om His Majesty's stores,
dockyards, ships of war, &c. The moral principle, a writer states
plainly, 'is totally destroyed among a vast body of the lower ranks of
the people.' To meet this deplorable condition of things there were
forty-eight different offences punishable by death: among them was
shoplifting above five shillings: stealing linen from a bleaching
ground: cutting hop bines and sending threatening letters. There were
nineteen kinds of offences for which transportation, imprisonment,
whipping, or pillory were provided: there were twenty-one kinds of
offences punishable by whipping, pillory, fine and imprisonment. Among
the last were 'combinations and conspiracies for raising the price of
wages.' The classification seems to have been done at haphazard: for
instance, to embezzle naval stores would seem as bad as to steal a
master's goods: but the latter offence was capital and the former not.
Again, it is surely a most abominable crime to set fire to a house, yet
this is classed among the lighter offences. It was therefore a time when
there was a large and constantly increasing criminal class: and, as a
natural cause or a natural consequence, whichever we please, there was a
very large class of people as ignorant, as rude, and as dangerous as
could well be imagined. I do not think there was ever a time, not even
in the most remote ages, when London contained savages more brutal and
more ignorant than could be found in certain districts outside the City
of the Second George. But these poor wretches had one great virtue--they
were brave: they manned our ships for us and gave Britannia the command
of the sea: they were knocked down, driven and dragged aboard the ships
by the press-gang. Once there they fell into rank and order, carried a
valiant pike, manned the guns with zeal, joined the boarding party with
alacrity and carried their cutlasses into the forlorn hope with faces
that showed no fear. They were so strong, so stubborn, and so brave,
that one sighs to think of the lash that kept them in discipline and
order. There is one more side of London that must not be forgotten. It
was a great and prosperous city: we can never dwell too strongly on the
prosperity of the city: but there were shipwrecks many and disastrous.
And the fate of the man who could not pay his debts was well known to
all and could be witnessed every day, as an example and a warning. For
he went to prison and in prison he stopped. 'Pay what yo