Note 347 — Chapter XII

The opposition to the construction of docks in London was so great that the watermen and barge-owners frequenting the Thames not merely claimed, but obtained a large sum of money by way of compensation, nominally on the ground of being deprived of their vested rights to the use of the foreshore of the river; but beyond this pecuniary compensation, a clause was inserted in the Dock Acts, granting to all watermen for ever the right of entering the docks, and delivering or receiving whatever amount of cargo they pleased, free of any charge. These privileges, granted no doubt originally to stifle opposition, they still retain to their own gain and that of the wharfingers, but to the loss of the companies. Surely when the monopoly of the companies expired, a monopoly to which they were for the time fully entitled, considering the service they had rendered to the Crown in the protection of the revenue, these privileges to the barge-owners should also have been withdrawn.