1768 September.

That Ralph Hodgson< no role > This name instance is in set 3684. Esqr . one of his Majesty's Justices
of the peace for the said County, resides in the said Parish of
Shadwell and acts as such Justice in a certain Room or Hall
there which he calls a Comittium, deriving great advantages
and Emoluments to himself and his dependants from the
Exercise of his Office of a Magistrate.

That the said Ralph Hodgson< no role > with a view to his
own private Gain and without any legal authority for so
doing, had for some time before the commencement of the
said Outrages and disorders erected an Office for a registry
of Coalheavers, which he attended in Person, and from
whence for a fee of one Shilling each he issued in the name
of his Clerk certain printed Tickets certifying that the
Purchasers therein named respectively had passed an
Examination at his said Office and importing that in
consequence thereof a liberty for such purchasers of Tickets
respectively to use and follow the Business of Coalheaving.

That the issuing of the Tickets aforesaid wrought
such effects upon the minds of the Coalheavers in general
that no Coalheaver tho' ever so peaceably disposed or willing
to work, who had not such a Ticket for his protection, could
without danger of hurt or violence, exercise his lawful
calling, for that the Coalheavers, who were registered, and
had procured such Tickets as aforesaid, had invented a
punishment for those who had not, by tying a Rope about
their Bodies, and plunging them in the River Thames ;
which punishment they inflicted with aggravated
circumstances of violence and wanton inhumanity on such
of their unprotected Brethren as dared to work and as they
could lay handson.

That exclusive of the other mischiefs which followed
the meeting of the said Office, the Scheme of the said Ralph
Hodgson< no role > for such an institution, had in the first conception
thereof, a tendency to defeat the purposes of an Act of
Parliament made and passed in the 31st. Year of the Reign
of his late Majesty King George the 2d. which established a
Registry for Coalheavers at Shadwell aforesaid, and committed