system did something to protect English trade. Lower prices and the greater
availability of work than in the 1690 s seem likely to explain why the number of
indictments for property offences fell sharply in the War of Spanish Succession,
at least until, once again, the advantages of a wartime economy were offset by a
sharp upturn in food prices in 1709 – 11 following two disastrous harvests and the
fall in prosecutions that had been taking place since the early years of the cen-
tury was arrested and reversed. In 1713 prosecutions for property crime rose
even more sharply as the war ended and the troops were demobilized, even
though food prices had moderated by then. The following quarter century of
peace was characterized by considerable anxiety in the metropolis about crime
and violence, and by efforts promoted by the central government and the
City government to improve policing, to encourage prosecution, and to make
punishment more effective.^120
Whether or not trends in prosecutions can be thought to reveal broad
changes in the levels of offending has been a contentious issue. There are good
reasons for scepticism, given the very small proportion of offences that actually
came to court, and the discretion we have seen being exercised by London mag-
istrates, particularly with respect to the prosecution of minor offences.^121 On the
other hand, it seems implausible that theft and other offences against property
would not have increased and decreased from time to time in a large urban en-
vironment in which so many people lived precariously because they depended
on work that was poorly paid and irregular; nor does it seem likely that the eco-
nomic effects of war and the recruitment and demobilization of large bodies
of soldiers and sailors would have had no influence at all on the numbers of
offences being committed. We will return to this subject in a later discussion of
the nature of women’s theft in London. For the moment it is worth emphasizing
that in a book concerned principally with the way crime was regarded by
decision-makers in the City, in parliament, and in the national government, the
important question is not so much how we should interpret the movement of
indictments, but what contemporaries thoughtchanges in the levels of indicted
crime meant and what conclusions they drew from them. That is a much easier
question, for contemporaries had no doubt at all that when the number of
accused on trial increased, crime had increased. Decreases in prosecutions were
less commonly commented on, but when reported levels of prosecution moved
upward, concerns tended to be expressed about the problem of crime and its
meaning for the state of society. That was especially the case when the offences
involved were inherently violent or were in other ways difficult to deal with, as
so often they were in years following the conclusion of wars, when prosecutions
invariably rose and problems of crime and disorder seemed to proceed from the
disbanding of the forces.Introduction: The Crime Problem 45(^120) See below, Chs 8 – 9.
(^121) Innes and Styles, ‘The Crime Wave’, 208 – 15 ; King, Crime, Justice, and Discretion, 22 – 35.
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