction for any Capital Offence.

20_l._ on Conviction for Felony, punished--Transportation, Fine or Imprisonment, or Whipping, before a Superior Court.

10_l._ for Misdemeanors, by Indictment before the Quarter or General Sessions of the Peace.

2_l._ for Convictions before Justices for Minor Offences.

From such _Legislative Regulations_ infinite would be the advantages which might reasonably be expected, when by the establishment of a Naval Police System, their due and proper execution would be rendered certain; and also, in all cases, where the evidence against offenders, although perfectly conclusive as to the fact, may be deficient in some points of legal nicety, by putting the _onus probandi_ on the offender, and treating it as a minor offence: the ends of Public Justice will, in a great measure, be answered by inflicting some punishment on the offender, and however inferior it may be to what he deserves, it will still have an excellent effect, since it is not so much by severe punishments, as by the certainty of _some punishment_ being inflicted, and the obloquy of a conviction when offences are committed, that Delinquents of this cla.s.s are deterred from the commission of crimes.

Having thus traced the outlines of such remedies, for the protection of his Majesty's _Naval_, _Victualing_, Ordnance and other stores, as certainly require Legislative Regulations; it remains now to consider, what other measures may appear necessary, within the limits of the authority with which the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty are invested, for the purpose of rendering the Preventive System complete.

Those which have occurred to the Author of this Work will be cla.s.sed under the following Heads:

IV. _Regulations respecting the Sale of Old Stores._

V. _The Abolition of the Perquisite of Chips._

VI. _The Abolition of Fees and Perquisites of every description; to be recompensed by a liberal increase of Salaries._

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